I’m almost always oddly amused when old media people discover some wonderful thing that the internet has known to be wonderful FOREVER. It just tickles me for some reason. It used to annoy me, like it does many “internet people,” but now I just point and laugh and revel in the hilarity that comes with seeing/hearing them describe whatever great thing it is they finally discovered.
The latest example of such a discovery that has me giddy today: Los Angeles Times TV critic Mary McNamara — someone who is paid to watch television — apparently just came to the realization that Ron Swanson is one of the greatest characters in the history of television, just like we all did, what, 3 or 4 years ago? So she decided to pen a 15,000 treatise (I might be exaggerating just slightly) on how great he is, and now all the olds in the LA area will now know this.
My love for Ron Swanson is so fair and wild and true that it has become difficult for me to appreciate even the cockeyed wonder that is Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope or the comedically perfect pairing of April (Aubrey Plaza) and Andy (Chris Pratt) if Ron is not in the scene. My love for Ron Swanson is so close to devotion that I have begun to measure every man on television (and more than a few in real life) against him, and all of them fall lamentably short.
Which shouldn’t surprise me. Though there are plenty of “guys” on television, there are very few men. Ron Swanson is a man.
He wears slacks, not skinny jeans or even pants, and his sweaters are collared. He is comfortable with firearms. He can fix things that are broken and solve really tough riddles. He is quietly rude and quite often chivalrous. He plays the saxophone.
Ron Swanson doesn’t wear vests and drink tea, doesn’t pop Vicodin and sexually harass his staff, doesn’t live with two other goofy guys and a girl, or another man and his child. Ron Swanson isn’t a smart-mouth member of law enforcement; neither does he murder people ritualistically and then blame it all on a traumatic childhood incident.
Awww, isn’t that cute? You should read UPROXX regularly, Mary. You’d know that Ron Swanson was a cool-ass mofo long before now if you did. Regardless, welcome aboard the Ron Swanson bandwagon.