Dead or Not Dead

OK, so I certainly am not intending to stymie any lingering thoughts on movies, but I've actually had another post written for a while that I was waiting for the Roundtable to be done with to post. In any case, feel free to keep commenting on movies. My Netflix queue has already gotten a few additions to it and I'd always like more.

So, as everybody knows, a few weeks ago George Carlin died. I really have nothing to say in tribute to him that hasn't already been said, and better, by 1000 other people, namely all the comedians performing today that he influenced. Christy and I got a chance to see him last year on what turns out to be his final tour. I'd love to say that he was amazing, but honestly, he was just a shell of his former self. If I had to be even more honest, I'd have to say that he hadn't really been at the top of his game for about 15 years. Right after his death, HBO Comedy ran all of his stand-up specials back-to-back for a week straight. I'd seen them all before but it was great to get to see them in sequence. And it's absolutely amazing to see the transformation that occurs. Carlin always had a political bent to him, but in his younger days he also had a zaniness and such physical skill with his gestures, facial expressions, and above all his perfect timing that even if he said something politics-wise that you didn't agree with it was still hard to stop yourself from laughing. Gradually, though, you see the zany, goofy side of him give way to a more curmudgeony, bitter personality and, even though a lot of it was still funny, the balance that made him so much better than almost everybody else was forever gone. And you can almost pinpoint the exact moment it happens: in What Am I Doing in New Jersey (1988) and Doin' It Again (1990) he still has that balance - barely - but then by Jammin' In New York (1992) it's gone for good. Just looking at the titles of his last 4 specials tells you everything you need to know: You Are All Diseased, Complaints and Grievances, Life Is Worth Losing, and It's Bad For Ya!. The point here is that I think there's a lot of people my age and younger that are only familiar with the "lesser Carlin" and don't realize how unbelievably awesome and ground-breaking and, above all, downright hilarious he was for most of his career. If you fall into that category (or even if you don't) do yourself a favor and queue up some of his older specials in your Netflix account: I guarantee you won't regret it!(Note: guarantee void in Illinois)

In any case, I was trying to think about a way to pay tribute to him in a somewhat unique way. I think one of his hallmarks throughout his career was how he never shied away from taboo topics, including (and later, especially) death. So, in the name of morbid humor, I thought it'd be fun to play a round of everybody's favorite game: Dead or Not Dead? Below is a list of 15 actors (all of which were alive as of 1/1/2000); see how many you're correctly able to classify withtheir current breathing status:

1. Abe Vigoda
2. Conrad Bain (aka Mr. Drummond from Diff’rent Strokes)
3. Andy Griffith
4. Bob Hope
5. Roy Scheider
6. Richard Harris
7. Peter O’Toole
8. Alec Guiness
9. James Doohan (aka Scotty from Star Trek)
10. James Garner
11. Charles Bronson
12. Gene Wilder
13. Don Adams (aka the original Maxwell Smart)
14. Bob Newhart
15. John Astin (aka the original Gomez Adams)


OK, and just to break up the questions from the answers, here's this:




1. Not dead! This has been a running joke since People magazine erroneously reported him dead in 1982. The website abevigoda.com is a single page that only lists his current status.

2. Not dead! Given the fate of the rest of the cast of Diff’rent Strokes, I thought that for sure he didn’t have a chance. As a humorous tidbit, the last thing he has ever appeared in (to date) was the last episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air where he and Gary Coleman (as Mr. Drummond and Arnold Jackson) showed up to buy the Banks’ mansion. What I wouldn’t have given to have been in that writer’s room when that idea was pitched. “I have absolutely no idea how to end this show and, let’s face it, no one’s watching anyway. Do you remember that show from 10 years ago with that rich white guy and the really short black kid? Let’s just have them show up and buy the place . . .”

3. Not dead and still working! Although, he has started playing characters that die during the movie, and that’s gotta weigh on you after a while.

4. Dead (7/27/03), though not before making it past the century mark. Hey, give me 100 Bob Hope or George Burns years and I’ll die happy.

5. Dead (2/10/08); this was one of those where when I read that he died I thought “hasn’t he been dead for like 20 years.” I mean, does anybody remember him in any movie other than Jaws?

6. Dead (10/25/02); most younger people would only know him as Dumbledore in the first 2 Harry Potter movies, but this guy was legendary for his drunken debauchery in his early days and it’s a wonder that he made it to 72. As just one example, from a story reporting his death it was said that “film directors would add at least a week to their shooting schedules if Mr. Harris was a member of the cast, just to account for the days they assumed he would be drunk.”

7. Not dead and also still working! Although he looks like he’s about 95, he’s actually only 76. I assume that this is a direct result of hanging out with the afore mentioned Richard Harris so much in his early days.

8. Dead (8/5/00). Although rumor has it that when he was struck down he became more powerful than we can possibly imagine.

9. Beamed up on 7/20/05. I thought he was in his mid-70s when he died but discovered he was actually 85. Perhaps I thought that because I couldn’t possibly imagine that he was a 74-year-old still playing an engineer in Star Trek: Generations in 1994.

10. The original Maverick is still alive and kicking! According to imdb he’s been in over 90 tvs and movies, yet I can’t think of a single other thing he’s been in besides that.

11. Dead (8/30/03). Insert your own Death Wish joke here.

12. Not dead but retired. How do you survive See No Evil, Hear No Evil without tarnishing your legacy? You make The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory before that. His auto-biography Kiss Me Like a Stranger is a really good, generally light-hearted read.

13. Would you believe not dead? If not, you’d be right, cause he is (9/25/05)

14. Not dead, though by looking at his imdb page picture you wouldn’t know it.

15. Not dead! Noteworthy because, besides the kids, he’s the only original Addams Family member still alive. He even outlived his Gomez Addams successor (Raul Julia). That’s creepy (as well as kooky, mysterious, and ooky). Actually, what the hell does ooky mean? That’s a filler “we’ll put this in here till we think of the real line” line if I’ve ever heard one!