The Kwouk and the Dead

Or

Cato Killin’

Herbert Tsangtse "Burt" Kwouk, best remembered as Inspector Clouseau’s long-suffering manservant Cato, has died of cancer at the age of 85. The running gag through 6 of the Pink Panther movies was that Cato was supposed to attack the Inspector when he least expected it in order to keep Clouseau alert. The ensuing brawl would trash the apartment, only to be interrupted by a ringing phone, which Cato would calmly answer "Inspector Clouseau's residence," before handing the phone to Clouseau and then getting whacked. The two referenced this relationship in The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu with Sellers saying to Kwouk, "Your face is familiar," in the film’s opening scene. He also played the leader of a group of robot Chinese Mandarins developed by the alien Monarch to study human behavior in the Doctor Who serial Four to Doomsday. In keeping with the movie industry’s malleable understanding of Asia, he played a Chinese nuclear expert in Goldfinger, a Japanese operative of SPECTRE in You Only Live Twice, and a Vietnamese general in Air America. 

Tick, Tick, Tick, Doom

Or

Less-ly Safer

(Additional accolades to the itinerant Pooligan, Joe)

Moley Safer, who cost the United States the Vietnam War through his reporting, has died of pneumonia at the age of 84. Born in Toronto, Safer aspired to a career in journalism, which meant he had to leave Canada and its 3 news stories a year for London, where he was the CBC’s man in Europe, and became the only Western journalist in East Berlin as the Communists starting building the Berlin Wall. Hired by CBS in 1964 for their London office, he assumed Edward R. Murrow’s old desk, then opened a bureau office in Saigon to keep tabs on the troops the United States wasn’t sending. There, he followed Marines into Cam Ne, a village where 4 Marines had been killed and 27 injured by Vietcong troops being harbored by the inhabitants despite repeated warnings. Those distinctions failed to make it into Safer’s story, which focused on the Marines burning the village down. President Johnson accused Safer of being a Communist and of undermining the war effort, but ordered a halt to any future urban renewal. Safer and two cameramen were later in a helicopter shot down by the Vietcong, but were pulled to safety by Brian Williams. He got pulled into the then-new 60 Minutes in its second season, with the promise he could have his old job back if the show tanked. He never did, becoming 60 Minutes’ longest-serving correspondent, reporting on areas ranging from the Finnish obsession with the tango to a black man in Texas wrongfully convicted and serving a life sentence who was freed after Safer’s reporting. Even into the computer age, Safer was a reporter’s reporter, traveling 200,000 miles a year and banging out his copy on a manual typewriter. He won 12 Emmys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award at the age of 35, and 3 Peabody Awards. Safer’s last story was filed in March and he died 1 week after announcing his retirement, which inspired a new Republican plan to ensure the solvency of Social Security. 

Wilburied

(Props to Don)
Or
You never heard of a smelly corpse?
Well listen to this.
He is Mr. Dead.
Or
Wilbur Post-humous
Or
Scrooge McDead
(Kudos to observer Craig)
Or
Wilbrrrrr
(Hit tip to Joe)

Alan Young, who channeled his rage at the subjugation by the animal kingdom into becoming the most powerful duck in the world, has died at the age of 96. He parlayed his Emmy-winning turn in The Alan Young Show (because eponymous shows were apparently easy to come by in the 1940s and ‘50s) into a turn as the second fiddle on a sitcom derivative of the low-budget Francis, The Talking Mule movies of the 1950s. Young spent 5 years as klutzy architect Wilbur Post, the much put-upon manservant to Mr. Ed who looks increasingly eccentric due to the fact that Ed only talks to him. His next major role was as Scrooge McDuck in Disney films and DuckTales. He also voiced Farmer Smurf and Hiram Flaversham on The Great Mouse Detective. He played Rod Taylor’s friend in The Time Machine, which led to a role in the 1993 sequel no one remembers and a cameo in the 2002 remake no one watched. 

Schallert Grave

The ubiquitous William Schallert, best remembered as Martin Lane, father of Patty Lane (as well as Martin’s identical twin Kenneth, father of identical cousin Cathy), has died at the age of 93. It's so hard when TV parents have to bury their TV children. Among his 375 credits on imdb are the paramedic in the beginning of Them! who finds the little girl who survived an attack by giant ants; the marshal of Oracle, Texas who gets killed about 2 minutes into Gunslinger and is replaced by Beverly Garland in the MST3K-ed Roger Corman classic; Nilz Baris, the United Federation of Planets' undersecretary in charge of agricultural affairs who was vexed by vermin in The Trouble with Tribbles; the new Russ Lawrence in The New Gidget; the athletic director from Aberdeen College who hired Luther Van Damm away from Minnesota State only to then fire him on his first day after he violated NCAA rules and got the school put on probation on Coach; teacher of two generations of Cleavers as Mr. Bloomgarden on Leave it to Beaver and The New Leave it to Beaver; and in one of his last roles, the mayor of Bon Temps on True Blood.