Inanimate Object

(Props to Monty)

Arthur Rankin, bringer of Christmas for more than 50 years, has died at the age of 89. With his partner Jules Bass, Rankin introduced us to a tooth-pulling elf, a Bouncing Bumble, a Charlie-in-a-box, the oft-injured Burgermeister Meisterburger, a jug-eared Baby New Year, the Heat Miser and Snow Miser, a hat-stealing snowman, a clock-wrecking mouse, the Jack Frost who was not a mutated homicidal snowman, and, of course, a freakish reindeer in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, Rudolph's Shiny New Year, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, Twas the Night Before Christmas, and Jack Frost. The rest of the year was less kind, as his hundreds of TV and screen credits included the puppetized Universal catalog Mad Monster Party?, the Japanese take on America’s favorite giant ape King Kong Escapes and the animated version of The King and I.

 

Pete’s Draggin’

Or

Peat Seeker 

(Doff the cap to Don)
Dirty hippie folk-singing Commie Pete Seeger has died at the age of 94, so I hope the funeral director has a hammer, because you know Earth Boy had himself nailed into a plain pine box to avoid a carbon footprint even in death. A fixture on national radio as a solo act in the 1940s when there were about 9 songs, Seeger joined the Weavers in the 1950s, hitting #1 with Goodnight, Irene before the lone bright spot of the McCarthy Era saw them get blacklisted. When the nation went to hell in a handbasket in the 1960s, it was on Seeger’s elbow, as he provided the soundtrack for protests, sit-ins and love-ins with a steady torrent of songs about disarmament, the environment and Bewitched fan fiction. Seeger co-opted the civil rights movement by forcing the spiritual We Shall Overcome down their throats, and then just depressed everyone by adapting Kumbaya as a camp song staple. He helped the Smothers Brothers piss off CBS by performing there, his first national appearance in more than a decade, sounded the drumbeat for wrongly convicted death row inmate Delbert Tibbs, who was later exonerated, and was an early backer of acoustic Bob Dylan and an early abandoner of electric Bob Dylan. Seeger kept rousing rabble well into his 90s, advocating for the environment, including a song about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, joining a solidarity march with Occupy Wall Street, singing about Native American Activist Leonard Peltier, and taking up the cause after The Dark Knight got snubbed for Best Picture in 2008.

Seniority Killed the Cat

Bert Williams, the man who blew the 1950 World Cup for England, has died at the age of 93. Heavy favorites to win the Cup and coming off a crushing pre-tournament win over a European team and a win in their first match, England was expected to blow a ragtag bunch of American part-time players who arrived at the stadium smoking cigars and wearing cowboy hats to celebrate Stereotype Day off the pitch. While his teammates kept pressure on the American goal, Williams was free to daydream, smooth out the grass, and look for hot Brazilians in the crowd while standing in his own goal. After making one save, Williams decided his work was done for the day and the second shot on goal by the US trickled by as the day’s only tally. The US 1-0 win, dubbed the Miracle on Grass, was so inconceivable that many British fans assumed a teletype had incorrectly reported a 10-1 British win. Despite this ignominious defeat, Williams was regarded as one of the greats of British soccer, leading the Wolverhampton Wanderers to the FA Cup in 1949 and the League Championship in 1954, and his 420 matches for the Wanderers stood as a club record for a goalkeeper for more than 40 years. 

And the Rest in Peace

(Whoop whoop for Joe Wright)

Or

Professor Emeritus 

Or

Three Hour Tour to Hades

(Props to Nathan)

Or

His Coffin Will Be Made of Coconut Shells Tied Together with Dried Seaweed

(Accolades for Terry)
Russell Johnson, who as Professor Roy Hinkley made a lie detector, a battery recharger, a telescope, a Geiger counter, jet-pack fuel, a bamboo xylophone, nitroglycerine, soap, shark repellent, a sewing machine, lead radiation suits and make-up, a helium balloon, a washing machine, water pump, telegraph, roulette wheel and pool table, but couldn’t fix a 4-foot hole in a damn boat, has died of kidney failure at the age of 89. The extended 3-hour tour wasn’t Johnson’s first crash in the Pacific, having been shot down over the Philippines during World War II, and having appeared in Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki. Johnson adopted his professorial persona early in 1950s sci-fi in such classics as It Came from Outer Space, This Island Earth, Attack of the Crab Monsters, and The Space Children, plus in two episodes of The Twilight Zone, having gone “Back There” in time to try to prevent the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and inadvertently temporarily staying an "Execution." In the infamous dream season, Johnson also played Sheriff Wyatt Mansfield on Dallas. 

Ding-Dong! The Munchkin is Dead.

Ruth Duccini, who made a career out of an uncredited appearance in a movie about a murder spree in a surreal landscape, has died at the age of 95. The last surviving female Munchkin from The Wizard of Oz, Duccini’s screen career included one other credit, 1981’s making of The Wizard of Oz mockumentary Under the Rainbow. Unlike the rest of the little Uncle Toms, Duccini generally refused to wear a replica of her Munchkin costume during appearances. While she was grateful for the publicity events and the gig at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, she often complained that she and her fellow little people came up short when it came to merchandising residuals for the use of their likenesses from the original movie. Given the sparsity of her career, not surprisingly, Duccini said her proudest achievement was her time spent working at a defense plant during World War II, where as one of the tiniest Rosie the Riveters, she was able to get to places others couldn’t. With her death, Jerry Maren is the last survivor among the original 124 little Yellow Brick Road pedestrians. 

C’mon Dirt Nappy

Dave Madden, who as band manager Reuben Kincaid served as the entrance for the audience on The Partridge Family by hating wannabe cool guy Keith, goodie two shoes Laurie, obnoxious Danny and we-just-need-them-to-be-cute-and-get-into-misadventures Chris and Tracy, as much as viewers, has died of myelodysplastic syndrome at the age of 82. He also appeared on Camp Runamuck, was a recurring patron at Mel’s Diner on Alice, was part of the cast of the first season of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In.

Sharon Crosses the River Styx

Or

Bye Sharon-a

(Another tip o’ the cap for Mark)

Ariel Sharon, who lived out Douglas MacArthur’s dictum about old soldiers, has died at the age of 85 of heart failure, 8 years almost to the day after being incapacitated by a stroke. Recognized as the greatest field commander in Israel’s history, Sharon played significant roles in every one of the country’s major military engagements. He was instrumental in defending statehood in 1948, led the assault on the Sinai in the Six-Day War and encircled the Egyptian Third Army in the Yom Kippur War, leading the Israeli public to nickname him “The King of Israel” and “The Lion of God.” He joined the Likud Party after leaving the army, but didn’t stop killing people, taking the blame for allowing Lebanese militias to massacre Palestinian civilians in refugee camps during the 1982 Lebanon War while serving as Minister of Defense. He resigned as Minister of Defense, but Israelis weren’t going to hold dead Palestinians against him, and he held several other ministerial positions before being elected prime minister in 2001. After championing construction of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for most of his career, Sharon unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2004, and was believed to be planning on leaving the West Bank in 2006 when he suffered a debilitating stroke. Sharon’s last 8 years in a permanent vegetative state still made him more popular and more effective than any politician in the United States over that same period. 

Da Don’t Run Run. Da Don’t Run Run.

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I Read on a Tuesday That His Heart Stood Still, He's Dead Run Run, He's Dead Run Run

(Props to Phil)

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Kung Pow

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10 Fingers of Death

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Rendezvous with Death

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Run Run Away

(Kudos to Mark)

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Da Doo Ran Ran

(Can I get a whoop whoop for Mark?)

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No Longer Born to Run

(Additional accolades for Phil)

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Expiration Date - January 7, 2014

(More merit for Phil)

Run Run Shaw, who gave the world Return of the Master Killer and The Spearman of Death, has died of being horribly, horribly old at the age of 106. Shaw and his brother launched the Asian film industry, specializing in low-budget genre films: action, horror, and their signature – kung fu, producing more than 800 movies. Think a Roger Corman whose movies you want to watch again two hours later. Shaw was a caricature of the Asian tycoon, living in a garish Art Deco palace in Hong Kong, attending events with movie actresses on each arm, posing in tai chi stances while wearing mandarin gowns. The brothers had built an empire before World War II, then were able to rebuild things after the war by reclaiming more than $4 million in gold, jewelry and currency they had buried in their backyard before the Japanese invaded. Among Shaw’s kung fu classics: Five Fingers of Death, Man of Iron and Shaolin Avenger, but he declined Bruce Lee’s request for a contract guaranteeing him a percentage of the gross for his films, sending the star to a rival producing company. Shaw also produced some US films, most notably Meteor and Blade Runner.  Later, he grew his empire into publishing and took the Tom Vu route to a real estate fortune. Then he started giving it away, doting on educational and medical causes, earning a knighthood for his philanthropy. 

Mann Down

January was not kind to the men behind the animagic, as Larry D. Mann, the voice of Yukon Cornelius in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, has died at the age of 91. If you were curious as to what the pick-axe licking Canuck looked like, he was also the conductor/dealer in the poker game in The Sting where Henry Gondorff out-cheats Doyle Lonnegan.