Hedley Lamourned

Harvey Korman, best remembered as the four-armed Julia Child of the cosmos on the Star Wars Holiday Special, has died of complications from an abdominal aortic aneurysm at the age of 80. Korman was a featured supporting player on The Carol Burnett Show, earning 7 Emmy nominations and 4 wins for playing a wide cast of characters, from Rhett Butler to Vicki Lawrence’s dim-witted son-in-law Ed to Mother Marcus, the mother of all yentas. Korman came down with McLean Stevenson Syndrome and left for his own self titled and ill-fated sitcom, which also helped doom The Carol Burnet Show. Of note, The Harvey Korman Show did inspire the episode naming convention of Friends, as each of his three episodes’ titles start with “The One Where…” Mel Brooks made Korman one of his featured players, with major supporting roles as conniving, rubber froggie-loving Hedley Lamarr in Blazing Saddles and as conniving, rubber suit-loving Dr. Charles Montague. Korman earned the enmity of animation fans everywhere as the voice of shark jump-triggering Great Gazoo on The Flintstones, returned as the voice of the Dictabird in the cinematic version of The Flintstones and then helped heap dirt on the franchise’s grave as Wilma’s father in The Flintstones: Viva Rock Vegas. Funeral services were private, and Korman’s corpse fell out of the coffin laughing during Tim Conway’s unscripted eulogy.

The Way He Was

Or
Out of Everywhere

Or
They Bury Corpses, Don't They?
(Kudos to Joe)

Or
Doesn't Have Logic; Can't Move
(Additional accolades for Joe)
Sydney Pollack, director of popular star-driven ‘70s and ‘80s dreck, has died from cancer at the age of 73. His first film, starring Sidney Poitier and Anne Bancroft, was The Slender Thread, about a social work student coaxing a woman out of suicide on a help line, a plot so complex it was later recycled as an episode of Family Ties. He started his 40-year collaboration with Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson, depicting the fair-haired blond pretty boy as an earthy mountain man, then inflicted the one-two punch of Barbra Streisand and Redford in The Way We Were (good luck trying to get that song out of your head today). A rare critical success was Absence of Malice, an indictment of at all costs investigative reporting – ironically a slap at Redford’s All the President’s Men, but he returned to form with his magnum opus Tootsie, then more Redford in Out of Africa. He scored an Oscar as Best Director for Out of Africa after nominations for They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and Tootsie. Other questionable efforts included Havana, his last duet with Redford, the remake of Sabrina, Random Hearts, The Interpreter and the Firm. He also acted a bit, as a corrupt attorney in Michael Clayton, Tom Cruise’s morally bankrupt co-conspirator in Eyes Wide Shut, and Will’s womanizing father on Will & Grace.

As the GHI is all about finding the silver lining in the recently departed, his passing allows me to recast seeing Made of Honor in the theater as a tribute to Pollack’s last screen appearance, and not just me having to endure my wife’s horrific taste in movies as a trade-off to get to see Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls on opening weekend.

Finding even silverer lining were Greg’s Team Matlock, moving into 4th, Steve@themovies, taking 8th, and Jenni’s This Year Has to Be Better Than Last Year pulls into the tie at 26th. For those curious, Jenni finished 22nd last year.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Or
The Chips are Down

Or
Boise-n-buried
J.R. Simplot, who made billions selling fries and chips, has died at the age of 99. A simple but successful potato farmer in Idaho, Simplot perfected the frozen French fry, at first as a means to send potatoes to American troops in World War II, but ultimately a major catalyst in the deaths of millions by the fast food industry. Simplot also may have been the only man ever to have been accused of manipulating Maine potato futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange, employing a man in a monkey suit to steal a crop futures report. Later, Simplot went from old economy to new economy as a major early shareholder of Micron Technology, the computer chip manufacturer based in Boise. By 2007, Simplot placed 89th on the Forbes list of America’s oligarchs, at $3.6 billion, and before dying, he was the oldest member of the list. In 2004, he donated his home to serve as the governor’s mansion, which is currently occupied by his former son-in-law, Butch Otter. Yes, a man named Butch runs a state.

Joe was the only Pooligan to expect J.R. to occupy a Simplot, and his Rookies Older than John Beck moves into 19th, but only briefly as…

Lets Get Some Souls

The Chicago Cubs’ pact with Satan to end their 100-year streak without a World Series title hit close to home, as former pitcher Geremi/Jeremi Gonzalez was killed after being struck by lightning at the age of 33.

Good Night Dick

Or
Sock it to Him
(Props to Don, making a rare appearance in the winner’s circle)
The Fickle Finger of Fate touched Dick Martin, half of the comic genius behind the genre-busting sketch show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, as he succumbed to bippy failure at the age of 86. Martin played the fool to partner Dan Rowan’s sophisticate straight man in a nightclub act that earned them hosting duties on the 1968 series that set the standards for television irreverence. Combining non sequiturs, awful puns, double entendres, special guest stars ranging from Jack Benny to John Wayne to Richard Nixon and a leisurely disdain for everything, Laugh-In was unlike anything that had appeared on television, and won two Emmys and load of viewers. Irreverence quickly gave way to irrevelance, and the show flamed out after 5 years and an awful spin-off movie, The Maltese Bippy. The show’s lasting legacy is Saturday Night Live, created by Laugh-In writer Lorne Michaels, which employs a similar philosophy of unknown young talent, but lacked the good sense to end on top. After Laugh-In, Martin spent a year on the game show circuit, notably eschewing the convention of changing clothes between shows, which gave the illusion that shows weren’t churned out 5 at a time. Among his acting stints included recurring appearances as Lucille Ball’s neighbor Harry on her first comeback and Pete’s grandpa on Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.

Three Pooligans consulted their Funk & Wagnalls and split the hit: Marlene’s And Now for the Rest of the Stiffs took 10th and Don’s The After Midnight Specials and Michelle’s Hello, You Must be Going tie at 25th, however briefly, as…

Dirt Napa

Or
Que Syrah, Syrah
Robert Mondavi, who helped establish the wine industry of the Napa Valley, has died at the age of 94. Mondavi built his namesake winery into a $500 million a year business, and sold it in 2004 for $1.35 billion, but as Falcon Crest showed, the wine industry is full of intrigue and familial strife, and for Mondavi, this meant overcoming the bias for European wines in the industry and the American public. Which he did by stealing all the European tricks and techniques, taking his vintners on tours of the staid European wineries. The familial strife came from a battle with his brother, Peter, with whom he had squabbled for years over the direction of the family winery, with him on the road selling and Peter at home squishing grapes with his feet. Mondavi bought a fur coat for his wife to wear to the White House, and when Peter accused Robert of using company money to buy it, Robert punched him in the face. Robert soon found himself looking for work, but bounced back, bought a vineyard and introduced a label with his own name, changing the pronunciation of the family name from mon-DAY-vi to mon-DAH-vi. He also had problems with his own kids, firing them from the company for their emphasis on cheap wines at the expense of the signature quality.

Four Pooligans had a vine time with this one, topped by Mark’s Magnum Opus One, as his Eat, Drink and Be Buried squad reclaims the top spot for the first time since January and gives us our first new leader since March 31. Others scoring on this one include Monty’s U.N. Dead, which joins the dogpile at 12th, and Nancy and Marlene’s Now for the Rest of the Stiffs, pulling into a 24th place tie.

And as we approach the half-way point, we’ve had 21 hits, putting us on pace for 45 for the year, which would be our second-best showing. Some separation already starting to occur, as there are only 4 lists that are within 1 hit of taking the lead. Plenty of big hits to come, as only 2 of the 17 most common picks have dropped.

Not Getting Any Elder

Or
Stop the MADness
Will Elder, one of the definers of the anarchy of Mad magazine, has died from Parkinson’s disease at the age of 86. Elder’s satirical illustrations were spot-on parodies of the best Madison Ave. ads, and were densely packed with puns, such as a Chinese Restaurant called Few Men Chew, and odd behavior in the background, and helped set the mag’s tone from the outset. The heavily layered approach influenced Robert Crumb and was translated into other media by the Zucker brothers in Police Squad! and Airplane! Elder also created the Playboy cartoon Little Annie Fanny, a sophisticated, erudite set of panels… OK, it was a literal comic strip as the big busted blonde ended up naked in every adventure. On another assignment, he took Archie, Jughead and the gang out of Springdale and sent them on a night of debauchery at the Playboy Mansion, which got him sued by Archie Comics. These illustrations were a far cry from his first gig after graduating from the National Academy of Design in Manhattan: drawing maps for the Normandy landing on D-Day as a member of the 668th Topographical Engineers. Elder’s twisted sensibilities extended far beyond the printed page – a Valentine’s Day gift for his wife consisted of a chicken heart with an arrow through it, he and friends gathered meat from a butcher, dressed it with their clothes and spread them around a railroad yard, then started shrieking that “Mikey had fallen on the railroad tracks,” bringing a slew of mothers with sons named Mike running to the horrible scene.

Greg’s Usual Band of Idiots suffers its first casualty and moves into 18th.

Law and Odor

Or
Kalgan, Take Him Away

Or
An Angel Doesn’t Make Death, an Angel is Death
(Props to Touchdown Tammy)
John Phillip Law, whose wooden acting style managed to overcome his distinctive looks and made him a hero of Italian B movies, has died at the age of 70. Although I’m not sure I trust this report; we’ve been fooled too many times by Diabolik. He was the blind angel Pygar who wouldn’t touch Barberella with his 10-foot wings and Alexei, the Russian submariner romancing Alan Arkin’s daughter in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming. He also pulled off the unique feat of starring in two MST3K-ed flicks: as Flight Commander Elijah Kalgan, the ancient dentistry-obsessed lead mutineer in Space Mutiny, and eponymous super criminal Diabolik, who I hope figured out how to extricate himself from the melted gold he found himself encased in.

Gravey and Jobriath

Dick Sutcliffe, the Lutheran minister whose Gumby meets God approach to religion inspired the preachy, treacly Claymation sermon Davey and Goliath, which taught that no matter how you try to raise your kids, unless you have a talking dog to reinforce morality, they are going to pick on crippled kids, rob, contaminate the town’s water supply, cheat, ransack museums, and murder at every opportunity.

Made the World Go Away

(Kudos to new observer Fred)

Or
Here Comes Heaven
Eddy Arnold, a country music performer who drifted with the wind in a shameless attempt to sell records, has died at the age of 89. Although he was known as the Tennessee Plowboy, Arnold proved you didn’t need to wear a 10-gallon hat and rhinestones to write horribly depressing songs about lost loves, drinking and fishing, selling 85 million records in a seven-decade career. Taken together, his songs spent more time – including more time in the top position – than those of any other singer in country music history. When rock ‘n roll unseated country music, Arnold became a cabaret-style singer, then later drifted into the pop charts with Make the World Go, competing with the Beatles and Rolling Stones.

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Atherosclerosis

Or
End of the Rocky Road

Or
I am 31 Flavors and Dead Some
(Props to Phil)
Ice cream aficionado Irv Robbins, of Baskin and fame, has died at the age of 90. The mathematically challenged duo broke out of the traditional ice cream mold by launching stores boasting 31 flavors – one for every day of the month, as long as you don’t count vanilla, chocolate and strawberry as flavors. Instead, they count things like Daiquiri Ice, Pink Bubblegum, Cocoa a Go-Go, Candi-date and Here Comes the Fudge. Over the years, Robbins developed more than 1,000 flavors, sometimes at the drop of the hat – in 1964, a New York Post reporter eager for a scoop asked what they were going to introduce to celebrate The Beatles’ appearance on TV. Without missing a beat, Robbins said Beatlenut, then scrambled to find an unnamed flavor with nuts, and within 2 days it was in all the 650 Baskin-Robbins stores nationwide. There are now 5800 stores around the world. Ironically, the Jamocha fell far from the tree, as Robbins’ son is an author of best-selling diet books and is an avid vegan.

Ask Not For Whom Eight Belles Tolled

It tolled for Larry Jones, trainer to the second-place Kentucky Derby finisher, who got the glue treatment after breaking both ankles after the Derby. Eight Belles was the first filly to run in the Kentucky Derby since 1999, clearly showing all those Title IX enthusiasts that their cause is a farce - women can’t keep up with men and no one wants to see them compete, anyway. So ladies, give up the games, let the men play and have the cold beer waiting for them when they return.