Henry Gibson Must Did Something Right

Actor Henry Gibson died yesterday. He's mostly being remembered in the press for his stint on Laugh-In but to me he will always be Haven Hamilton, the absurdly vain country music star from Robert Altman's Nashville whose cornpone patriotism turns out by film's end to be a little bit less showbiz-ersatz than we at first imagine.

The above slideshow uses the Henry Gibson/Haven Hamilton song "200 Years" completely in earnest to make some douche-/tea-baggy faux-patriotic point, which is hilarious because Gibson obviously wrote the song--by himself, for the movie, IN CHARACTER, which is totally fucking amazing--as a hilarious parody of smug country music patriotism and nativistic durrh durrh logic.* 

That the song is also somehow genuinely moving only makes it funnier. R.I.P. Henry!

*("Must be doing something right to last 200 years." So mere continued existence equals moral rightness? Okay!)