George Harrison Invitational Dead Pool

Murphy’s Flaw

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:18:00 +0000

Or
Girl, Interrupted

Or
Riding in this Car Alone

Or
Tai Died

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Drop Dead Gorgeous
(More merit for Monty)
Brittany Murphy, who played Dabney Coleman’s daughter in Drexell’s Class, has died at the age of 32 after being found in the shower in full cardiac arrest. After a fairly normal role in Clueless, Murphy made her mark playing skinny big-eyed girls in various states of mental disturbance. She was the community bicycle (everyone gets a ride) in Summer Catch, a suicidal girl with a hankering for rotisserie chicken in Girl, Interrupted, the psycho with the key to rescuing her therapist’s daughter in Don’t Say a Word, a vapid actress turned nanny for an ignored little rich girl in Uptown Girls, When she did get to play a normal character, life wasn’t any easier – she played the virgin pursued by a serial killer in Cherry Falls and in Just Married, she had to act opposite Ashton Kutcher. Other roles included a guest spot in what must have been a very special episode of Blossom, and the voice of big-hearted, dim-witted Luann on King of the Hill. Her date to the high school prom was the similarly short-lived Jonathan Brandis, proving their “Least Likely to Attend Their 20-Year Reunion” award was remarkably prescient.

Wide Out

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:20:00 +0000

Tiger Woods isn’t the only athlete having trouble commuting this month. Troubled Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry died at the age of 26 of head injuries sustained when he fell out of the back of the pick-up his fiancée was driving during the middle of a domestic dispute. Note to anyone else out there who can’t keep it in his cup – involving a vehicle doesn’t seem to be working. When you make a run for it, run. Unless you’re married to Christine Ohuruogu, you’ll probably put enough ground between you to live to fight another day. Prior to his early ejection, Henry was the Cincinnati wide receiver who made Chad Ochocinco look palatable: after a litany of problems at West Virginia, the Bengals drafted him anyway, apparently as a cost-cutting move, as his multiple arrests (for DUI, marijuana, assault and criminal damaging) and other antics earned him 5 unpaid suspensions before he was briefly released, only to return because he’d turned the corner in his life. And the rest of the receiver corps was injured.

Gone to Earth

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:15:00 +0000

Jennifer Jones, the Oscar-winning actress who killed Robert Walker, has died at the age of 90. Jones scored an Oscar in her first major studio release in 1943 for The Song of Bernadette, the story of the French peasant girl who got plastered at Lourdes and whose nonsensical ramblings about visions created a sensation in 1858. This was the first of her Oscar-nominated performances in 4 straight years (a feat matched by only 4 other actors) – followed by a girl in love with an ill-fated World War II soldier in Since You Went Away, an amnesiac cured by Joseph Cotten’s love in Love Letters, and a half-breed tramp caught between brothers Gregory Peck and Cotton in the western Duel in the Sun, and one of 5 overall nominations with 1955’s turn as a Eurasian doctor who romances William Holden in Hong Kong in Love is a Many-Splendored Thing. Her personal life, however, would have garnered her own tabloid in the modern era. She divorced Walker, her first husband, an actor best remembered as the criss-crossing murderer in Strangers on a Train, contributing to his alcoholism and mental deterioration. During one emotional outburst, he was injected with sodium amytal in an attempt to calm him that resulted in an especially calming fatal allergic reaction. Even before the divorce, she had started an affair with mega-producer David O. Selznick, whose Svengaliesque approach to Jones’ career garnered all those nominations, but also contributed to her mental breakdown, which culminated in washing down a bottle of sleeping pills with a glass of red wine in a suicide attempt in 1967, 2 years after Selznick’s death. Things calmed down when she married industrialist Norman Simon and helped run his museum. She made a final screen appearance as the widowed painter who scam artist Fred Astaire tries to seduce and swindle before she plummets out of an elevator to her death in The Towering Inferno, a triumphant valedictory that scored her a Golden Globe nomination. The cheery coda on the A&E Biography episode was thwarted when her daughter with Selznick kept up the family tradition with a successful suicide in 1976.

Drawn Out

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:22:00 +0000

Roy Disney, defender of the faith, has died at the age of 79. In addition to his work as a producer and director for Disney, Walt’s nephew was the company’s 3rd largest shareholder and served on the Walt Disney Company Board of Directors, where he stepped into the hero’s role twice to oust evil executives Ron Miller in 1984 and Michael Eisner in 2005 with the help of anthropomorphized woodland creatures. After Miller’s ouster, Disney returned to the company to play a crucial role in rebuilding the animated feature film department in the 1990s, transforming the division from one that produced dreck like The Fox and Hound and The Black Cauldron to one that produced Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, earning the coveted Disney Legend Award in 1998. In 2003, Disney again resigned from the board, criticizing Eisner for mismanaging the company, ignoring the animation division – most notably cutting ties with a small partner company called Pixar – and instilling a corporate mentality that turned the Walt Disney Company into a "rapacious, soul-less" company. This prompted a mutiny among shareholders, leading to Eisner’s departure. The last member of the Disney family to be actively involved in the company, Roy was revered by employees and fans. At a 2006 revival tour of The Little Mermaid, Roy made a surprise appearance, receiving a standing ovation from the audience.

Called Home to God, No Returns Allowed!

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:11:00 +0000

(Kudos to Terry)

Or
Looks Like Oral Roberts is Finally Meeting his Inspiration
(Props to Monty)

Or
In Related News, God’s To-Do List from 1987 is Now Complete
(Welcome wrongness from James)
Oral Roberts, the man who reduced God to the ranks of pissed off loan sharks named Vinny, apparently missed a payment and has been called home at the age of 91. Back in the days when having priests lay their hands on you didn’t end up with stained frocks and multi-millionaire settlements, Roberts thrived for decades leading faith-healing revival tent meetings. These events were derided by religious leaders of all denominations, many of whom offered cash rewards for any medical evidence of a Roberts-resultant recovery – rewards that were never claimed. He returned home to make Tulsa, Oklahoma the center of a $110 million religious empire including a university of allegedly higher learning, televangelism and prayer-assisted doctoring. His lasting legacy will be the “prosperity gospel” he championed – devotion and donation to the causes he championed will be rewarded with health, wealth and happiness. He of course meant health, wealth and happiness for himself, as he enjoyed a jet set lifestyle, including a Beverly Hills mansion and country club membership. Although no malfeasance was ever proven, his university fell into debt, and his son was forced out as president after being accused of embezzling funds. Claiming he was commanded by a vision from a 900-foot tall Jesus, he founded his own medical center, with leading specialists in trepanation, phrenology, chicken bone interpretation and tea leaf reading. Not surprisingly, a $250 million faith hospital in the middle of nowhere ran into financial problems, prompting the most outlandish of fundraisers, when Roberts appealed to viewers in January 1987 to raise $4.5 million: “I’m asking you to help extend my life,” he said. “We’re at the point where God could call Oral Roberts home in March.” Mercifully, his life was spared, but the medical center still closed in 1989. One would have to question the need for the facility anyway, as Roberts claimed that he had channeled God’s power to raise the dead. Pope Benedict XVI has not announced if he would waive the customary 5-year waiting period to begin canonization proceedings.

Cause: Old Age. Effect: Death.

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:18:00 +0000

(This economics lesson brought to us by Monty)
Paul Samuelson, the man who helped turn economics from a field where leading thinkers considered economic issues to one that solves problems with mathematical certainty and rigor, has died at the age of 94. And how could anyone who lived through the last year not be glad for the clear-thinking and rigorousness of the financial sector. Samuelson’s death spares the Nobel Committee the awkwardness of reclaiming the 1970 prize he won, and instead they can sneak into the house when everyone’s at the viewing.

Gene Bury

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:14:00 +0000

(Kudos to Monty)
Or
Aliens Aren’t the Only Ones Affected by Germs
Gene Barry, who once played Richard M. Nixon in a 1982 Atlanta production of Watergate: A Musical, has died at the age of 90. His wide-ranging career included dapper lawmen and a Tony-nominated turn on Broadway, but he’s probably best-remembered as Dr. Clayton Forrester, the man who diagnosed that the Martians died from the sniffles in War of the Worlds and inspired the name of the mad scientist antagonist on Mystery Science Theater 3000. He helped set the archetype for the unorthodox crime fighter, wearing a derby hat and spangled as the gambling marshall Bat Masterson who preferred getting out of trouble with his gilt-tipped cane rather than a gun, and as the L.A. police captain with a mansion, chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce and bevy of babes as Amos Burke in Burke’s Law in the 1960s. He spent most of the next 30 years as a special guest star on shows like Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, Hotel, Crazy Like a Fox, Charlie’s Angels, and was the very special murderer in the Colombo pilot as a psychiatrist who kills his wife, with a brief rebound in a Tony nominated-stint in 1984 as the less flamboyant half of the central gay couple in La Cage Aux Folles.

Over a Barrel

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:16:00 +0000

Or
Barrel Salesmen Everywhere Mourn...
(Props to Terry Walsh)
Tim McKernan, whose pursuit of shrunken testicles earned him a place in the football Hall of Fame, has died of lung failure at the age of 69. After making a $10 bet with his brother about whether he could get on TV if he attended a Broncos game wearing an orange barrel with suspenders, he wore his barrel to all but 4 home games in the next 30 years (and inspired a recurring joke on Ed.) In 2006, he represented Broncos fans in a display at the Hall of Fame, and in 2007 he took off his barrel for good, hopefully with something underneath, at an on-field celebration at Invesco Field.

Names Escape Me, But I Never Forget a Fazio

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:59:00 +0000

Foge Fazio, former assistant football coach at Boston University, has died of leukemia at the age of 71. After the 1966 and 1967 seasons with the Terriers, he couldn’t keep a job, but had no problem finding the next one, moving on to Harvard (1968), Pitt (1969-1972), Cincinnati (1973-1976), back to Pitt (1977-1985), where as head coach from 1982-1985 he went to two bowl games, Notre Dame (1986-1987), the Atlanta Falcons, (1988-1989), New York Jets (1990-1994), Minnesota Vikings (1995-1998), Washington Redskins (2000), Cleveland Browns (2001-2002) as defensive coordinator of the only playoff team of the second incarnation of the Browns. Ironically that playoff game effectively ended Fazio’s career, as Cleveland proved worthy of the Browns name, choking up a 33-21 lead with 4 minutes remaining, with head coach Butch Davis taking the headset and calling the defensive signals himself. He had been the color broadcaster for Pitt until October of this year, when he stepped down due to illness. The team honored his memory by blowing leads of 38-24 in the 4th quarter and 44-38 with under 2 minutes left.

Somewhat Less Reliable Now

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:38:00 +0000

Tommy Henrich, the oldest living New York Yankee, Lou Gehrig’s last living teammate and last living link to any World Series from the 1930s, isn’t any more, succumbing to being very, very old, at the age of 96. A solid performer for 11 seasons for the Yankees, winning 8 pennants, Henrich was overshadowed by superstar teammates Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio, but had a knack for clutch hits, earning the nickname Old Reliable from Mel Allen after a late-inning hit won a game, enabling the team to catch a train for their next series. Henrich also hit the first game-ending home run in World Series history, leading off the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 1 in 1949 to beat Don Newcombe and the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1-0. Henrich even came up with big plays while striking out. He should have made the last out of Game 4 of the 1941 World Series, but Dodgers catcher Mickey Owen committed a passed ball, and Henrich ended up scoring the tying run in a 4-run rally.

Showcase Showdown

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:47:00 +0000

Al Alberts, inventor of undue attention on scandalously dressed kids, has died at the age of 87. Alberts was the last member of the Four Aces, best known for Three Coins in the Fountain and Love is a Many Splendored Thing, to leave the stage, and popularized the Philadelphia-area hit On the Way to Cape May. In the Philadelphia area, he’s better known for ruining Saturday morning cartoon time as the creepily grinning, tuxedoed host of Al Albert’s Showcase, a weekly parade of sniveling, weeping, terrified children, all dressed in poorly fitting little suits and strange gowns, putting Philadelphia ahead of the pageant mom pack by decades. Among the talent discovered on the Showcase – Andrea McArdle, Sister Sledge, The Kinleys and Teddy Pendergrass.

The Pollin Weed Feeder Classic

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:45:00 +0000

Or
Bullet Bites It
(Props to Jon)

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Number One With A, Um, Wizard
(Huzzah for Joe)

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Abe Stinkin'
(Additional accolades for Joe)
Abe Pollin, the only man to fire Michael Jordan, has died at the age of 85 of progressive supranuclear palsy. Until this afternoon the longest tenured NBA owner, Pollin bought the Baltimore Bullets in 1964, moving them to the nation’s capital when the Capital Centre was completed, then building them a new home in 1997 with his own money, rather than holding a financially destitute city hostage as his fellow owners were doing around the country. Thinking that Washingtonians would rather be reminded of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis than the daily gun violence, he renamed the team Wizards and offered up a stylized swastika with a hat as a logo that same year. Other highlights of his tenure included the 1978 NBA Championship, the first championship for the district in 36 years and a testy co-ownership with Jordan and his ill-advised second comeback. Pollin formerly owned the NHL’s Capitals, seeing them go from awful to never quite good enough, and the WNBA’s Mysticks.

Equalizer to the Casket

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:32:00 +0000

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Got a Problem? Odds Against You? Well, You’re on Your Own This Time
Edward Woodward, the coolest vigilante since Bernie Goetz, has died at the age of 79 of complications from pneumonia. The classically trained actor showed amazing range in his career, from playing a British counterintelligence agent and assassin in the BBC series Callan, to playing Robert McCall, a world-weary former spy helping New York’s little guys in The Equalizer. Other notable roles included a police sergeant investigating Scottish pagans in the occult thriller The Wicker Man, the Australian historical courtroom drama Breaker Morant about three lieutenants who murdered prisoners during the Boer War, and the 1990 CBS series Over My Dead Body, about a mystery writer helping to solve crimes, which somehow failed to succeed on the ground well trod by Jessica Fletcher and currently inhabited by Rick Castle. Earlier this year, he completed work on A Congregation of Ghosts, playing a reverend who so pissed off his flock that he was left preaching to cardboard cutouts.

The Only Obituary Written in Chris Rosenberg’s Basement

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:51:00 +0000

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Dead, Alive or Indian Food?
(Props to John)

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Remote Control Will Not Continue....
(Kudos to Phil, who apparently hasn’t opened a TV Guide since 1990)

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Dead or... Dead
(Additional accolades for Phil)

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He'd Rather Be Canadian
(Further fanfare for Phil)

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Kenny was just like the other kids.....
Living mattered, nothing else did.....
Reaper said yes, but he said 'noooooooooooo"
So now he's got his own gravestone!
(Poetic posturing from Phil)
Ken Ober, host of the greatest game show ever, has fallen back through the breakaway brick wall in the sky at the age of 52. Ober hosted the television and pop culture trivia-based Remote Control, one of the first non-musical entries ever on MTV, where he set the archetype as the irreverent game show host, openly mocking the three barcalounger-buckled contestants for particularly stupid answers on a stage set to resemble a cluttered basement, complete with a life-sized Bob Eubanks Pez dispenser. Question categories included Dead or Canadian, The Bon Jovi Network, Brady Physics (or Metaphysics) and Inside Tina Yothers, and skits like Beat the Bishop, where contestants had to complete a math problem before a man dressed as a bishop completed a lap around the studio. His later career was far less interesting, hosting a talk show with Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady) and serving as producer on such series as Mind of Mencia, the Greg Giraldo Show and The New Adventures of Old Christine.

Failing Belgrade

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:49:00 +0000

His Eminence of Metropolitan Amphiliohije of Montenegro, His Grace Bishop Stefan of Zica, His Grace Bishop Iriney of Nis, the Very Reverend Mihajlo Arnaut and Hierodeacon Mark Momcilovic, call name Patriach Pavle, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, who had a front-row seat for the all faiths slugfest of the 1990s, has died at the age of 95. Giving up construction work for a monastic vow due to poor health following World War II, within 10 years, he was named Bishop of Ras and Prizren, including all of Kosovo, a position he held for 33 years before being elected Patriarch of Serbia in 1990, coinciding by days with Slobodan Milosevic’s rise to power. The Yugo-Serbio-Croatian battle royale gave two lessons for future nation building – randomly assigned borders without regard for ethnicity or religion probably won’t work, and if you do go this route, an oppressive totalitarian government can do a pretty good job of suppressing dissent until it collapses under its own weight; and then when the gloves are off, run for the hills. During the Serbian conflict, Pavle put church support behind Milosevic and the Bosnian Serbs, stoking Serb nationalism against the Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosnians, while publicly blessing the paramilitary leaders who committed war crimes. He called for Milosevic to represent Serbia at the peace talks in Dayton, Ohio in 1995, causing a rift in the church, and by 1997, Pavle had come around to join anti-government protests, and called for Milosevic to resign. After the war, he turned spin doctor, trying to improve Kosovo’s world standing, while sweeping his and the church’s collaboration under the rug.

David Lloyd Bites the Dust

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:50:00 +0000

David Lloyd, patron saint of hysterical funerals, has died of prostate cancer at the age of 75. Lloyd brought the funny to such classic sitcoms as The Bob Hewhart Show, Taxi, Cheers and Frasier, but is best known for his Emmy-winning script “Chuckles Bites the Dust,” for The Mary Tyler Moore Show. After beloved kiddie host Chuckles the Clown, dressed as Peter Peanut, is shelled to death by a rogue parade elephant, Mary can’t help breaking out laughing at Chuckles’ funeral. When the priest reminds her Chuckles wanted people to laugh, she can’t stop crying. Earlier this year, the episode was rated the the third-best episode of any show in television history by TV Guide. He also wrote the last episode of the series, also high on the “best of” lists.

Drummed Out

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:13:00 +0000

Jerry Fuchs, noted indie drummer with such bands as LCD Soundsystem, !!! (pronounced Chk Chk Chk), Turing Machine, MSTRKRFT, and The Juan MacLean, was successful in his Spinal Tap audition, falling down an elevator shaft at a benefit party in Brooklyn. Steven Bochco, also at the gathering, after being told of the accident, shrugged his shoulders and said, “It’s been done.”

And We Call It Ballantine Note

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:14:00 +0000

Carl Ballantine, best remembered as Lester Gruber, the conniving leader of the crew of the PT 107 on McHale’s Navy, has died at the age of 92. He got his start as a comic magician in vaudeville style routines where his routines were either obviously staged or failed gloriously. His running comedic commentary was still good enough for him to boast that, although he never actually performed a trick, he was the first magician to headline in Las Vegas. He also played Lycus the slave merchant in the 1972 revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, starring Phil Silvers, he played a friend of Buddy Young, Jr. at the Shriners Club in Mr. Saturday Night, and had cameos as a magician on The Cosby Show, Night Court, Blacke’s Magic, Alice, Fantasy Island, and BJ and the Bear.

Faded Genes

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:12:00 +0000

Claude Lévi-Strauss, chronicler of primitive man and cultural forensic dietitian, has died at the age of 100. Being French gave him a unique insight into the great unwashed, and he transformed Western thinking about the indigenous peoples they had been exploiting for millennia. He identified “structures” that underlie all human behavior, regardless of culture. His reinterpretation of the native mythology of the Americas was captured in his 4-volume work, where he pondered the differences in meaning between roasted and boiled food, reasoning that cannibals tended to boil their friends and roast their enemies. The wishy-washy genius at the same time championed the native tribes as not being intellectually unimaginative and temperamentally irrational, as had been the prevailing thought, while worrying about the homogenization of the world, as in their development these primitive cultures grew closer to modern Western ways. For all his intellect, he apparently was unfamiliar with the theory that nothing can be measured without being affected, so if he’d kept his big trap shut, Mabobo and his friends could have kept their sophisticated and distinct culture, blissfully unaware of the siren call of the Big Mac. Levi-Strauss had an abundance of critics, and he conceded he did little field work, preferring to think about primitive tribes than interact with them. His staggering genius was best captured in the slightly fictionalized cinematic biopic Krippendorf’s Tribe.

Coyote Ugly

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:43:00 +0000

Taylor Mitchell, 19-year old Canadian folk singer, has been eaten by a coyote on a Nova Scotia hiking trail, suggesting that Wile E. Coyote may have been overthinking things. As she was not a former president, there is no word on whether she was delicious.

The Sacking of Troy

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:47:00 +0000

Troy Smith, the man who built a cult drive-in empire on a menu of foods and drinks seemingly based on a dare, has died at the age of 87. If you’re in the mood to have a roller-skating carhop deliver a Fritos chili pie at midnight and wash it down with a chocolate Dr. Pepper, Smith is the man to thank for making it happen. Originally planning on building an upscale steakhouse in his hometown of Shawnee, Oklahoma in 1953, he noticed that a root beer stand already on the property was raking in a good business, and that he lived in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and focused on developing a drive-in diner. Fifty years later, the chain has 3,500 restaurants in 41 states.

Pine Box Office

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:02:00 +0000

John Kenley, who said there are no small towns, only actors with small talent, has died at the age of 103. Deciding that hicks and rubes were every bit as deserving of an overpriced, overrated cultural experience starring washed up actors as big-city folk, he set himself up as the George M. Cohan of the Ohio Valley, bringing large-scale productions headlined by Mae West, Gloria Swanson, Burt Reynolds, Florence Henderson, Ethel Merman, Pam Dawber and William Shatner to places unaccustomed to professional theater, like eastern Pennsylvania’s coal country and Cleveland. He also virtually invented stunt casting of unlikely stars for their box office potential, like Hugh Downs in Under the Yum Yum Tree, Merv Griffin in Come Blow Your Horn, Jayne Mansfield in Bus Stop, filling the role Marilyn Monroe played on screen, and Joe Namath in Picnic. Kenley was the ultimate enabler, rewriting scripts on the fly, adding or subtracting musical numbers – whatever it took to keep the talent happy. That is, until the cast party on opening night, when he would put on a dress and take the first dance with the show’s leading man, a quirk that surprised first-timers who didn’t know that Kenley spent his theatrical off-seasons in Florida as “Joan.”

No Soupy for You

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:35:00 +0000

Or
From Soupy to Nuts

Or
Over the hill
After the puns
Look out Reaper
Here he comes

Or
That Soup Has Sailed
(Props to Phil)

Or
Hang on Soupy....Soupy? Soupy!???
(Kudos to Phil)
Soupy Sales, a comedy legend when comedy consisted of taking a coconut custard pie in the face, has died at the age of 83. Sales had a more cerebral take on the kiddie show, with bits such as “lunch,” when he would bite into a hot dog, which was accompanied with the sound of squealing pigs, or drink milk, which was accompanied by the sound of mooing. His menagerie included White Fang, the meanest dog in Detroit, Black Tooth, an overly affectionate dog, Pookie the Lion, Hippy the Hippo and Willy the Worm. Sales was popular for his unpredictability, often leaving the set of his own live show, with camera following, to harass other show’s hosts, including Edythe Fern Melrose, a woman of unyielding dignity who was known as “The Lady of Charm,” who got blasted by a pie she had no idea was coming. He later moved to LA, where the show was so popular such celebrities as Tony Curtis, Mickey Rooney, Sammy Davis Jr., Dick Martin, Burt Lancaster and Frank Sinatra would drop in just to get hit in the face with a pie, much the same way they later lined up to have it socked to them on Laugh-In. Later he moved to New York City, where he got suspended for encouraging kids to go into mom’s purse and dad’s wallet and send him the green paper with the pictures of the guys with beards. He was quickly reinstated after massive protests in front of the studio. In the 1980s, he managed to unite legendary enemies Howard Stern and Don Imus in one thing – their hatred of him – when the three hosted back-to-back-to-back shows on the NY radio station WNBC, with Imus and Stern mocking him from both ends. He also was the victim of one of the great practical jokes of all time. A recurring gag on his show called for him to open a door to random visitors, much as Dean Martin later would. On one show, the crew brought in a naked woman, just out of the view of the audience. Sales checked the on-air monitor, which had been re-routed by the engineers, and thought that day’s episode was being brought to Detroit’s kiddies by the letters T & A.

Only one Pooligan ordered the Soupy of the Day, fittingly a Michigander, and Mike’s Trash List sits in 5th place with a ton of points. James passed up the top 10 by taking Soupy off the menu after the 2006 GHI.

No Doctor

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:39:00 +0000

Or
The Doctor is Out

Or
Physician, Heal Thyself

Or
No, Mr. Bond, I Expect to Die
Joseph Wiseman, best known as the portrayer of a summa cum laude graduate from Evil Medical School, has died at the age of 91. As Dr. Julius No, Wiseman set the template for the refined, megalomaniacal overly talky ubervillian hidden in a semi-secure lair in an exotic locale who can’t quite put away James Bond. He had been the last living Bond nemesis from the Sean Connery canon films. Other roles included the titular Mr. Minsky in The Night They Raided Minsky’s, mobsters on MacGyver and The A-Team, and a starring role in The Twilight Zone episode One More Pallbearer, as a wealthy man trying to get revenge on those who had wronged him by offering space in a bomb shelter during a fictional nuclear attack in exchange for apologies. They refuse, leaving him alone in the shelter and in his psychic break from reality (or stresser, as they would say on Criminal Minds), he imagines an actual attack has occurred.

Oh Captain, Bye Captain

noreply@blogger.com (The Grim Reaper) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:49:00 +0000

“Captain” Lou Albano, star of the comedy classic Wiseguys, has died at the age of 76. The WWF (as in World Wrestling Federation - yeah, suck it panda lovers) Hall of Famer was known for managing such evil-doers as The Iron Shiek, Nikolai Volkoff, Andre the Giant and the British Bulldogs, to 15 tag team and 4 individual championship titles in a “sport” far more organized, and only slightly more orchestrated, than the alphabet soup of professional boxing, all the while taunting audiences and opponents alike. All, only slightly homoerotic. With a long unruly beard, loud outfits and rubber bands dangling from his face, Albano was like a living cartoon, making him the perfect actor to take on the role of a lifetime – Mario in the Super Mario Brothers Super Show! He was adopted by another cartoon-like figure from the 1980s, appearing in videos for Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun, She Bop, Time After Time and The Goonies theme song.