Kicking Off

Wax Off
(A shared epitaphany with Mark)

Not So Happy Days
(More laudatories for Monty)

Daniel-san, Show Me Bury the Casket
(It’s a cornucopia of Monty)
Hollywood will need a new Asian for light comedy, as Pat Morita, the man who taught karate to Ralph Macchio, Hilary Swank and a dog, has died at the age of 73. Told he’d never walk after being born with spinal tuberculosis, he became a successful stand-up comic after leaving his WWII internment camp. Billed as the Hip Nip, he was the first comic to get billing in Las Vegas, and his nightclub work got him a gig on Happy Days as Arnold, chef and later owner of Fonzie’s favorite burger joint. This turned into steady work as the go-to Asian on a variety of sitcoms, most notably as Captain Sam Pak on MASH and Ah Chew on Sanford and Son. He was also the first Asian to star in a sitcom, 1976’s Mr. T and Tina and drama, 1987’s O’Hara. But his role as Mr. Miyagi, sensei and slavemaster to Ralph Macchio’s “Daniel-san” entered him a place in the pop culture lexicon. After getting free waxing, painting and sanding, early scripts for The Karate Kid, Part II had Daniel-san grouting the bathtub and replacing shingles. Sadly, the 1984 Academy Awards were over-Asianed, and Morita lost the Best Supporting Actor Oscar to Haing S. Ngor (The Killing Fields).

Best in Peace

Or
Man Separated

Or
And the Ref Blows the Full-Time Whistle
(Our friends at deathlist.net)

Or
Good, Better, Best
May he get his rest
Because his liver’s looked better
And the reaper takes the Best

Or
He kicked the ball, but he couldn’t kick the bottle, so he’s kicked the bucket
George Best, one of the greatest footballers ever to come out of the UK until drinking himself out of the game, has died of complications from his liver transplant at the age of 59, ironically just missing out on new laws that allow pubs to stay open 24 hours a day. Playing for Northern Ireland and Manchester United in the 1960s, Best developed a reputation as a skillful dribbler and playmaker, and was called the greatest player in the world by Pele. He helped Man U to win two First Division Championships and was named Footballer of the Year in 1968. Best turned stodgy English soccer traditions on their ear, earning as much ink in the tabloids as he did in the sports sections combining legendary drinking binges with bedding a bevy of beauties. Imagine a Beckham who could kick with his left foot, head the ball, tackle and scored more often, as he humbly summed up the comparison.

Rice All Goney
Self-made midget twin millionaire John Rice has died of surgical complications at the age of 53. Greg and John were in the record books as the world’s shortest twins long before the 2 ft 10 inch terrors became a staple of late-night infomercials touting their real estate success and motivational speaking. In his memory, flags in his hometown of Palm Beach, Florida were lowered to quarter-staff.

Tomb Stone
(Props to Monty)

Hark Harold, the Angels Sing
(More kudos for Monty)
Long-time character actor Harold J. Stone has died at the age of 92. His imposing features made him ideally suited to play three different German officers on Hogan’s Heroes, an enemy agent on I Spy and a plethora of guys in black hats on countless westerns of the 1950s and ‘60s. He also played an artist renouncing civilization in a guest of the week episode of Gilligan’s Island, and Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans will remember him as Joe Don Baker’s nemesis, mob boss Tony Gallano, in Mitchell, the Joel-Mike changing of the guard episode.

Coming apart at the Siems
Ruth M. Siems, who invented Stove Top Stuffing, has died at the age of 74. She actually died Nov. 13, but in a shameless marketing campaign Kraft Foods withheld news of her death for 10 days to ensure that it would get more coverage over the holiday weekend. The Buy a Box for Ruth ads didn’t help. Siems determined the perfect size for stuffing crumbs to avoid sogginess and rockiness, meaning it was no longer necessary to play doctor with a turkey in order to enjoy stuffing, making the process faster and expanding the options for stuffing as a side dish for other meals.

Missing Link
Link Wray, an innovating guitarist who pioneered the rockabilly sound, has died at the age of 76. Adding “fuzz tone,” feedback distortion and noise and the unique qualities that came with poking holes in amplifiers, Wray changed the role of the electric guitar. He is also credited as the inventor of the power chord. Wray’s most unique achievement was the power-blues instrumental “Rumble,” which was deemed so menacing it was banned by a number of radio stations because it glorified juvenile delinquency, despite the absence of lyrics. Pete Townsend said that if not for Link Wray, he would have never picked up a guitar. And there are plenty of little boys grateful for that.

Cummings’ Going
Constance Cummings, one of the leading stage actresses on both sides of the Atlantic for more than half a century, has died at the age of 95. She achieved stardom in Hollywood and in early British comedies in the 1930s, but spent most of her career on stage, acting opposite such luminaries as Laurence Olivier and interpreting the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Friedrich Durrenmatt, William Shakespeare, Eugene O'Neill, Anton Chekhov and Euripides.

A Breed Apart
Sam, the tiny hairless pedigreed Chinese crested with crooked teeth dubbed the World’s Ugliest Dog after winning an ugly dog contest three years in a row, was put down last week at the age of 14. Sam’s owner took him in as a rescue home, but somehow found him fetching and allowed her love life to take a pounding, as her hot under the collar boyfriend found the dog repulsive and dumped her.