Showcase Showdown

Al Alberts, inventor of undue attention on scandalously dressed kids, has died at the age of 87. Alberts was the last member of the Four Aces, best known for Three Coins in the Fountain and Love is a Many Splendored Thing, to leave the stage, and popularized the Philadelphia-area hit On the Way to Cape May. In the Philadelphia area, he’s better known for ruining Saturday morning cartoon time as the creepily grinning, tuxedoed host of Al Albert’s Showcase, a weekly parade of sniveling, weeping, terrified children, all dressed in poorly fitting little suits and strange gowns, putting Philadelphia ahead of the pageant mom pack by decades. Among the talent discovered on the Showcase – Andrea McArdle, Sister Sledge, The Kinleys and Teddy Pendergrass.

The Pollin Weed Feeder Classic

Or
Bullet Bites It
(Props to Jon)

Or
Number One With A, Um, Wizard
(Huzzah for Joe)

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Abe Stinkin'
(Additional accolades for Joe)
Abe Pollin, the only man to fire Michael Jordan, has died at the age of 85 of progressive supranuclear palsy. Until this afternoon the longest tenured NBA owner, Pollin bought the Baltimore Bullets in 1964, moving them to the nation’s capital when the Capital Centre was completed, then building them a new home in 1997 with his own money, rather than holding a financially destitute city hostage as his fellow owners were doing around the country. Thinking that Washingtonians would rather be reminded of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis than the daily gun violence, he renamed the team Wizards and offered up a stylized swastika with a hat as a logo that same year. Other highlights of his tenure included the 1978 NBA Championship, the first championship for the district in 36 years and a testy co-ownership with Jordan and his ill-advised second comeback. Pollin formerly owned the NHL’s Capitals, seeing them go from awful to never quite good enough, and the WNBA’s Mysticks.

Equalizer to the Casket

Or
Got a Problem? Odds Against You? Well, You’re on Your Own This Time
Edward Woodward, the coolest vigilante since Bernie Goetz, has died at the age of 79 of complications from pneumonia. The classically trained actor showed amazing range in his career, from playing a British counterintelligence agent and assassin in the BBC series Callan, to playing Robert McCall, a world-weary former spy helping New York’s little guys in The Equalizer. Other notable roles included a police sergeant investigating Scottish pagans in the occult thriller The Wicker Man, the Australian historical courtroom drama Breaker Morant about three lieutenants who murdered prisoners during the Boer War, and the 1990 CBS series Over My Dead Body, about a mystery writer helping to solve crimes, which somehow failed to succeed on the ground well trod by Jessica Fletcher and currently inhabited by Rick Castle. Earlier this year, he completed work on A Congregation of Ghosts, playing a reverend who so pissed off his flock that he was left preaching to cardboard cutouts.

The Only Obituary Written in Chris Rosenberg’s Basement

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Dead, Alive or Indian Food?
(Props to John)

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Remote Control Will Not Continue....
(Kudos to Phil, who apparently hasn’t opened a TV Guide since 1990)

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Dead or... Dead
(Additional accolades for Phil)

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He'd Rather Be Canadian
(Further fanfare for Phil)

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Kenny was just like the other kids.....
Living mattered, nothing else did.....
Reaper said yes, but he said 'noooooooooooo"
So now he's got his own gravestone!
(Poetic posturing from Phil)
Ken Ober, host of the greatest game show ever, has fallen back through the breakaway brick wall in the sky at the age of 52. Ober hosted the television and pop culture trivia-based Remote Control, one of the first non-musical entries ever on MTV, where he set the archetype as the irreverent game show host, openly mocking the three barcalounger-buckled contestants for particularly stupid answers on a stage set to resemble a cluttered basement, complete with a life-sized Bob Eubanks Pez dispenser. Question categories included Dead or Canadian, The Bon Jovi Network, Brady Physics (or Metaphysics) and Inside Tina Yothers, and skits like Beat the Bishop, where contestants had to complete a math problem before a man dressed as a bishop completed a lap around the studio. His later career was far less interesting, hosting a talk show with Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady) and serving as producer on such series as Mind of Mencia, the Greg Giraldo Show and The New Adventures of Old Christine.

Failing Belgrade

His Eminence of Metropolitan Amphiliohije of Montenegro, His Grace Bishop Stefan of Zica, His Grace Bishop Iriney of Nis, the Very Reverend Mihajlo Arnaut and Hierodeacon Mark Momcilovic, call name Patriach Pavle, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, who had a front-row seat for the all faiths slugfest of the 1990s, has died at the age of 95. Giving up construction work for a monastic vow due to poor health following World War II, within 10 years, he was named Bishop of Ras and Prizren, including all of Kosovo, a position he held for 33 years before being elected Patriarch of Serbia in 1990, coinciding by days with Slobodan Milosevic’s rise to power. The Yugo-Serbio-Croatian battle royale gave two lessons for future nation building – randomly assigned borders without regard for ethnicity or religion probably won’t work, and if you do go this route, an oppressive totalitarian government can do a pretty good job of suppressing dissent until it collapses under its own weight; and then when the gloves are off, run for the hills. During the Serbian conflict, Pavle put church support behind Milosevic and the Bosnian Serbs, stoking Serb nationalism against the Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosnians, while publicly blessing the paramilitary leaders who committed war crimes. He called for Milosevic to represent Serbia at the peace talks in Dayton, Ohio in 1995, causing a rift in the church, and by 1997, Pavle had come around to join anti-government protests, and called for Milosevic to resign. After the war, he turned spin doctor, trying to improve Kosovo’s world standing, while sweeping his and the church’s collaboration under the rug.

David Lloyd Bites the Dust

David Lloyd, patron saint of hysterical funerals, has died of prostate cancer at the age of 75. Lloyd brought the funny to such classic sitcoms as The Bob Hewhart Show, Taxi, Cheers and Frasier, but is best known for his Emmy-winning script “Chuckles Bites the Dust,” for The Mary Tyler Moore Show. After beloved kiddie host Chuckles the Clown, dressed as Peter Peanut, is shelled to death by a rogue parade elephant, Mary can’t help breaking out laughing at Chuckles’ funeral. When the priest reminds her Chuckles wanted people to laugh, she can’t stop crying. Earlier this year, the episode was rated the the third-best episode of any show in television history by TV Guide. He also wrote the last episode of the series, also high on the “best of” lists.

Drummed Out

Jerry Fuchs, noted indie drummer with such bands as LCD Soundsystem, !!! (pronounced Chk Chk Chk), Turing Machine, MSTRKRFT, and The Juan MacLean, was successful in his Spinal Tap audition, falling down an elevator shaft at a benefit party in Brooklyn. Steven Bochco, also at the gathering, after being told of the accident, shrugged his shoulders and said, “It’s been done.”

And We Call It Ballantine Note

Carl Ballantine, best remembered as Lester Gruber, the conniving leader of the crew of the PT 107 on McHale’s Navy, has died at the age of 92. He got his start as a comic magician in vaudeville style routines where his routines were either obviously staged or failed gloriously. His running comedic commentary was still good enough for him to boast that, although he never actually performed a trick, he was the first magician to headline in Las Vegas. He also played Lycus the slave merchant in the 1972 revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, starring Phil Silvers, he played a friend of Buddy Young, Jr. at the Shriners Club in Mr. Saturday Night, and had cameos as a magician on The Cosby Show, Night Court, Blacke’s Magic, Alice, Fantasy Island, and BJ and the Bear.