In Lieu of Flowers, Send BLANK

(Much belated props to Greg)

Or
Death of Reilly
The most distinctive laugh in entertainment history has been silenced after a long illness at the age of 76. Once a Broadway actor who won a Tony for creating the role of Bud Frump in How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, Charles Nelson Reilly entered the lexicon as the campy, cranky, double entendre dropping, spectacularly spectacled, pipe-smoking, ascotted antagonizer of Brett Somers as the top right seat on the many seasons of Match Game while matching The Hollywood Squares’ Paul Lynde’s ahead-of-its time, over-the-top barely closeted gay shtick. Reilly ratcheted by the ribald in almost 100 Tonight Show appearances. Reilly also starred in Lidsville, the brown tab of the Sid and Marty Kroft acid trip of the 1970s, playing Horatio J. Hoodoo, the evil wizard trying to capture Mark, the all-growed up Butch Patrick, in a land populated by walking, talking hats – such as Tex, a cowboy hat doing the worst John Wayne impression ever. While paying the bills trading quips with Richard Dawson and Fannie Flagg, he never gave up his love of theater, as he wrote and directed the 1976 one-woman Broadway play based on the life of Emily Dickinson and won another Tony nod for directing the 1997 revival of The Gin Game. Reilly made several appearances as part of The Drew Carey Show’s nostalgia fest as Lewis’ boss at DrugCo, winning an Emmy nod and earned another nod as cynical paranormal writer Jose Chung on Millennium, reprising his role from The X-Files. He also appeared on SpongeBob SquarePants as the voice of The Dirty Bubble.

James Dinan and Tom Magner’s Knock, Knock, Knocking got the last Hunh-HUNH and move into ties at 14th and 29th, respectively.

All’s Well with Falwell’s End

Or
Tinky Winky Can Take a Tinkle Winkle on his Grave
The Rev. Jerry Falwell, without whom Woody Harrelson would still be waiting for a long-overdue Oscar nomination, found out he’s been backing the wrong pony, collapsing in his Liberty University office at the age of 73. Falwell founded his own church in 1956 and quickly began preaching God’s love by telling everyone who didn’t believe exactly what Jerry did that they were a hell-bound abomination. Using his TV pulpit to turn religion into a political tool, Falwell founded the lobbying group the Moral Majority in 1979 and claimed credit for Ronald Reagan’s electoral victory a year later. Among the things the good reverend tried to save America from were racial equality, saying the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was contrary to God’s word and attacking Martin Luther King and his “Civil Wrongs Movement;” the First Amendment, suing Larry Flynt over a parody ad in Hustler that suggested that Falwell lost his virginity to his drunk mother in an outhouse, before losing in a Supreme Court ruling; the anti-Apartheid movement, opposing sanctions and calling Desmond Tutu a phony; and a kids’ TV character with a vocabulary of 26 words, claiming that Tinky Winky, the purple member of the acid trip barbershop quartet The Teletubbies, was gay. Falwell’s anti-gay agenda reached its nadir, or zenith, when he blamed gays, along with liberals and feminists, for the terrorist attacks of September, 11, 2001. While the Bush White House had no problem later using those attacks for political gain, even they had to say, “Hold on there, Pardner.” Falwell’s theism was also anti-Semitic, as he claimed that the Antichrist was a Jewish man who was probably alive in a bit of Christianity lifted from the plot of The Omen III: The Final Conflict.

While everyone benefits on this one, Steve Prokopy scores an extra 20 points, and climbs into the logpile at 22nd.

You Ain't Got a Thing if You Didn't Have This King

Malietoa tag
King Malietoa Tanumafili II, the oldest and one of the longest-reigning monarchs in the world, has died at the age of 94. The monarch of Samoa, four teeny typhoon-prone islands smaller in the South Pacific than Rhode Island whose economy depends on the dole and hand-outs from relatives who escaped, had ruled since 1940, though the 1989 Samoan Constitution left him with about as much authority as the pit boss at the Bellagio. Only King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, who has reigned since 1946, and Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, who ascended to the throne in 1952, have squandered public resources longer. King Malietoa attended the King of Tonga’s birthday party every year, went to the 1984 Summer Olympics, visited China in 1976 and sat shiva at Emperor Hirohito’s funeral in 1989. He had parents, a late wife and kids. That’s it. That’s all I could find. Even the official website of the government of Samoa hasn’t been updated to acknowledge that he’s dead.

Mark’s obscure oligarch strategy finally pays off and his Royally Old squad pulls into the dogpile in 22nd.

Not so Newsom
Before Warren Zevon was The Excitable Boy, Tommy Newsom was Mr. Excitement. And now they have something else in common. Newsom, Doc Severinsen’s caddy as bandleader on The Tonight Show, has died at the age of 78 of cancer, not, as Johnny Carson once speculated, of natural dullness. In his 30-year career, Newsom was noted as a gifted musician, and an easy target in conservative brown suits. Carson dubbed him “the man from bland,” “Mr. Excitement” and the “comatose commander,” but never questioned his talent as Newsom published hundreds of arrangements and compositions. Newsom’s stone-faced acceptance and deadpan retorts made viewers look forward to Doc’s side gigs and Ed’s benders when Doc filled in on the couch. Eschewing tan for the day, Newsom once took the stage in a bright yellow suit, prompting Carson to say “Look at that big, dumb canary.” “You’ll know what kind of bird I am when I fly over you,” Newsom.

A Little Dabbs Will Do You

Or
The Grass Is Greer On the Other Side
Character actor Dabbs Greer has died at the age of 90. His longest recurring role was Rev. Robert Alden on "Little House on the Prairie," but keen-eyed observers also remember him as the minister who helped the group of Bradys and Martins somehow form a family, despite Fluffy’s and Tiger’s best efforts. He wore the cloth on Picket Fences as well as Rev. Henry Novotny. He also was the first person rescued by Superman after falling off a dirigible in the pilot episode of The Adventures of Superman. He was one of the town elders in the Twilight Zone classic In the Valley of the Shadow where a rural hamlet has established complete control over matter to the consternation of a visiting reporter. And as LA Law rushed headlong into self-parody, he played a man addicted to licking toads for the psychedelic high.

Poston-humous
Tom Poston, Bob Newhart’s good luck charm in every iteration of The Bob Newhart Show, has died at the age of 85 after a short illness that may have been related to his thyroid cancer. Poston’s career stretched back to The Steve Allen Show where he won an Emmy as The Man Who Can’t Remember His Name in Allen’s man on the street sketches. Poston had a recurring role on The Bob Newhart Show as Bob’s college roommate Cliff Murdock, aka The Peeper, then co-starred as inept but lovable handyman George Utley on Newhart, scoring 3 Emmy nominations, played Bob’s poker buddy Jerry on Bob and had a cameo on George & Leo, which didn’t last long enough for characters to recur. In between, he was Francis Delano Bickley, Mork & Mindy’s abrasive landlord, Art Hibke, Luther Van Damm’s agent/dentist on Coach, Oswald’s father (and Adrienne Barbeau’s ex) on The Drew Carey Show, Eric Foreman’s grandfather (and Betty White’s husband) on That ‘70s Show, The Capital City Goofball on The Simpsons, and, while waiting for Newhart to Hart - starring Bob Newhart and Stephanie Powers as jetsetters who solve crimes when the perpetrators confess just to stop Bob’s stammering – he was the only thing worth watching on Committed as a dying clown and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement as a Lord of Genovia who decides Princess Mia must marry to hold the throne. Poston leaves wife Suzanne Pleshette, who he married in 2000, more than 40 years after a brief fling while they were appearing in a Broadway play together.

Actifed needs a new spokesperson
(Props to Craig)

Or
Space, it's empty, but it beats New Jersey!
(Scorn and disdain for Mr. Barker who apparently has forgotten he’s from Michigan)
Harken back to ye olden days when people gave a rat’s ass about the space program and astronauts made headlines for endurance records in orbit, not for endurance records driving from Houston to Florida in a diaper. Walter Schirra, the only man to fly in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, and the first man to eat corned beef in outer space, has died at the age of 84. Other highlights of the New Jersey native’s career included becoming the third American to orbit the earth, the first to command a spacecraft that docked with an orbiting ship, the first to perform music in space – breaking into Jingle Bells on a harmonica – which are funny floating, and the first to report a UFO, one that looked remarkably like Santa Claus during a December 1965 flight. During a 1968 Apollo flight, the first since the Apollo 1 disaster and the last warm-up before the moon mission, Schirra caught a severe cold, which he treated with Actifed, earning him a post-NASA gig as a corporate shill.

Piss Off
Cosmo Kramer once advised that when you meet a proctologist at a party, plant yourself there, because you will hear the funniest stories in your life. Apparently any doctor who spends his life twixt belt and thigh has a little different perspective. John Lattimer, the urologist who held onto Napoleon’s member longer than Napoleon himself, has died at the age of 92. Lattimer treated Nazis during the Nuremberg war trials and theorized that Adolph Hitler had advanced Parkinson’s, which had led to his erratic decisions that hastened the end of World War II. As part of the government’s dogged attempts to fully investigate the JFK assassination, this urologist was the first non-governmental expert brought in to examine Kennedy’s head and upper torso wounds. This experience led to a fascination with famous deaths and he collected the shirt Abraham Lincoln had worn the night he was shot and the shot glass that Hermann Goring used to take cyanide rather than go to the gallows. Other items in his collection included Ethan Allen’s sword, which Lattimer brandished in the 200th anniversary re-enactment of the taking of Fort Ticonderoga, and Napoleon Bonaparte’s penis, taken by the priest who performed last rites, but not brandished or used in any re-enactments of which I am aware.