Dear Fellow Forum Folks,

    As a television critic of long standing, as well as a Twainiac of even
longer standing, those who carp about the winners of the Kennedy Center's
Twain Prize are missing the point.
    It's not about literature. It's not about humor. Hell, it's not even
about Sam.
    It's about producing cheap television.
   Awards shows are hideously inexpensive compared to a weekly sitcom, or
even a gasbageous effort such as "60 Minutes."
    The reason a real writer with a gift for humor  Keillor the writer, not
Keillor the wink-wink, nudge-nudge radio personality; Roy Blount; David
Sedaris; the late Peter DeVries and Veronica Geng has not been chosen for
this faux award and never will be is that the average TV viewer does not
know
who they are nor will he or she see the light of their brilliance anytime
soon.
    Were the Twain award meant to have any weight at all within the context
in which it was created, Lenny Bruce would have been the first; there would
have been a nod to Pigmeat Markham and Moms Mabley; and writers would have
been among those paying tribute to the winners.
    But TV ("A medium," wrote Ernie Kovacs, another posthumous natural for
the prize, "So-called because it is neither rare nor well-done.") doesn't
work that way. It assumes ignorance, and stupidly believes it has to
sacrifice intelligence to get those viewers.
    Not that the four chosen so far aren't worthy of the honor; they are.
But
they're all comics whose careers got a huge boost from TV and movies.
    Yeah, we should do our own award. Justice where it's due. We could call
them the Sammies.
    And I say Sid Perelman ought to get the first one, or perhaps share it
with Groucho.
    Ever the Twain shall meet,
Kathy O'Connell
Record-Journal
Meriden, Conn.