So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

(An epitaphany shared with Mike L)

Or

It Was Just Business. Nothing Personal. Tell Abe I Always Liked Him

Or 

It Messes Up My Arrangements

(Props to former participant Peter)

Abe Vigoda, best remembered as the Chief of natives of Waponi Woo on Joe vs. the Volcano, has died at the age of 94. No, seriously this time. Really. Check the website. Despite being born at the age of 72, Vigoda’s career spanned 6 decades, with his big break coming in The Godfather. As trusted capo Salvatore Tessio, he helped Michael Corleone assassinate Virgil Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey, and despite seeing Michael’s viciousness and being labeled as being smarter than Clemenza, he crossed the new Don anyway. 40-year-old spoiler alert: It did not go well. Vigoda parlayed this into his role as the perpetually exhausted and hemorrhoid-saddled Detective Sgt. Phil Fish in Greenwich Village on Barney Miller. After two years at the old 1-2, he became an early victim of McLean Stevenson Syndrome, and tried his hand in his own spin-off Fish. There he played the perpetually exhausted and hemorrhoid-saddled head of a foster home full of racially mixed preternaturally cute and tough children, or “Persons in Need of Supervision" aka PINS. It went only slightly better than crossing a Corleone. In 1982 when Vigoda was a sprightly 60, People magazine mistakenly mentioned that he had died when he didn’t participate in a Barney Miller reunion. They weren’t far off as he was appearing in a play in Calgary. Vigoda took the mistake in stride, appearing in an issue of Variety sitting up smiling in a coffin with the surprisingly poorly edited issue of People in hand. He would make regular appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman as “the late Abe Vigoda” and interrupted a séance with the ghost of Abe Vigoda by announcing, “I’m not dead yet, you pinhead.” In one of the many Letterman ideas he ripped off, Conan O’Brien continued the bit when he inherited Late Night. The Undead Abe Vigoda became a bit of a cottage industry, with a website dedicated solely to answering the question, “Is Abe Vigoda Still Alive?” and a Firefox extension with the sole purpose of telling the browser Vigoda’s status. At a New York Friars Club roast, Billy Crystal saw Vigoda in the audience and said, "I have nothing to say about Abe. I was always taught to speak well of the dead." At another roast, Jeff Ross said, “My one regret is that Abe Vigoda isn't alive to see this.” Vigoda’s post-Fish roles suggested his agent was the one who had died, with such notables as Vasectomy: A Delicate Matter, Prancer, Good Burger, and the aforementioned Joe vs. the Volcano. 

Monte Morte

Monte Irvin, one of the best baseball players ever raised in New Jersey, has died at the age of 96. With speed, a cannon for an arm and the ability to hit for power and average as a star for the Newark Eagles of the Negro leagues, most of his contemporaries assumed Irvin was going to be the first player to make the leap to the major leagues. Unfortunately, in 1945 when Dodgers GM Branch Rickey decided to right one of the century’s great wrongs, Irvin was just out of the Army and not ready for high-level competition. Rickey tried to sign him in 1948, but he was under contract and Rickey wasn’t willing to pay for the privilege, so the Eagles ended up selling his contract to the New York Giants. The move would prove to be a rare misstep by Rickey. Irvin made his debut in 1949 and was in the majors for good in 1950, but at age 30, had lost his prime years in buses, small towns and barnstorming tours in the Negro Leagues. The 1951 season turned out to be momentous, as Irvin hit .312 with 24 HRs and a league-leading 121 RBI, helping to lead the Giants in their historic comeback to overtake the Dodgers and win the pennant. He then hit .458 in the World Series, stealing home in Game 1, as he watched the New York Yankees win another title. More importantly, he took a 20-year old rookie from Alabama under his wing, and Willie Mays regarded him as a mentor and second father, instrumental to his own Hall of Fame career. That season would be Irvin’s high-water mark, as age and injuries limited Irvin’s efficacy, although he did help the Giants to their upset win in the 1954 World Series. He became the first black executive when he joined the commissioner’s office in 1968 – a role that put him in Atlanta on April 8, 1974 as the only representative from MLB because prick bastard Bowie Kuhn had something better to do than witness Hank Aaron break the all-time HR record. Irvin was named to a Hall of Fame commission intended to open the Hall to Negro league stars in 1971. Coincidentally, that same commission elected him to the Hall in 1973. 

Here Kitty, Kitty… Kitty?

Or

Bury Me Mucho

Kitty Kallen, a pop singer from the Big Band era through the early days of rock and or roll has died at the age of 94. She sang with the biggest big band leaders of the 1940s, including Jimmy Dorsey – performing the vocals on his #1 hit Besame Mucho - and Harry James, and was a favorite of WWII American servicemen with They're Either Too Young or Too Old and with It's Been a Long, Long Time, which became a symbol of the end of World War II and returning troops. She established a solo career, with perhaps her best-known recording was 1954’s Little Things Mean a Lot, which was #1 for 9 weeks, was on the charts for 7 months, hit #1 on the UK singles chart, and sold more than two million copies. The song was a major contributor to being named “Most popular female singer" for 1954 by both Billboard and Variety. Then in the 3^rd act of her Behind the Music, Kallen lost her voice at the Palladium in 1955 and left singing for 4 years due to paralyzed vocal cords. She eventually resumed her career and finished with 13 top-ten career hits. She starred on Broadway in Finian's Rainbow and in the 1955 film The Second Greatest Sex. In 2009, Kallen was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.

Off the Schneid

Or

No Days at a Time

Pat Harrington, Jr., the most desirable building superintendent in Indianapolis, has died of complications from a fall at the age of 86. The last surviving member of Steve Allen’s “Men on the Street” with Don Knotts, Tom Poston and Louis Nye, Harrington was a fixture in the early days of TV. In those days, broad ethnic stereotypes were acceptable, so Harrington introduced Steve Allen and Jack Paar to-a Signor Guido Panzini, not-a to mention episodes of-a The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and-a da McHale’s Navy. Bouncing around through a number of comedic cameos, Harrington voiced both The Inspector and his Spanish assistant Sergeant Deux-Deux in a companion cartoon as part of The Pink Panther, as well as The Atom, one of the Justice League members kept around to make Aquaman feel better about himself. His enduring fame came in 1975 when he helped the Romano ladies cope with life in Circle City as Dwayne F. Schneider on One Day at a Time, scoring 4 Golden Globe nominations, winning once, and an Emmy, as well as a series of Trak Auto Parts commercials. Harrington rounded out his career with more cameos, including biannual appearances on Murder, She Wrote in 4 different roles.