The 20th anniversary of Pardon The Interruption took place on Friday and many people have given their thoughts on what the show means to them. During Friday’s show, one person sent in a video message to Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon that they were completely surprised by. That was the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama.
On Monday’s edition of The Tony Kornheiser Show, Kornheiser spent time at the beginning of the show to talk about what the segment from Obama meant to him and how surprised he was to receive it. He was told by Matthew Kelliher, the coordinating producer of PTI, to not have any happy’s planned for the end of Friday’s show and that it would be a taped piece instead.
I’ll write an introduction for it thinking all along that it would be a dopey montage of junk Wilbon and I had done over 20 years. I wouldn’t watch it because it would depress me how old I am,” said Kornheiser.
As Kornheiser starts to read the introduction, the crew at PTI did something that never happens on the show before Obama appeared on the screen and it eventually left Kornheiser stunned.
“I read the introduction and then on the screen. They enable me to see the screen and that doesn’t usually happen. I’m usually staring into prompter or staring into Wilbon, but not what’s on television. Barack Obama starts to talk and I am stunned.
“He doesn’t just say congratulations. He goes on for about 3 minutes. He says some funny stories about us with the added benefit of being true and then he says the nicest things about the show and what the show means and how the show fits into the fabric of the United States of America and why he likes it and why he thinks it’s important. I get tears in my eyes. I’m not kidding. I am stunned by this. I had no idea this was happening.”
In fact, Kornheiser said he had nothing planned to say after what he thought was just going to be a taped montage of the show.
“At the end, what I had said to Mike [Wilbon] before we got to the segment. Look, it is some sort of taped deal, why don’t you come out of it, you say what you want to say and I’ll just take us to Big Finish. Mike’s speechless. Now I have to say something. I just said, he looks better than we do.”
Kornheiser has been honored for a lot of different things, but he says that this is the greatest honor he has ever received.
“It’s the greatest honor to me. I can tell you that getting a doctorate from my school or being in the Hall of Fame at my high school. Those are great honors, but to have the former President of the United States of America tell you and tell everyone watching how much he likes the show and what the show means. That was thrilling and so generous. You can tell I was affected by this.”
