No Svet

Lana Peters, aka Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva, aka Stalin’s little girl, has died of colon cancer at the age of 85. Rather than humanizing one of history’s greatest mass murderers, the lone daughter of Joseph Stalin offered the world a rare view from her front row seat, starting with her own mother, who committed suicide rather than standing by her madman. While visiting India in 1967 to dump her boyfriend’s ashes in the Ganges, Alliluyeva was approached by the U.S. State Department and offered the chance to jump the immigration line as a Cold War PR stunt. She obliged and refudiated her father’s regime and the Soviet government in press conferences and in a memoir. She later married Frank Lloyd Wright’s protégé at the urging of Lloyd’s widow, a mystic who believed Alliluyeva to be her own daughter, also named Svetlana, reincarnated. Deciding that the Wright cult wasn’t much better than hanging behind the Iron Curtain, she left the States for Cambridge, England, then became the world’s most public double agent by returning to the Soviet Union to engage in a staring contest with Sarah Palin across the Bering Strait. Learning the error of her ways after watching Rocky IV and Red Heat, she returned to the United States in 1986, where to avoid homesickness, she moved to the coldest, bleakest, most depressing place she could find: Wisconsin.

This Was Only One of the Many Occasions on Which He Met His Death

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A Well-Manicured Corpse
John Neville, who slummed it with Shakespeare before being discovered by Python, has died at the age of Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 86. Neville was brilliant as Hieronymus Karl Frederick Baron von Munchausen, either the world’s greatest liar or its first superhero in wildly entertaining, if dubiously accurate tales, in Terry Gilliam’s vastly underappreciated The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. A financial flop, the film launched Neville into a late-career resurgence that netted appearances in The Road to Wellville and Urban Legend and distanced him from early career floundering that saw him play Romeo to Claire Bloom’s Juliet, Hamlet to Judi Dench’s Ophelia and Othello to Richard Burton’s Iago on stage.

Out of Danger Mouse

Mark Hall, producer of brilliantly quirky British cartoons, has died of cancer at the age of 75. As half of the driving force behind Cosgrove Hall, he brought life to the James Bond/Danger Man parody Danger Mouse, the world’s greatest secret agent – so secret his code name had a code name, and his faithful if flustered assistant hamster Penfold, and spawned one of the all-time great trivia mash-up answers: Mother May I Sleep with Danger Mouse? Danger Mouse spun off Count Duckula, during the late, lamented pre-ubiquitious vampire period in popular culture. Ketchup was used instead of blood during his reincarnation ritual, and Duckula went vegetarian. He also had more interest in celebrity than traditional vampire habits like skulking and lurking, much to his manservant Igor’s consternation.

But He Still Has 2 Lives Left

(Props to Mike Burger)
Gary Garcia, one of the foremost video game recording artists of our time, has died at the age of 63. Buckner & Garcia, hit #9 with 1982’s Pac-Man Fever, a parody of the rock parody Ted Nugent hit Cat Scratch Fever. As their career path descended to resemble that of interns on a wacky morning show, the duo released a complete album of arcade game homages, including Do The Donkey Kong, Ode to a Centipede and Froggy’s Lament. The album went on to sell more than a million copies, none of which were ever played more than once. When not trolling the Playdrome for inspiration, they added lyrics to The Theme To WKRP In Cincinnati, wrote E.T., I Love You, which was shelved in favor of Neil Diamond’s Heartlight, the unreleased Mr. T, and a number of original songs for the Waffle House jukebox.

Getting Lighter

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Peaceful Journey
Heavy D, best remembered as Peaches in the excruciating Cider House Rules, has died at the age of 44 after collapsing at his home. Heavy D & the Boyz had about as much edge as Mr. D’s rotund frame as they helped bring hip hop to the white folks, hitting platinum with 3 of their 5 albums: Big Tyme, Peaceful Journey, and Nuttin’ but Love and scoring chart toppers like Mr. Big Stuff; Gyrlz, They Love Me; and Now That We Found Love.

Macauley Culled

Ed Macauley, one of the other guys in one of the most significant trades in sports history, has died at the age of 83. On April 29, 1956 Macauley and the rights to Cliff Hagan were traded by the Boston Celtics to the St. Louis Hawks for the rights to Bill Russell. All 3 players involved in the trade ended up in the Hall of Fame, and the Hawks and Celtics split the next two NBA titles, but the trade still has a Manhattan for beads feel to it. The Celtics won 11 titles with Russell. The Hawks moved to Atlanta.

Family Circus of Life

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Who's Going to See Bil Keane Alive Again? Not me....

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Looks Like Billy’s Going to Have to Draw the Strip This Week

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Who pulled the plug on Bil's ventilator? Ida know.
(Props to Mark)
You know those annoying people who can’t wait to tell you about the latest #@@#$@ing adorable thing their kids did, or about their latest assault on the English language, or about the latest household device their kids broke/lost/defecated on in the cutest way? Now imagine one of those jackasses raped your ear with this tedium every morning for the last 51 years. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Bil Keane, who succumbed to congestive heart failure at the age of 89, joining Ziggy braintrust Tom Wilson as hack cartoonists who went from a single panel to a panel van this fall. Brad Anderson, watch your ass. Bil started inflicting the inane, humorless daily activities of Mom, Dad, Dolly, Billy, Jeffy, PJ, Grandma, and, from beyond the grave, Grandpa in 1960, repeating them on a roughly 13-week cycle, knowing that no one read the damn thing unless they were stuck at their in-laws and wanted to avoid talking about why there aren’t any grandchildren yet. Keane was popular among other inept and tiresome cartoonists, counting Jeff MacNelly (Shoe), Stephen Pastis (Pearls Before Swine) and Bill Griffith (Zippy the Pinhead) among his friends, swapping strips with Scott Adams (Dilbert) for an April Fool’s joke, while ripping the brilliant Bill Watterson first for insisting on half-page spreads for his lovingly drawn Sunday Calvin and Hobbes strips, then for retiring when he was still at the top of his game. Keane’s funeral procession will start at Scottsdale Funeral Home funeral home, progress down Elm Street, stop at a puddle, will tightrope walk down a fence, poke its head in a dog house, climb a tree, play in a birdbath, weave in and out of trees and kick a soccer ball before arriving at the cemetery.

Down Goes Frazier, Down Goes Frazier

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Smoked

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Sliver in His Liver Goes About As Well as The Thrilla in Manila

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Muhammad Ali wins Ali-Frazier IV
(Stolen shamelessly from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source)
Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali’s bitch, has died of liver cancer at the age of 67. Where Ali was a floating, whirling dervish in the ring, the picture of grace and speed, Frazier was an unrelenting beast, enduring blows while punishing his opponents with jabs and a wicked left hook. Frazier picked up the heavyweight title while Ali was busy being Muslim and loving the Vietcong, then petitioned to help get Ali pardoned so he could return to the ring, setting up their first epic bout in 1971. For his trouble, Frazier was relentlessly needled by the quick-witted Ali, who called him a gorilla and the white man’s champion for not being more political and vocal about black men’s status in America. Frazier was a blue collar fighter who just wanted to beat the shit out of people. While Ali won the preamble, in the ring, Frazier handed Ali his first ever loss in what was billed as the Fight of the Century. Ali won the rematch in 1974, then took the rubber match, 1975’s Thrilla in Manila when Frazier couldn’t return for the 15th due to a badly swollen eye. For his part, Ali said that fight was the closest he ever came to dying. While he lacked Ali’s style, Frazier won 32 fights in his career, never losing to anyone not named Ali or George Foreman, was Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year 3 times, and his bouts were named that publication’s Fight of the Year 4 times from 1969 to 1975, so to the end, Frazier could hold his head high. And steady. Which is more than you can say about Ali.

Forsch Scored Game 7 Win

Bob Forsch, former St. Louis ace, has died suddenly of a cardiac aneurysm at the age of 61, fulfilling his pact with Satan to secure the Cardinals incredible comebacks after being 1 strike from elimination twice in Game 6 of the 2011 World Series. So desperate to keep his Game 7 first pitch duties, that, as is often the practice, he failed to read the fine print on the contract as David Freese strode to the plate and only got to enjoy the Cardinals World Championship for a week. Forsch is 3rd on the Cardinals all-time win-list with 163, and extended the Phillies record for no-hitters thrown against to 18 with his 1978 gem (the last Philadelphia has endured), then added another in 1983 to become of one just 29 pitchers in history with more than 1 no-hitter to their credit, and his 2 no-hitters at home were the only ones ever thrown at the first Busch Stadium. He and his brother Ken are the only brothers to have thrown no-hitters. Forsch is the fourth pitcher to have contributed to a no-hitter to have died this year, joining Bob Feller (3), Gene Smith (2 – Negro Leagues), Mike Flanagan (1 inning in a 1991 Orioles combination).

Djaever Notice Retirement Never Lasts As Long As You Want It To?

Andy Rooney, who spent more than 30 years riffing on whatever happened to be in his line of vision for 3 minutes rather than actually writing and preparing a script, has died of complications from minor surgery, because at the age of 92, there is no such thing as minor surgery. Especially if it was intended to rein in those eyebrows. Rooney has been America’s confused, curmudgeonly, racist, annoying, bat-shit crazy grandfather in nigh weekly commentaries that you got stuck watching because the NFL game ran late and you don’t want to miss the start of The Amazing Race. Over the years, the inanity he has harangued America about has included the spelling and pronunciation of February, how he doesn’t like metal watchbands because his wrist hairs get caught, his dim understanding of inflation, the size of women’s handbags, his ability to sleep anywhere, and the fact that they don’t put bees on nickels anymore. Above all, he lionized his antique Underwood typewriter that he hunted and pecked on for 50 years, compared with him churning through 7 computers in 6 years. Presumably because he kept cracking them open trying to change the carbon paper. He claimed to love properly pressed pants and carefully shined shoes and to have devices in his office to achieve both, yet perpetually looked as rumpled as a bus station suit. Rooney gave his final sign-off just a month ago, so all 60 Minutes needs to do tonight is slap an “Andy Rooney (1919-2011)” graphic up on last month’s retrospective segment.

Lost and Incontinent

In the movies of the 1940s and 1950s, every third movie produced in Hollywood was required by an obscure clause in the Hays Code to have a character from Brooklyn in the cast for comic relief. In many of those films, that relief was provided by Sid Melton, who has died of pneumonia at the age of 94. Among those films were Lost Continent, where he played a mechanic on an expedition to a land mass unabashedly reminiscent of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World who has erotic dreams about planes, and Radar Secret Service, one of the finest 59-minute movies about atomic theft this nation has ever produced. Both found second life on MST3K, where Joel and the ‘Bots dubbed Melton 'Monkey Boy.' Melton turned up like a bad penny on 3 different Danny Thomas series, inexplicably took his Brooklyn accent to Hooterville on Green Acres and played Sophia’s late husband in flashbacks on The Golden Girls.