Mike "The Bar" Hirsch

The world of late-night comedy was something lost on adolescent Mark, who always went to bed at an early hour on a weeknight (so Saturday Night Live was no problem).  Names like Carson, O'Brien, Leno, Letterman were just abstract entities, allegedly producing legendary comedy but I simply wasn't able or willing to stay up late enough to see it.  It wasn't until university that my vampire-esque sleeping habits developed, so until then, my only exposure to late-night comedy was the occasional primetime special.  I'm not even sure if these were original shows or just glorified "best-of" compilations from past programs, but still, I firmly recall the anticipation of waiting for the Letterman special so I could see just what the fuss was all about.

And it was on that show that we were introduced to The Bar, a bit that stuck in the memories of my friends and I for years.  To this day, the city of Boston basically can't be mentioned without coming singing "He's the coolest guy in Boston, Mass/Get in his way and he'll kick your ass/He's the Bar."  The other comic moment that stuck in my mind was the Bar walking past two guys, them pointing excitedly and then high-fiving each other out of excitement that they were merely in the Bar's presence.

All I could find about Hirsch today was this retrospective from his school paper, so I'm not sure if he ever a) married Meghan McGuire, b) became a lawyer and thus took the bar, or c) opened a tavern just called 'The Bar,' taking a page from the Robbie Robertson school of naming things.