Pierre Desproges

Pierre Desproges (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ depʁɔʒ]; 9 May 1939 – 18 April 1988) was a French humorist. He was born in Pantin, Seine-Saint-Denis. According to himself, he made no significant achievements before the age of 30. From 1967 to 1970, he worked as a life insurance salesman, opinion poll investigator, advice columnist, horse racing forecaster, and sales manager for a styrofoam beam company. From 1970 to 1976, he worked for the newspaper L'Aurore. Starting in 1975, he became a "reporter" on Le petit rapporteur (The Little Snitch), a satirical TV show hosted by Jacques Martin. He caught the public's attention with unconventional interviews of celebrities, among them novelists Françoise Sagan and Jean-Edern Hallier. He appeared for the first time on stage at l'Olympia during a Thierry Le Luron show. Among other things, he became famous for his Chroniques de la haine ordinaire (Chronicles of Ordinary Hatred), a 1986 radio show. In the 1980s, he appeared daily on Le tribunal des flagrants délires (a pun on the French term "flagrant délit" meaning red-handed), a comedy show where celebrities were judged in mock-trials. Desproges held the part of the prosecutor for more than two years, a part for which his verve, his scathing humour and his literary erudition were ideally suited. In 1982, he created La minute nécessaire de Monsieur Cyclopède, a series of shorts for TV, where he played an omniscient professor. He explained how to make King Louis XVI fireproof, proved that Beethoven was not deaf but stupid, and explained why the improbable encounter between the Venus de Milo and Saint Exupéry's 'Petit Prince' was a fiasco. Each episode ended with the catchphrase: "Étonnant, non ?" ("Astonishing, isn't it?") In 1984, he performed his first stand-up show at the Théâtre Fontaine. This was followed in 1986 by his second stand-up...