Yabba Dabba Doomed

Or
Exit, Stage Left

Or
Yoinks

Or
Deader than the Average Barbera
Joseph Barbera, the man who found joy in snapping cat’s tongue’s in mousetraps, wanton theft of pic-a-nic baskets by Yogi Bear, blatant drug abuse by Shaggy and plagiarism of the Honeymooners, has died at the age of 95. Barbera and his partner in crime William Hanna also perpetuated Hispanic stereotypes in Baba Looey, gay stereotypes in pink panther knock-off Snagglepuss and Southern yokel stereotypes in Huckleberry Hound. His international bearing rivaled John Bolton’s as he depicted the Chinese as inscrutable in The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, French Canadians as well-meaning canucks with Loopy de Loop and Africans as scheming or humorless in Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har. Hanna and Barbera attempted to undermine the nuclear family, suggesting a scientist, a barely ept pilot/guide/adventurer, an Indian servant and a bulldog dragging a young boy around the world in constant danger was an appropriate way to raise young Jonny Quest. The Jetsons was thinly disguised Communist subterfuge advocating a two-day button-pushing workweek as the utopian future. Sharp increases in childhood obesity can be tied to the glorification of the rotund Peter Potamus, and America’s children have been found to lag behind other countries due in part to the revisionist history of The Roman Holidays and The Funky Phantom, Yankee Doodle Mouse, Stop the Pigeon and Dastardley and Muttley and Their Flying Machines. Barbera waded hip-deep into the evolution debate, creating a world where man and ape and talking dinosaur were contemporaries in Bedrock. His death from natural causes comes as a relief, as like Salmon Rushdie, Barbera had lived under threat of a fatwa for decades for his treatment of Morocco Mole.

Two Pooligans split the whole Magilla Gorilla for this hit, as Monty’s U.N. Dead and Mike’s Trash teams move into third with 1 hit and 10 points.

4 hits in 8 days is clearly a flurry, but it’s only the third best –
4 hits in 4 days (April 2 to April 6, 2005 - Pope John Paul II, Saul Bellow, Dale Messick, Prince Rainier)
4 hits in 6 days (July 17 to July 23, 2005 – Edward Heath, William Westmoreland, James Doohan and Myron Floren)

For the curious, the record for fastest 5 hits is 12 days: July 17 to July 29 – the above list plus the Incomparable Hildegarde

Lay Aretha on his Grave
(Props to someday Pooligan Tim)

Or
Ertegun Gone
(More kudos to interested observer Tim)
Video may have killed the radio star, but live music killed the record producer as Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun has died after being in a coma for a month following a fall at a Rolling Stones concert. Ertegun’s ear for star potential kept the Atlantic tide rising whether American tastes that week were into R&B (Ray Charles), soul (Aretha Franklin), rock (Cream and Led Zeppelin) or pop (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young). Ertegun also helped kick off the biggest Battle of the Bands, signing The Rolling Stones for his beachhead in the British Invasion to counter The Beatles. On the other hand – The Bee Gees, ABBA and Sonny & Cher were all his doing.