Heckler
The additional meaning, to interrupt speakers with awkward or embarrassing questions, was first used in Scotland, and specifically in early 19th century Dundee, a town where the hecklers who combed the flax had established a reputation as the most belligerent element in the workforce.
In the heckling factory, one heckler would read out the day's news while the others worked, to the accompaniment of interruptions and furious debate.
Milton Berle's weekly TV variety series in the 1960s featured a heckler named Sidney Spritzer (German/Yiddish for 'squirter') played by Borscht Belt comic Irving Benson.
In the 1970s and 1980s, The Muppet Show, which was also built around a vaudeville theme, featured two hecklers, Statler and Waldorf (two old men named after famous hotels).
During a campaign stop just before winning the Presidency in 1980, Ronald Reagan was heckled by an audience member who kept interrupting him during a speech.
In 1992, then-Presidential candidate Bill Clinton was interrupted by Bob Rafsky, a member of the AIDS activism group ACT UP, who accused him of "dying of ambition to be president"[6] during a rally.
[8] On 25 November 2013, Ju Hong, a 24-year-old South Korean immigrant without legal documentation, shouted at Obama to use his executive power to stop deportation of unauthorized noncitizens.
"[10][11][12][13][14] One modern political approach to discourage heckling is to ensure that major events are given before a "tame" audience of sympathizers, or conducted to allow restrictions on who may remain on the premises (see also, astroturfing).
This happened to Tony Blair during a photo op visit to a hospital during the 2001 general election campaign, and again in 2003 during a speech.
[15] In 2004, American Vice President Dick Cheney was interrupted mid-speech by Perry Patterson, a middle-aged mother in a pre-screened rally audience.
Nevertheless, emergency room physician Ben Marble got close enough to the proceedings and could be heard yelling, "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney".
[18] On 15 October 2005, The Scotsman reported[19] "Iranian ambassador Dr Seyed Mohammed Hossein Adeli... speaking at the annual Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament conference... During his speech to the CND several people were told to leave the room following protests at Iran's human rights record.
On Thursday, 20 April 2006, a heckler from the Falun Gong spiritual movement entered the US White House grounds as a reporter and interrupted a formal arrival ceremony for Chinese president Hu Jintao.
Moments into Hu's speech at the event, Wang Wenyi, perched on the top tier of the stands reserved for the press, began screaming in English and Chinese: "President Bush stop him.
[21] Medea Benjamin of Code Pink repeatedly interrupted a major speech by President Barack Obama regarding United States policy in the War on Terror at the National Defense University on 23 May 2013.
Fans of the Philadelphia Eagles American football team are notorious for heckling; among the most infamous incidents were booing and subsequently throwing snowballs at a performer dressed as Santa Claus in a halftime show in 1968, and cheering at the career-ending injury of visiting team player Michael Irvin in 1999.
Former Yugoslav football star Dejan Savićević was involved in an infamous incident with a heckler in which during an interview, a man on the street was heard shouting off-camera: "You're a piece of shit!".
In 2009, then Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Alex Ríos was a victim of a heckling incident outside after a fund-raising event.
The heckling of Bob Dylan at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966 is one of the most famous examples in music history.
[25] This incident was captured on tape and the full concert was released as volume four of Dylan's Live Bootleg Series.
[citation needed] Bill Burr's Philadelphia Incident was performed in Camden, New Jersey, where he reprimanded an audience of over ten thousand people.
The comedy TV series The Muppet Show featured a pair of hecklers named Statler and Waldorf.
