Mayer or Less

With the renewed scandals in Europe’s Catholic churches, the only good Catholic priest is a dead Catholic priest, and Paul Mayer is now among the best. The German cardinal has died at the age of 98, giving the Vatican the scapegoat it so desperately needs. So old he was born in the Kingdom of Bavaria, he had been the oldest living cardinal since 2007. He was President Emeritus of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which attempts to bring traditionalist Catholics who are in a state of separation, such as the Society of Saint Pius X, back into the fold, a task these days somewhat akin to getting Kansas City Royals fans to start buying tickets again the day they sign Jason Kendall to be their starting catcher, or convincing someone to watch a TV show starring Allison LaPlaca.

Buck Off

(Accolades for Monty)
As is typical of New York narcissism, its denizens think that every minute detail of their overblown importance must be broadcast from the heavens, trumpeted in song and story and celebrated with a banquet of the finest meats and cheeses in all the land. Hence, we learned of the death of the guy who designed a coffee cup in the pages of The New York Times. Leslie Buck, a one-time paper company executive who came upon the epoch-shattering decision to put coffee in a paper cup called the Anthora, also known as the blue and white cup with a kind of Greek design, in the 1960s, has died at the age of 87. Hardly a fitting epitaph for a Czech Jew who survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

Labour’s Secretary Lost

Or
What’s the Wirtz that Could Happen?
William Willard Wirtz, the last surviving member of the Kennedy administration, has died at the age of 98. A member of the War Labor Board during World War II, then a member of the National Wage Stabilization Board, Wirtz was well versed in bureaucracy when he was named Secretary of Labor in 1962. He remained in the post through the end of the Johnson administration before returning to private practice in 1969. He was credited with caving in to labor to end several union strikes in the 1960s, for coddling slackers as part of Johnson’s Great Society by offering training and education to further opportunities for the undereducated and underemployed, and for beginning the Washington tradition of lip service to the equal pay provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and is the namesake of the library at the Labor Department. Like much of the nation, Wirtz disagreed with Johnson’s position on the Vietnam War. Unlike much of the nation, he did so in the Oval Office, as the first member of the Cabinet member to publicly support a platform plank calling for an end to bombing in Vietnam, and then having such a heated argument that Johnson questioned whether Wirtz was trying to get fired. Johnson did demand, and received, Wirtz’s resignation in October 1968, then asked him to withdraw the resignation for fear of how it might cost Hubert Humphrey one of the 13 states he would carry in the 1968 election.

Post Mortem

(Props to Monty)

Or
So, what's the proper etiquette for sending a sympathy card to an etiquette expert?
(More Merit for Monty)
Elizabeth Post, who kept up the family tradition of making people feel bad about not knowing which fork to use when eating pork and beans out of a can, has died at the age of 89. Elizabeth was the granddaughter-in-law of the genesis of genuflection, the premiere purveyor of polite, the original arbiter of appropriate, Emily Post, an inherited her gig as director of The Emily Post Institute when no one else in the family could muster the same degree of smug self-righteousness. Elizabeth ran things for 30 years before retiring to be succeeded by her daughter-in-law, Peggy Post, who found an outlet for decades of passive-aggressive holiday dinners with stuffing that was a bit too salty, gravy that lacked… something, and napkins that were not perpendicular to the centerpiece. Elizabeth Post also loved fishing, and landed the largest tarpon caught by a woman in the United States, reeling it in with her pinky extended.

New Motto: Tardus, Inferus, Infirmus*

(*Slower, Lower, Weaker)
Juan Antonio Samaranch, who employed the benevolent fascism he learned from Generalissimo Francisco Franco to destroy the Olympic ideal, has died of heart failure at the age of 89. When Samaranch took the reins of the International Olympic Committee in 1980, the city of Montreal was still reeling from the cost of hosting the 1976 games and the amateurs of the U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team had just upset the vaunted Soviet Union en route to winning the gold medal. When he left, the Games had become bloated spectacles, with cities lining up to impoverish themselves building stadia and facilities they would never use again, corporate names adorning everything including the condoms handed out at the athlete’s village, professional athletes everywhere, regular headlines about doping scandals as athletes took the short cut to endorsement dollars and the most amateurish element remaining being NBC’s television coverage. But at least they turn a profit, for the IOC, anyway. And that’s not even counting the bribes.

Bar None

Allen Swift, voice of Underdog’s archnemeses Simon Bar Sinister and Riff Raff, has died at the age of 86. Other voice roles included the voices for 1960s underwater puppet show Diver Dan, Twinkie The Kid, Captain Cupcake and Chief Big Wheel, among other talking treats from the 1970s Hostess commercials, and most of the voices for Rankin/Bass’s Mad Monster Party, kind of a Rudolph-the Red Eyed Demon Reindeer, including Dracula, the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Most notably, he did most of the ancillary characters on The Howdy Doody Show, and is the only man to voice Howdy Doody other than the fiercely protective Buffalo Bob Smith, filling in for more than a year while Smith recovered from a heart attack, with no viewers being the wiser.

Not Whistling Dixie

Or
Decomposing Woman
(An epitaphany shared with Monty)

Or
Dixie Wishes She Was Still with Us
(Additional accolades for Monty)

Or
Trying to Get to Heaven - Success!
(More merit for Monty)
Dixie Carter, who set in motion not one, but two shark jumping moments on Diff’rent Strokes, has died at the age of 70. The southern belle is best remembered as Julia Sugarbaker, strong-willed head of an Atlanta interior design company prone to tart liberal diatribes, and for being married to Mark Twain. In other appearances, she won an Emmy for guest appearances on Desperate Housewives, and married Philip Drummond on Diff’rent Strokes, bringing with her the cousin Oliver-esque son Sam to compensate for the deteriorating cuteness of Gary Coleman, then bolting the series after 2 years to be replaced by Mary Ann Mobley.

Meinhardt Raabe Is Not Only Merely Dead, but is Really Most Sincerely Dead

Or
Choppin’ Broccoli
(Kudos to Dearly Departed Don)
Meinhardt Raabe, star of CSI: Oz, has died of a heart attack at the age of 94. The munchkin coroner who declared the Wicked Witch of the East dead from an acute allergic reaction to the mold underneath the Kansas farmhouse that fell on her, was one of the last remaining munchkins, and the last actor to have a line in The Wizard of Oz, even if his actual line reading was dubbed by a speeded-up version of a full-size actor. Raabe was already a part of the pop culture lexicon as the first Little Oscar, mascot for Oscar Mayer, driving around the country in the first Weinermobile in 1936.

Tramp Stamped

George Nissen, who helped make rhythmic gymnastics look like a reasonable Olympic sport while providing grist for America’s Funniest Home Videos and the Internet, has died of pneumonia at the age of 96. Nissen was a teenage gymnast watching unsuccessful trapeze artists bounce off a safety net, inspiring him to invent the trampoline, which 60 years later made its Olympic debut as a medal event at the 2000 Sydney games.

Wishing Upon a Star

Eddie Carroll, voice of Disney’s most sanctimonious character, has died of a brain tumor at the age of 76. Carroll inherited the role of Jiminy Cricket from Cliff Edwards in 1973, and became the longest-serving voice for a single character in Disney history as the money-grubbing Mouse stuck the little locust in any commercial, video game or amusement park ride he could find. His other “voice” was Jack Benny, who he impersonated for friends before starting the one-man show "A Small Eternity With Jack Benny," in 1983, and then writing his own tribute, "Jack Benny: Laughter in Bloom," the following year and taking it on tour through last year. Also of note, he was the uncle of Baywatch’s Erika Eleniak.

No One Wants a Charlie in a Box

Or
Sorry Charlie

Or
Charlie Meets His Angels
(An epitaphany shared with Terrence)

Or
Bachelor Corpse

Or
The Powers that Were
John Forsythe, best remembered for a performance he literally phoned in, has died of pneumonia related to his battle with cancer at the age of 92. For decades he put his pretty boy looks to good use in such schlocky comedies and melodramas as It Happens Every Thursday, The Glass Web, The Ambassador's Daughter, and as the horny idiot Senate candidate in the MST3Ked Kitten with a Whip. Alfred Hitchcock thought enough of him to cast him in the comic mystery The Trouble with Harry and the cold war thriller Topaz, but he was always more interested in his blonde leading ladies. Then one night in 1976, Gig Young was too drunk to record a voice-over for a pilot. Aaron Spelling called Forsythe to the studio. Forsythe showed up late that night, still wearing his robe under an overcoat and one take later, TV history was made as he became Charles Townsend, unseen wealthy entrepreneur who sends jiggly chicks to solve crimes. Five years later, he swept in at the last minute for Spelling again, taking Dynasty away from George Peppard. As Blake Carrington, he got to watch wet catfights between Joan Collins and Linda Evans while Peppard rode around in a van with Mr. T, 35 pounds of gold, and a guy who talked to a dead lobster. Other notable appearances included the lead investigator in In Cold Blood, Bill Murray’s dead but chatty former boss in Scrooged, dimwitted senator William Franklin Powers in the short-lived Norman Lear effort The Powers that Be and Bentley Gregg, swinging single taking care of his orphaned niece in Bachelor Father.

Hoping to continue my own dynasty, I move into first place with my Tremendous Undertaking, with James sharing the hit and joining me atop the leaderboard. Dogpiling at 11th are Michelle’s (Mostly) American Way of Death, Ern’s Old Man Pool, Mark’s Angels With Wrinkled Faces VI: Their Last Assignment and Nancy H. Having a not so good Friday? Marlene, who dropped him after 2008.

To Havana and Havana Not

Mike Cuellar, who helped suggest to Earl Weaver that there might be something more to baseball than 3-run homers, has died of stomach cancer at the age of 73. Co-winner of the 1969 American League Cy Young Award, Cuellar rode a screwball among other slow junk to win 20 games 4 times in 5 years from 1969 to 1974, with the Orioles winning the American League East each season. Nicknamed Crazy Horse for his superstitions like sitting in the same spot on the bench, which he would not leave until his catcher had put on his shin guards, he once demanded a clubhouse attendant from Memorial Stadium ship his lucky cap for a road game in Milwaukee. Cuellar was part of the 1971 Orioles staff that included 4 20-game winners, and joins Dave McNally and Pat Dobson in death, leaving only Jim Palmer. Other career highlights included being the first player to hit a grand slam in an ALCS in 1970 against the Twins and giving up Harmon Killebrew’s 500th career home run.