[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'155903\' date=\'Jun 23 2007, 06:12 PM\']
[quote name=\'Scrabbleship\' post=\'155898\' date=\'Jun 23 2007, 05:24 PM\']Between this and Bob's revisionist history to try to void out 58ish years of NOT caring about animals and NOT asking people to have their pets spayed or neutered, I have little respect for Bob's off-camera personality. [/quote]
While it's fairly well established by now that off-camera-Bob wasn't all sweetness and light, I think this is pretty harsh. In the first place, every indication is that Bob has cared about animals all his life. The fact that he took up his passionate crusade relatively late in life shouldn't count against him, and if he can use whatever power he has to prevent past fur-trimmed episodes from seeing the light of day, why shouldn't he? If anything, it shows a consistency to his beliefs that he's willing to fight that hard. And don't forget, this whole thing more or less started with him walking away from a lucrative and high-profile gig with the Miss Universe folks over what many at the time probably thought was a silly and frivolous issue. I don't care how well-off you are, that takes guts.
His off-camera personality is one thing, but seeing his support of animal rights as anything but honest and heartfelt seems way out of line.
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I am all for animal rights, however what he did is a bit too excessive. People screw up things, people make mistakes, most people live with said mistakes and mea cuelpa for them for the rest of their lives and not try to pretend if it didn't exist. Could anyone here imagine a world without The Mary Tyler Moore Show because of the fur coat in the opening in the first season, the ground beef in the grocery cart in the opening, and the fact that the characters of Mary, Lou, and Sue Ann ate meat unlike those who portrayed them?
Personally, I loathe fur and wish a pox on those who buy it and I think it should be illegal, but Bob should have lived with his mistakes like anyone else. Call me when the episode of The Golden Girls with the mink breeding B plot (contrary to the fact that the entire quartet is anti-fur) next airs.
The deal is that nobody from the same boat would do what Bob did, and coupled with his mistreatment of his former models he is a jerk, plain and simple. I hope Dian, Holly, and Janice get the upper hand, they at least have class and are not jerks and should sue Bob into bankruptcy.