Category Archives: News

Tasmanian Tiger: Newly Restored Footage

RIP Harold Reid

The Statler Brothers (Harold is upper left)

Harold Reid, a member of the legendary country group The Statler Brothers, died Friday (April 24) following a long battle with kidney failure. He was 80.

Truck spills 216,000 dice on the road!

Photo via Trivium Studios

Read the rest here on Kotaku!

RIP Rhoda

Valerie Harper (August 22, 1939 – August 30, 2019)

Valerie Harper was an American actress. She began her career as a dancer on Broadway, making her debut in the musical Take Me Along in 1959. Harper is best remembered for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–77) and its spin-off Rhoda (1974–78). For her work on Mary Tyler Moore, she thrice received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, and later received the award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on Rhoda.

RIP Dr. John

No more “Brain Salad Surgery”. 🙁

Malcolm John Rebennack (November 20, 1941 – June 6, 2019), better known by his stage name Dr. John, was an American singer and songwriter. His music combined blues, pop, jazz, boogie-woogie and rock and roll.

Excerpt from the New York Times obituary:

Onstage as Dr. John, he adorned himself with snakeskin, beads and brightly colored feathers, and his shows blended Mardi Gras bonhomie with voodoo mystery.

He recorded more than 30 albums, including jazz projects (“Bluesiana Triangle,” 1990, with the drummer Art Blakey and the saxophonist David Newman), solo piano records (“Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack,” 1981) and his version of Afropop (“Locked Down,” 2012). His 1989 album of standards, “In a Sentimental Mood,” earned him the first of six Grammy Awards, for his duet with Rickie Lee Jones on “Makin’ Whoopee!”

His only Top 40 single, “Right Place Wrong Time,” reached No. 9 on the Billboard chart in 1973. In 2011, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

RIP Doris Day

Que Sera, Sera


Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019)

Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress, singer, and animal welfare activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, “Sentimental Journey” and “My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time” with Les Brown & His Band of Renown. She left Brown to embark on a solo career and recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967. She was 97.

I knew her from Que Sera, Sera. Farewell.

RIP Ensign Parker

At the ripe old age of 85, our beloved Tim Conway has finally gotten promoted. Thank you for years of entertainment in every way possible.


Thomas Daniel “Tim” Conway (December 15, 1933 – May 14, 2019)
Tim Conway (right) with Ernest Borgnine (left) on McHale’s Navy

And, of course, “Snorkie!”:

Wikipedia Article

RIP Chewbacca

A Hero

A commercial truck carrying chemicals used as fertilizer exploded Wednesday on a highway in Arkansas, killing its driver. And while authorities are still investigating the situation, people are already calling the man a hero. At the time of his death, 63-year-old Randall McDougal was trying to extinguish the flame after refusing to abandon the vehicle and taking it away from populated areas.

Please read the rest of the story over on Bored Panda!

RIP Jan-Michael Vincent


Jan-Michael Vincent (July 15, 1945 – February 10, 2019)

Jan-Michael Vincent was an American screen actor. He is best known for having played an attack helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke on the television series Airwolf (1984–86).

Wikipedia Article

5 Teenagers using their heads!

https://youtu.be/NpCLea9Qxwg

Read the rest on Fox (yes, Fox) News

Daryl Dragon of Captain and Tennille dead at 76

“Captain” Daryl Dragon and then wife Toni Tennille.

Daryl Dragon of the duo the Captain & Tennille, died Tuesday in Prescott, Arizona aged 76.

Dragon’s ex-wife, Toni Tennille, was at his side.

“Love Will Keep Us Together,” the title track from the duo’s 1975 debut album, reached No. 1 in July of 1975 and won the top Record of the Year prize at the following year’s Grammy Awards. “Do That to Me One More Time,” the last of their big hits, also reached the top of the chart, in 1979. In the interval, the Captain & Tennille reached the top 10 with “Muskrat Love,” “The Way I Want to Touch You,” “Lonely Night (Angel Face)” and “Shop Around.”

His stage name was said to have been coined by Mike Love when Dragon was a keyboard player for the Beach Boys, always wearing his signature Captain’s hat.

RIP Laverne (Penny Marshall)

Carole Penny Marshall (October 15, 1943 – December 17, 2018)

Penny Marshall was an American actress, director and producer. She was the daughter of Marjorie Marshall, a tap dance teacher, and Tony Marshall, a film director and producer. Her parents’ background in entertainment, along with her brother, Garry Marshall’s, background as a comedy writer and her sister’s background as a casting director and producer, gave rise to Marshall’s career in the industry. She came to notice in the 1970s for her role as Laverne DeFazio on the television sitcom Laverne & Shirley (1976–1983), receiving three nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy for her portrayal.

Marshall progressed to directing films in the 1980s, making her directorial debut with Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986) before directing Big (1988), which became the first film directed by a woman to gross more than $100 million at the U.S. box office. Her subsequent directing credits included Awakenings (1990), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, A League of Their Own (1992), Renaissance Man (1994), The Preacher’s Wife (1996), and Riding in Cars with Boys (2001). She also produced Cinderella Man (2005) and Bewitched (2005), as well as episodes of the sitcom According to Jim.

Read her Wikipedia Article here.

Now THAT’s a GOOD BOY!

A good boy who survived the deadliest and most destructive fire in California’s history was found weeks later, apparently guarding the site of what was his family’s home.

Read the rest over on Gizmodo here

Scottish Wildcat Kitten born at Chester Zoo!

Wikipedia Article on the Scottish Wildcat here

Story on CTVNews (Canada) here

RIP Roy Clark

Roy Linwood Clark (April 15, 1933 – November 15, 2018)

Roy Clark, the legendary guitarist and singer, Country Music Hall of Fame and Grand Ole Opry member, Grammy, ACM and CMA award winner and co-host of the “Hee Haw” television series, died today at the age of 85 due to complications from pneumonia at home in Tulsa, Okla.

He can get back to Pickin’ and a Grinnin’ with Buck Owens now.

RIP Stan Lee

Stan Lee, the legendary writer, editor and publisher of Marvel Comics whose fantabulous but flawed creations made him a real-life superhero to comic book lovers everywhere, has died. He was 95. 

Lee, who began in the business in 1939 and created or co-created Black Panther, Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Mighty Thor, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Daredevil and Ant-Man, among countless other characters, died early Monday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

RIP Sgt Apone!

Al Matthews, the real-life military man who portrayed the no-nonsense, cigar-chomping Sgt. Apone in the sci-fi horror classic Aliens, has died. He was 75.

His performance in James Cameron’s 1986 sci-fi horror film that endeared him to audiences. Near the movie’s beginning, the crew of the USS Sulaco awake from their deep sleep and Apone instantly reaches for his cigar and shouts instructions to the drowsy crew.

RIP Burt Reynolds. RIP Bandit

Burt Reynolds with Sally Field in 1977 (Smokey and the Bandit)

Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. (February 11, 1936 – September 6, 2018) was an American actor, director and producer. He first rose to prominence starring in television series such as Gunsmoke (1962–1965), Hawk (1966), and Dan August (1970–1971).

His breakout film role was as Lewis Medlock in Deliverance (1972). Reynolds played the leading role in a number of subsequent box office hits, such as The Longest Yard (1974), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Semi-Tough (1977), Hooper (1978), Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), The Cannonball Run (1981) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982).

After a few box office failures, Reynolds returned to television, starring in the sitcom Evening Shade (1990–1994). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Boogie Nights (1997).

Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise and Jack Elam in The Cannonball Run

Wikipedia Link

Joe Campanella RIP

 

Joseph Campanella (November 21, 1924 – May 16, 2018)

Joseph Anthony Campanella was an American character actor. He appeared in more than 200 television and film roles from the early 1950s to 2009. Campanella was best remembered for his role as Joe Turino in Guiding Light and as Harper Deveraux on the soap opera Days of Our Lives, a role he starred in from 1987 to 1988.