Cheeta, one of many chimps who upstaged the man meatbags in the Tarzan movies of the 1930s and 1940s, has died at an animal sanctuary of kidney failure at the age of 80, making him one of the oldest chimpanzees ever recorded. As the second banana, Cheeta provided comic relief and recruited his animal friends to rescue the loinclothed lunkhead. He can be grateful that he made his mark before having to endure message board trolls going apeshit and pointing out that he was never featured in the original Edgar Rice Burroughs novels or PETA incessantly flinging poop about everything, or having to feel up a naked Bo Derek in 1981’s Tarzan, the Ape Man, where Tarzan was incomprehensibly partnered with an orangutan. A 1995 fire that destroyed sanctuary records and the fact that at least 15 animals are reported to have been in the movies, often several in the same movie, throw a monkeywrench in efforts to determine exact cinematic contributions to the franchise, but this Cheeta reportedly retired to Johnny Weismuller’s estate after hanging up the vine, then moved to an animal sanctuary in Tampa in the 1960s.
What do you know life about death? You talking existential being or anthropomorphic diety?
William Duell, who explained ska to Dick Clark and admonished Tommy Lasorda for trading Tommy John, has died of respiratory failure at the age of 88. The slight character actor is probably best known as the all-knowing Johnny the Snitch, who gave Frank Drebin the word on the street, for a price, between shoe shines on Police Squad! (in color), before explaining how to put out a fire in a furniture warehouse to a firefighter, or how to complete a coronary bypass in a patient with a history of sinus bradycardia to a surgeon. Other roles included Sefelt, an epileptic who was afraid of his meds in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the man who rang the Liberty Bell on stage and screen in 1776, and a quintessentially crusty New Englander who was less than helpful with directions in Funny Farm.
Or Velvet Underground (Kudos to Don) Vaclav Havel, the man who ended Czechoslovakia, has died at the age of 75. The dissident writer spent years in and out of prison and under police surveillance for his incessant whining about Communism. He became the voice of the Czech people, driving the Prague street demonstrations that led to the Velvet Revolution, so named because the peaceful transfer of power took just weeks to complete and did not involve a shot being fired. And because Havel played Mel Torme at full blast to drive the Commies out. Pretty soon oppressive yokes were being shaken off throughout Europe, Iron Curtains were falling and forgetful old guys in the US were taking all the credit. Havel was elected the first president of Czechoslovakia, broke that and became president of the Czech Republic, setting the West-leaning path that had the country joining NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004, a move that has really paid off for them. Havel was a star in the West for his well publicized love of Lou Reed and Frank Zappa, who was named “special ambassador to the West,” but at home he was mocked for being naïve, for marrying a former actress best known as a topless vampire, and for staying a little too late at the party and meddling in politics long after it was time for professionals to run things. But then the West has a long history of backing the wrong ponies in international affairs.
Or Kim Jong-no longer Ill (An epitaphany shared with Mark)
Or Train in Vain (Kudos to Don)
Or Un for the Road (Additional accolades for Don)
Or Drear Leader (More merit for Mark) North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, part Bond villain, part Monty Python sketch, a veritable Willy Wonka with nuclear missles, has died at the age of 69 or 70 of a heart attack on a train brought on by “great mental and physical strain” during a “high-intensity field inspection.” Which is how I think you would probably describe Elvis’ eternal bowel movement, if you’re looking for a more honest assessment of his final moments. There was a double rainbow over the log cabin on the sacred mountain where he was born, so be prepared for similarly supernatural visions for his funeral on Dec. 28. When the “peerlessly great man” replaced his father as the leader of the most backward country in Asia, pear and apricot trees spontaneously came into bloom, attracting butterflies and bees, while a fisherman caught a rare white sea cucumber, the finest indication of fitness to lead since a watery tart hurled a scimitar at Arthur. At the age of 23 he was repairing auto engines, improving farming practices, penning operas and plays and authoring a thesis on Korean history. Then on Tuesday… For fun he would wander through cemeteries and rattle off the phone numbers of the deceased. The first time he ever played golf, he shot 11 holes-in-one and recorded a score of 38 under par. Hennessy reported that in 1993 and 1994, he was their single biggest customer in the world, importing more than $750,000 a year, roughly 833 times the average salary of a North Korean, 2 million of whom (10% of the population) died during a famine in the 1990s brought on largely by state incompetence. But man destroys, man builds – he developed a plan to solve the famine by breeding rabbits to be the size of dogs for food. A noted cinephile who literally wrote the book on Communist film-making (1973’s On the Art of the Cinema) he tried to jump start the North Korean movie industry by kidnapping a South Korean director and actress and forcing them to make Pulgasari, a Godzilla rip-off with a pro-Communist subplot. When he was forced to give up smoking on doctor’s orders, he decided that the entire country would go smoke free, under penalty of prison and hard labor – more effective than Nicorette. Part of the North Korean science curriculum in schools is that Kim transcended producing urine and feces. Still more reasonable than intelligent design. When not providing punchlines for the Western world, Kim was running roughshod over his people, starving them with an iron hand as he fostered his own personality cult. Despite the cartoonish appearance of the 5-foot-3 inch dictator with Jackie O’s hand-me-down sunglasses and a bouffant, he built the 5th largest army in the world at 1.1 million men and added North Korea to the nuclear weapon fraternity. They can’t figure out how to get the things to fly straight, but still…
I’ve Been Tied to the Hitchens Post; Good Lord I Feel Like He’s Dying
Or The Disposable Atheist (Props to Don)
Or Off Without a Hitch (Additional accolades for Don)
Or Arguably Dead (Meritorious mention for Chris N)
Or God Finally Got Him, Unless It Was The Whiskey (Kudos for Chris N)
Or Unhitched (Huzzah for Monty) Christopher Hitchens, a journalist who hated everything about this world except whiskey and cigarettes, has died of esophageal cancer at the age of 62. Described as being as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar, Hitchens built his reputation which scathing polemics against demagogues both of the left and right, Henry Kissinger, the Clintons, the British monarchy, Mel Gibson, the Dalai Lama, radical Islamists, Mother Teresa, and religious belief in his book “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.” He made his bones in the 1970s traveling to some of the worst places on the planet to shine a light on the machinations of dictators and the great powers in Northern Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Spain and Argentina. He graduated from those hotspots to a land ripe for the picking on: the United States, where his columns touched on everything from getting a Brazilian bikini wax to being waterboarded. Although he was accused of being anti-Catholic and anti-Christian, he insisted that was not the case and that he thought “all religious belief is sinister and infantile.”
Or With Your Shield-- or On It Joe Simon, creator of the only comic book character who could make Superman look cool, has died at the age of 98. With partner Jack Kirby, the Comic Book Hall of Famer is best known for creating Captain America, the sturdy, stolid, boring supersoldier created from 98-pound weakling Steve Rogers. The pair later pioneered romance comics, for those who consider romance novels too sophisticated, and horror comics, which makes him a godfather to the Cryptkeeper.
Or Frances Badger Don’t Care (Confused congratulations for Don) Cult author Russell Hoban has died at the age of 86. Best known for his apocalyptic novel Riddley Walker, described by Anthony Burgess as "what literature is meant to be," set in Kent 2,000 years after a nuclear holocaust. He also wrote about Frances the badger and The Mouse and His Child, which was turned into an animated film by Sanrio, the bastards who brought the world Hello Kitty. Hobson also wrote a varmint-based version of The Gift of the Magi called Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas, which was turned into a 1978 HBO special by Jim Henson.
Suicide is Painless, but Pneumonia Hurts Like a Bitch
Or In Potter’s Field
Or Potted
Or M*A*S*Hed
Harry Morgan, barely remembered for playing Major General Bartford Hamilton Steele, on M*A*S*H, has died of pneumonia at the age of 96. At least M*A*S*H’s producers were banking that he would be barely remembered when they brought back Morgan less than a year after his guest appearance as a batty general to replace Lt. Col. Henry Blake as the commander of the 4077th. Morgan won an Emmy for his portrayal of the acerbicly homespun Col. Sherman T. Potter, the lone regular Army officer in a camp full of oddballs. But then Morgan was experienced as a replacement character, having filled in for Ben Alexander’s Frank Smith and what passed for comic relief as Bill Gannon on the reboot of Dragnet, a role he reprised on The Simpsons and the 1987 Dragnet movie. Before those roles, he was a classic “hey, it’s that guy” in more than 100 movie roles, including the hanging-happy illiterate in The Ox-Bow Incident, one of Will Kane’s cowardly “friends” in High Noon, the Darwin-denying judge in Inherit the Wind, the blustering sheriff watching over J.B. Books’ last days in The Shootist and an interstellar feline-chasing general in The Cat From Outer Space.
Ohhhh, gimme some peat, boys, to fill that hole; I'm gonna get tossed in a 6 foot hole and waste away...
Or Drifted Away
Or Out with the In Crowd Dobie Gray, best remembered for the soul hit Drift Away, has died of complications of cancer surgery at the speculated age of 71. Along his long winding road, Gray was at varying times managed by Jethro (Max Baer, Jr of Beverly Hillbillies fame), recorded songs by 1970s songwriter/hybrid experiment of crossing Brenda Vaccaro with a Muppet Paul Williams, and was the first singer to perform in front of an integrated audience in South Africa
This Little Piggy Cried Wee, Wee, Wee All the Way to the Cemetery
Bill McKinney, the man who taught Ned Beatty to read a script all the way through before accepting a role, has died of esophageal cancer at the age of 80. McKinney was best remembered for his role in Deliverance as one of the backwoods Georgians who thought that Beatty could “squeal like a pig” and proceeded to sodomize him to prove it. Reportedly, that scene was entirely ad-libbed, and McKinney thought “Cut” was for wimps and had to be dragged off Beatty after one take. He also was one of the few actors to appear with the two greatest Western actors of all time, John Wayne in The Shootist and Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales, among other movies. As Central Casting shifted stereotypical bad guys from hulking endomorphs to beady-eyed sociopaths, McKinney found himself in high demand and terrorized B. J. and the Bear, Columbo and someone who was able to find The A-Team. Just two days before his death, McKinney completed filming for a Doritos commercial.
Alan Sues, the poor man’s Paul Lynde on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, has died of a heart attack at the age of 85. Sues spent much of his time playing broadly flamboyant characters, like a cowboy strolling into a saloon surrounded by whiskey-drinking hombres and ordering a daiquiri. Among his recurring characters were Big Al, an effeminate sportscaster more obsessed with ringing a bell than announcing the day’s action, and perennially hung-over children’s entertainer Uncle Al, the Kiddies Pal.
