Mmmm...Hulka Burger.

Warren Oates
July 5, 1928 - April 3, 1982
Happy 81st Birthday to our Big Toe, Sgt. Hulka.

Warren Oates was tough. He was a man. He smoked and drank and ate red meat every day of his life. He played tough guys on TV, and even tougher guys in the movies. That's because in the movies they let you kill people and say dirty words. Yeah, all of them...even that one. I know which one you're thinking. Turns out I'm a man, too. And I learned all the mannish manly things I know by watching macho tough guys like Warren Oates.

While he's best known as Sgt. Hulka in Stripes, he played John Dillinger in Dillinger, Lyle Gorch in The Wild Bunch, Specs O'Keefe in The Brink's Job, and Frank Stewart in Race With the Devil. That must have been the toughest role of all, because he played Loretta Swit's husband. You know how freakin' tough of a nail-spitting real man you gotta be to put it to Loretta Swit? Or how great of an actor you have to be to pretend to do so? You have my infinite respect, sir.

But that was just in the movies. On TV, he was the go-to guy when an actor didn't want to (or was too dead to) reprise his movie role for a made-for-TV movie. He was Rooster Cogburn in True Grit: A Further Adventure and took Bogart's role in the 1977 TV remake of The African Queen. He was even in the 1973 musical adaptation of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, playing Muff Potter. Are you aware of what kind of bad ass you have to be to play a character named "Muff Potter"?!? You're the kind of bad ass that all other bad asses have a picture of on their walls that says "Our Leader". That's what kind of bad ass you are.

And he worked all the time. Even after he died of a massive heart attack, he refused to stop working. "Dead? That ain't gonna stop me!", he might have been heard to say, and his projects continued to appear. He was even seen kicking substantial hiney a year after his death in Blue Thunder. The last thing with him in it appeared in 1985, and then he retired. Take that, Hollywood girly-men!

But the question I have is this. Warren Oates and Katherine Helmond were born on the same day. I mean the same day, in the same year. She was the man-hungry Mona on Who's The Boss, which hadn't even aired yet when he died. But he's been dead for twenty-seven years now and she's still going strong. What's up with that?

Perhaps it's as Neil Young said...it's better to burn out, than do a sitcom with Tony Danza.

Fourth of July Firecracker Deathmatch!

Oh, sure. Everybody takes July 4th off. Well, not me, mister. Other blogs might take national holidays off, but I'll not be caught with my figurative pants around my metaphorical ankles. Death is the biggest thing going, and it never stops. I'm here to keep up with it. And by "keep up", I mean to take swipes at famous people years (or sometimes decades) after their deaths...or whenever I feel like it.

So, in this special holiday edition of Dead Person of the Day, I have decided to put a number of July 4 fatalities up against each other...just for kicks. This is not the way I usually do things, but I didn't feel like doing a "real" post. Enjoy. Or, not.

Barry White
Sep. 12, 1944 - July 4, 2003
vs.
Jesse Helms
Oct. 18, 1921 - July 4, 2008
Now, it's not likely that the paths of white supremacist North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms and chocolate mountain of love Barry White ever crossed. Jesse wouldn't have approved of White's sexy ways, and Barry would be too busy having sex and busting out soul hits to even notice. Jesse would be advocating "whites only" drinking fountains and cutting funding for AIDS research, but Barry would be selling 100 million records and making sweet, sweet love. While Jesse would be opposing a national holiday for Martin Luther King, Barry would be busy appearing on The Simpsons and being the commercial spokesman for Arby's. It's not hard to decide whose side I would fall on in such a battle. Barry White all the way, bitches. He was just too sexy and soulful to vote otherwise.

John Adams
Oct. 30, 1735 - July 4, 1826
vs.
Thomas Jefferson
Apr. 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826
Thomas Jefferson...third President of the United States. Political genius, founder of the University of Virginia, father of freakin' democracy. John Adams...second President of the United States. So-so leader whose cousin Samuel brewed kickass beer, accidental war hero, had his ass handed to him by Jefferson in the 1800 election. Both men died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Adams was on his deathbed but spoke of warmly Jefferson, not knowing that Jefferson had totally owned him and grabbed the spotlight by dying hours earlier. Ye TMZ completely had the Jefferson death up already and the Adams story was way down at the bottom of the page. Jefferson for the win...since he's not only on the nickel, but the freakin' $2 bill. How many denominations of money is John Adams on? None, that's how many. Also had a kickass sitcom, The Jeffersons, loosely based on his life. Movin' on up, Tommy J!

James Monroe
Apr. 28, 1758 - July 4, 1831
"Oooooh, I'm James Monroe. I have a doctrine! I want to be like the other Presidents and die on July 4, too! No one remembers me!"

Please. The biggest thing that happened during your Presidency was the acquisition of Florida. You want that to be your legacy?!? You make Millard Fillmore look like Vin Diesel. Point goes to no one. It's just pathetic.

Worst Stooge Ever.

"Curly Joe" DeRita
July 12, 1909 - July 3, 1993

Following the deaths of Stooges Curly Howard and Shemp Howard, and the lackluster performance of Shemp's replacement Joe Besser, nightclub comic Joe DeRita was recruited by Moe Howard and Larry Fine in 1958 to become the sixth member of the Three Stooges.

There's a lot of debate among Stoogeophiles as to who was worse, Joe Besser or "Curly Joe" DeRita. My money's on DeRita, because while Besser's contract forbade him from being physically abused by Larry and Moe, he at least had a comedic presence. DeRita was just a fat guy who was out of his element, which was telling dirty jokes in Las Vegas. While his act may have killed, he brought nothing to the Stooges, which by the late '50s were making movies for kids.

And the movies were terrible. The Stooges were done until the old Three Stooges shorts were syndicated to television in 1957. This brought a new wave of popularity to the team, which had been out of work since Columbia shut down its short-subjects division. So the movies, made to capitalize on their new fame, were aimed squarely at kids. Movies like The Three Stooges Meet Hercules, Have Rocket, Will Travel, and Snow White and the Three Stooges. You get the idea. Awful.

It's ironic that Curly Joe was with the Stooges for much longer than any other "third Stooge". He was still a member when Moe died in 1975 while planning a new film. In fact, he outlived every other member of the team, causing one to ponder the possible non-existence of a comedy deity.

The worst sin committed by Joe DeRita was not that he never found the Stooges funny, though he admitted this in later interviews. The thing he did that forever damned him in my eyes was puting on a nightclub act with two lesser-known fellow comics called "The New Three Stooges" after Moe died. It was a failure, as it should have been. No Moe Howard, no Stooges.

If there's a silver lining to Curly Joe DeRita's tenure with the Three Stooges, it's that it can be completely ignored. The movies are not part of the Columbia shorts, and it would be easy enough to go the rest of your life without encountering them. The Three Stooges, you say? Yes, I remember. Moe, Larry, Curly, then Shemp, then Joe. Broke up in 1957. Move along...nothing to see here.

Just like those Star Wars prequels. You betcha. Never happened.

Why They Don't Let Chicks Fly

Amelia Earhart
July 24, 1897 – (missing) July 2, 1937

There was a huge Wikipedia entry on pioneering female aviator Amelia Earhart, who vanished into thin air on July 2, 1937...and sure, I could have quoted from it liberally. But I'm not about to do this. It's not that I don't trust Wikipedia. I mean, hell, it's full of lies, but that's never stopped me before. What stopped me was that the story of Amelia Earhart is a simple one. You don't need paragraph after paragraph of boring words to tell her tale.

In the end it's as simple as this: She had a plane. She had a womb. She disappeared.

That's really all we need to know. She and her co-pilot Fred Noonan went poof and the entire freakin' navy spent weeks looking for them, to no avail. There are tons of conspiracy theories stating that she faked her death, was abducted by aliens, became Tokyo Rose, was captured by cannibals, what have you. In truth she was probably trying to tune in soap operas on the plane's radio and caused the plane to dive right into the ocean. Am I right, fellas? Those chicks and their "stories"? It boggles the mind.

As a result, Amelia Earhart is the first, last, and only famous female aviator. There are no others because this one didn't work out so well. Am I wrong? I don't think I'm wrong.

It's like Danica Patrick. We're all pulling for her, but the first time she goes into a wall (God forbid), you'll never see another female Indy driver. It's just the way it goes. Women have equal rights, but not equal equal rights. Even after all this time it's not the same. Never will be.

Now, I'm not gonna say that women should be barefoot and pregnant. That's silly. I'm not a barbarian. Of course you can wear shoes. You're still gonna have to mow the lawn, after all. Now go make me a turkey pot pie, chop chop!

Sassy TV Waitresses of the '70s, Part 1

Shirley Hemphill
July 1, 1947 - Dec 10, 1999

I want to go out on a limb here and say that I never found What's Happening!! to be a classic of American television. I mean, I saw every episode multiple times, but that doesn't mean they were good. It just meant that it was on between Batman and Gilligan's Island in the afternoons and I had no life. It was a terrible show. I can see why this is controversial, but an argument can be made that there is a valid reason the cast has never appeared on Inside the Actor's Studio.

Much of the show's heat came from the interplay between fat teenager Rerun (Fred Berry) and fat waitress Shirley (Shirley Hemphill). These were a series of fat jokes they exchanged, but you could feel the raw sexual tension between them. You just knew there was something under the surface. There was fire in their eyes. When those cameras went off, it was wall-to-wall naked brown flesh...and lots of it.

I'm also going to go further out on the same limb and say that Shirley Hemphill never turned me on. She was all right, but I never found her joke delivery to my liking. Even after What's Happening!! ended after three seasons and she'd gotten her own short lived show (One in a Million) she didn't seem to grow. She spent the rest of her life playing essentially the same character (and literally played the same character in the 1985-88 syndicated sitcom What's Happening Now!!), but she had her moment, and she made a big enough impression that I'm writing these words about her a decade after her death.

On her TV show the Monday after Shirley Hemphill died, Rosie O'Donnell paid tribute to her by mentioning that she helped Rosie land her first paying gig in comedy. A sweet tribute, but Rosie had the hottest show on daytime TV at the time and never had her on when she was alive. She was also mentioned in the credits of Scary Movie, wherein her good friends the Wayans brothers dedicated the film to her. And misspelled her name.

If you really want to know how big of an impression she made on me, I'll grant you this. July 1, 2000 Walter Matthau died. July 1, 2004 Marlon Brando died. As a rule of this blog, I would have been able to write about them. But instead I saw Shirley Hemphill's name listed (July 1 being the date of her birth) and knew that there was no more important person I could write about today.

The Blog That Almost Died. A Year Later.

This blog was abandoned a year ago. Well, not really abandoned. Put off and forgotten. I've decided to bring it back. As it is I've missed literally hundreds of opportunities to write about my second-favorite subject, dead celebrities. My first-favorite subject, boobs, will be covered elsewhere.

People I've missed writing about in the last year, and mind you it could have been comedy gold...

George Carlin, Michael Jackson, David Carradine, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Dom Deluise, that Oxy Clean guy, Bea Arthur, that other tiny old lady from Golden Girls, and God knows who else. Many, many dead people have slipped away, both literally and figuratively, from the grasp of this blog. But no time to look back. Remember the idea of this blog is to capitalize on the very day that a person died, or that the dead person was born. It's all about the day. New daily posts will begin on this blog starting tomorrow, July 1. So, we begin again.

And when I say "we", I'm referring to me and the evil voices in my head.

Why Couldn't it Have Been Keith Olbermann?!?

Tim Russert
May 7, 1950 - June 13, 2008

I want to be perfectly clear on this: I wasn't a huge Tim Russert fan. Not that he was a bad guy, or that I was opposed to his politics...but the simple truth was, I didn't really know who he was. In fact, in my mind Meet The Press host Tim Russert and Hardball host Chris Matthews were one. To me, they were literally interchangeable. Who hosted Hardball? Beats me. That fat NBC guy? What's his name? Oh yeah, Tim Russert.

Now...not so much, I suppose. Tim Russert had just returned from a vacation to Italy with his family and was recording some audio this morning when he had a massive heart attack and died. Which is indeed a bummer, even though I couldn't really pick him out of a lineup. Everyone else in the media seems to suddenly have an enormous amount of respect for him.

Maybe even Keith Olbermann will have a thoughtful, tearful tribute to him on Countdown tonight. And, maybe, just maybe, the vengeful spirit of Edward R. Murrow will appear and drag Keith's sorry ass screaming down to Hell, Ghost-style.