Stifled

Or

Those Were The Days

Jean Stapleton, America’s beloved dingbat, has died at the age of 90. Stapleton won 3 Emmys for playing the put-upon simpleton capable of great kindness and fairness, much to the chagrin of Carroll O’Connor’s judgmental, racist, misogynist, but ultimately loving patriarch, Archie. As if Archie’s constant abuse wasn’t enough, Edith dealt with menopause, breast cancer and a sexual assault (because who didn’t get a little randy thinking about a middle-aged woman in a shapeless housecoat?) as the 1970s sought to darken the previously sunny lives of sitcommers, inspiring the backlash of the 1980s that resulted in sitcoms about little girl robots, cross-dressing advertising staffers, buxom blonde sheriffs and furry alien invaders. Before taking up residence at 704 Hauser, Stapleton was in the original Broadway casts of “Bells are Ringing” and “Funny Girl.” After Edith died following the first season of Archie Bunker’s Place, Stapleton passed up the role of Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote; worked for Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail, played Ray Barone’s aunt and Miles Silverberg’s grandmother and was an Off Broadway fixture to stellar reviews in The Carpetbagger’s Children, The Entertainer, Mountain Language and The Birthday Party.

Broken On Through (To The Other Side)

Or

This is the End…

Or

His Mojo Is No Longer Rising!

(Props to Terry)

Or

He's A . . . 21st-Century Corpse!

(Additional accolades for Terry)
Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist who got to enjoy the undeserved accolades tossed The Doors way largely because of the premature demise of Jim Morrison, has died at the age of 74. Other collaborators included Philip Glass, Iggy Pop, Echo & the Bunnymen, Darryl Hall and Weird Al Yankovic. Manzarek also stoked the conspiracy theorist’s fire with his novel The Poet in Exile, which explored the urban legend that Morrison had faked his own death. 

Can’t See the Forrest for the Flies

Or

If a Stiff Falls in the Forrest, and No One Hears Him, Does He Make a Sound?

 

Or

Rot, Forrest, Rot

Steve Forrest, best remembered for spending two years trying to convince the Ewings he was the long-lost Jock, has died at the age of 87. When Jim Davis died in 1981, Dallas producers spent more than a year dithering over how to deal with his passing, eventually deciding to send him off-screen on a South American wild-catting operation, where he was thought to have died in a helicopter crash. In 1986, a stranger named Ben Stivers showed up, eventually claiming to be Jock, having survived the crash and been rescued by natives. Rather than let this preposterousness die out when Bobby emerged from the shower and wiped out the previous season as Pam’s vision quest, Season 10 was the year of the idiot storylines. Forrest returned, playing the same con, but the pretender to Jock’s empire this time was named Ben Parmalee, because Pam was apparently was psychic and foretold the coming of the fraud in her dream. While the characters had to go through the motions of reliving the same plotline viewers hated the first time, we found that Parmalee had been on Jock’s helicopter, and that Jock had survived the crash, hanging on in a feverish state telling family stories, so that Parmalee could create enough doubt to hang around for half a season. Lesser minds may think of Forrest as Dan “Hondo” Harrelson on S.W.A.T. or General Sline, who tried his best to send Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd to their deaths in Spies Like Us. Forrest also accomplished the rate double feat of having fought in the Battle of the Bulge in real life and in D-Day in The Longest Day.  And if you’re thinking that I included a fairly non-descript character actor because I could have fun with his name and riff on Dallas, you’re right. It’s not all about you, people.

O Brothers, Where Art Thou?

(An epitaphany shared with Monty)
Dr. Joyce Brothers, the psychologist with a pathological narcissist streak, has died at the age of 85. After obtaining her PhD in psychology from Columbia University, Brothers gained fame by becoming the only woman to claim the top prize on The $64,000 Pyramid by becoming a boxing expert through months of intensive research, a clear indication of obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Deciding that being on television was more enjoyable than listening to white folks whine about their depression, suppressed homosexuality, and confessions that they didn’t really like Ike, Brothers shifted the locus of her happiness outside of herself as she found work as a boxing commentator, TV psychologist, and appeared either as herself or as thinly veiled versions of herself in cameos on such shows as JAG, Felicity, ALF, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Match Game, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, CHiPs, The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, WKRP in Cincinnati and Pinky and the Brain. Brothers drew praise from fellow attention whores Dr. Phil and Dr. Laura Schlessinger, whose excuses for a career the real doctor made possible. 

The Old and the Lifeless

Or

Old and Restful

(Props to Monty)

Or

The Deceased and the Breathless

(Another variation on the theme from Shawn)
Jeanne Cooper, a fixture of housewives’ stories for 5 decades, has died at the age of 84. At the time of her death, she was the 8th longest serving soap opera actor of all time, as Katherine Chancellor on The Young and the Restless for 40 years, winning 1 Emmy in 9 chances. In typical soap opera fashion, she did double duty in spot appearances on the same show as Marge Cotrooke, and wacky antics ensued. When such things were novel, Katherine broke ground with several bouts with alcoholism, to go along with an ischemic stroke, four dead husbands, and a child given away for adoption, and a facelift on national television. Her off-screen life was filled with similar hardship, as she gave birth to Corbin Bernsen.

Stopped Motion

Ray Harryhausen, who offered movie-goers more engaging experiences than any CGI technician can dream of, has died at the age of 92. The visual effects pioneer learned at the side of Willis O’Brien, the man who brought King Kong to life. After serving in World War II in the special services corps under Colonel Frank Capra and alongside composer Dimitri Tiomkin and Ted "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, Harryhausen and O’Brien collaborated on Mighty Joe Young and won an Academy Award for special effects. Dealing with tiny budgets for what were considered “B” pictures at the time, and have long since eclipsed the “A” pictures considered superior at the time, Harryhausen revolutionized movie-making with his form of stop-motion miniature model animation known as “Dynamation” that in many scenes allowed actors to interact with the models to add a greater sense of realism. He started with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, based on a short story by his lifelong friend Ray Bradbury. The third member of their decades-long geek triumvirate was sci-fi historian Forrest J. Ackerman. Among his more famous creations are the dueling skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts; the 6-armed (due to budget) octopus that attacked San Francisco in It Came From Beneath the Sea; Ymir, the Venusian that terrorized Rome in 20 Million Miles to Earth; Gwangi, from a reboot of Mighty Joe Young with an allosaur instead of a monkey; the Kraken from Clash of the Titans (we will not speak of the stupid owl); and the destruction of Washington, DC in Earth vs. The Flying Saucers. His influence on other filmmakers was profound, with Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, John Landis and Nick Park of Wallace and Gromit fame all admitting to standing on the shoulders of his genius. Among the tributes paid him are the stop-motion animated monster Nesuahyrrah at the end of Flesh Gordon, a sushi restaurant in Monsters, Inc named Harryhausen’s, a Celtic secret society book in Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed that included "Harry Hausen" as a previous owner; a piano listed as being a Harryhausen brand in Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride; and by Burton again with Mars Attacks!, especially a scene in which one of the aliens knock down the Washington Monument.

Kris Kross Got Dumped, Dumped

Or

Totally Krossed Out

Or

Warm it Up

Chris Kelly, the Mac Daddy of the 1990s rap duo Kris Kross, has died of a drug overdose at the age of 34. Best remembered for Jump, Kriss Kross won no Grammys, Album of the Year awards, or American Music Award awards before breaking up to focus on individual efforts that no one bought. Kelly will be buried upside down while wearing a black suit backwards.