The Chickens Must Have Gotten Him

Harve Presnell, best remembered as Lew Staziak, hard-ass, pansy-hating, chicken-fearing, faulty-memoried semi-retired private dick and former inhabitant of Andy Barker’s strip mall rented office on the criminally underappreciated Andy Barker, P.I., has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 75. Presnell’s rich baritone made him a star on the stage and a few screen musicals, such as The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Paint Your Wagon, where he sang “They Call the Wind Mariah.” He then found a second life as a character actor after playing William H. Macy’s hard-ass father-in-law on Fargo, including such roles as hard-ass Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall in Saving Private Ryan.

Voice, Over

(Props to Monty)
Fred Travalena, the poor man’s Rich Little, has died of cancer at the age of 66. Best known for his Atlantic City/Reno stage act, he also voiced such beloved characters as Bogey Orangutan from Shirt Tales, and played Ross Perot in an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger.

Ditch man

(Props to Don)

But Wait There’s More… Or, Maybe Not

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The Only Things He’s Pushing Are Daisies

(Additional accolades for Don)

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Order One Coffin, and We’ll Double Your Order Free (Just Pay Shipping)

(Kudos to Warren)

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Pitch Out

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Kaboom! Goes the Dynamite

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No Longer Powered by the Air We Breath

Billy Mays, the modern snake oil salesman who screamed at American because of their unclean homes, has died at the age of 50. Apparently captivated by the avuncular huckster, millions of American’s duly sat and watched his infomercials, and advertising put-ons that would normally be subject to channel surfing or fast-forwarding on DVR became appointment viewing. As PT Barnum or HL Mencken once said, “You’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public,” and Mays actually had scored his own series on the Discovery Channel – Pitchmen. He got his start hawking the Washmatik on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, then got the promotion to the state fair/home show circuit convincing rubes of the need for vegetable choppers and cleaning products, before making the majors on The Home Shopping Network, loudly extolling the virtues of Orange Glo, OxiClean and Zorbeez, ShamWow’s inferior predecessor, all the while subliminally demonstrating the need for a tranquilizer gun.

Downgraded to a Tropical Depression

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My Little Corpsie
(Props to Monty)

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Finally Down
(More merit for Monty)
Gale Storm, Liberace’s predecessor as honorary mayor of Sherman Oaks, California, has died at the age of 87. She’s best remembered for her wholesome perkiness on two sitcoms from the 1950s - “My Little Margie” and “The Gale Storm Show,” about a cruise ship social director who breaks into song every third episode, a requirement of Storm’s contract as a nod to her burgeoning recording career, and an indication of how most of early TV was made up as they went along. After her second show ended, her career degenerated into dinner and alcoholism, as chronicled in her memoir “I’m Not Down Yet.”

Yes, We Have No Second Banana

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You Are Inert, Sir
(Kudos to Don)

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Bye-Ooooo
(An epitaphany shared with Don)

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Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Eternity

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You Are Defunct, Sir
(Cap tip to Joe)

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Side-kicked
(More merit for Joe)

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Winner of the Mortician's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes
(Additional accolades for Don)
Ed McMahon, who sat next to some of the most accomplished entertainers of the last half century, chuckling or chortling on demand, has died at the age of 86. Best remembered as Johnny Carson’s living laugh track, McMahon also let people know when funny things were said Jerry Lewis during his Labor Day Parade of the Unfortunate and Dick Clark in TV’s Bloopers and Punk’d-ings. Lowell’s favorite adopted son first met Carson in the late 1950s on the ABC quiz show, “Do You Trust Your Wife?” later “Who Do You Trust?” which Carson hosted while McMahon announced and read commercials, and when Carson was tapped to replace Jack Paar as host of The Tonight Show, he took McMahon along for the ride. Ultimately making $5 million a year, McMahon wasn’t about to upset the apple cart and absorbed Carson’s slings and arrows for outrageous fortune with rarely a peep, projecting the image of America’s drinking buddy, complete with war stories as he served as a member of the Marine Air Corps, flying 85 combat missions during the Korean War, earning six Air Medals. Self-respect long since gone, McMahon served as the Billy Mays of his day, shilling everything from Alpo to Bud Light, and from Sara Lee to Sinbad. He also sold magazines as spokesperson for the American Family Publishers and later added McMahon Perfect Vodka to his portfolio, and was most recently seen promoting the gold-buying business Cash4Gold with MC Hammer while stroking a golden toilet.

All We Are is Dusty in the Wind

James Lamar “Dusty” Rhodes, hero of the 1954 World Series, has died at the age of 82. Rhodes spent his largely non-descript 7-season career with the New York Giants, notable chiefly as a rarity in the post-integration period: a Southerner befriending black players Monte Irvin and Willie Mays. Facing the 111-win juggernaut Cleveland Indians in the World Series, the Giants were heavy underdogs in the 1954 series, but in Game 1 – already notable for Mays’ grab of Vic Wertz long fly to center – Rhodes hit the game winning 3-run sayonara shot in the 10^th. In Game 2, Rhodes broke a 1-1 tie with a 5^th inning pinch single, then added a homer in a 3-1 win. In Game 3, Giants manager Leo Durocher made the unheard of move of pinch-hitting Rhodes in the 3^rd inning of a 1-0 game, but Rhodes came through again with a 2-run single. As the Giants won Game 4 7-4 to complete the sweep – the Giants’ last World Series title – Rhodes nursed a hangover, his record complete at 4-for-6 with 2 HR and 7 RBI.

Koko B. Gone

(Kudos to Don for this as well as co-authorship of the obit below, and for bringing this up in the first place)

Or

You’re My Girl, Blue!

(Props to Don)

Grammy Award-winning blues legend Koko Taylor, who contributed Wang Dang Doodle to the soundtrack of Big Momma’s House, has died as a result of complications from surgery to correct a gastrointestinal bleed. She had also lost a lot of weight recently, so maybe bariatric surgery on an 80 year old isn’t such a good idea. Taylor was the only woman and probably the only singer of any gender who could effectively cover Howlin' Wolf. Taylor was known as the Queen of Blues, having won 29 Blues Music Awards, more than another artist. In 2004 she received the NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award, which is among the highest honors given to an American artist.

Hanging Body was Kung Fu Dying

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Caine Not Able

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Grave Dave

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Not So Well Hung

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Bill Killed
(An epitaphany shared by Kirsti and Don)

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Carra-Die
(Further props for Kirsti)

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Be Still, My Exploding Heart
(Kudos to Don)

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No Longer Walking This Earth
(Additional accolades for Don)
Grasshopper may have misunderstood the Master’s wisdom that true happiness only comes when man can love himself. David Carradine was apparently lovin’ the lil’ locust when things went south, and he was found hanging naked in the closet of his Bangkok hotel room at the age of 72. Prior to his Michael Hutchence impersonation, Carradine was best remembered as half-Chinese, half American Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine wandering the 19th Century west and solving problems on Kung Fu, kind of BJ & the Bear with Zen koans instead of a chimp. That role turned into parodies for Lipton Tea and Yellow Book and a gig as a kung fu master in a Jonas Brothers video. The lasting pop culture significance also scored him a late career resurgence as a master assassin in Kill Bill, Volumes 1 and 2. In a career with more than 200 appearances on TV and in film, Carradine also answered the long-standing question as to what happened after the fade to black at the end of Shane as the star of the 1968 reprisal TV show. Shane survived, but over the course of 14 years of treatment by Indian medicine men, he grew more than a foot taller. Other roles included a 100-year-old Chinese gangster in Crank: High Voltage, Frankenstein in Death Race 2000 and a voice over in the 2008 remake, Dad in Karate Cop, and Coy ‘Cannonball’ Buckman in Cannonball!, before the movies got even more campy. He was almost as prolific in his personal life, as he was on his 5th marriage, following 4 divorces, producing two kids, plus a son, Free Carradine, with 1970s live-in lover Barbara Seagull, now known again as Barbara Hershey.

As a public service announcement, gentlemen, if you’re ever considering autoerotic asphyxiation, leave the boxers on and leave a suicide note, just in case. At least leave a little plausible deniability.