Dunking Baskets With the Lord

Jim Varney
June 15, 1949 - Feb. 10, 2000

Buddy the Wonder Dog
1988? - Feb. 10, 1998

So, the questions have been asked:

How long can you do this?
When will you run out of interesting people and miss a day?
How many dead people are there, anyway?

Well, today was almost that day. The basic premise of Dead Person of the Day, if I haven't given it already, is to discuss a deceased person either on the date of their birth or their death. Or, in special cases make a mention of them if they just died a day or two before. Or, whenever I feel like it...something like that.

So, I looked at my secret reserve of celebrity death and birth dates, and the only two for February 10 that stood out were a dead actor and a dead dog. So I thought, why not give them both shouts-out?

I freely admit, Jim Varney's presence in all those Ernest movies and commercials was pretty annoying. Truth is, he was a trained Shakespearean actor and was pretty versatile. He just got stuck in the Ernest role and it's the only thing he's really remembered for. His most notable non-Ernest role was Jed Clampett in the awful and forgettable 1995 Beverly Hillbillies movie. If I am to believe what I read, he was also good friends with Robin Williams, but I don't hold this against him. A heavy smoker, he developed lung cancer and died at age 50. At the time of his death, he had began work on Ernest the Pirate, but it was shelved and never released. I don't really know how to feel about that. I mean, I'm sorry the guy died...but on the other hand, no Ernest movie. Ya know?

Another cancer victim was Buddy the Wonder Dog, star of 1997's Air Bud. This film was the heartwarming (or is that heartworming?) story of an abused dog who becomes a basketball star. Buddy had been spotted by producers on a David Letterman "Stupid Pet Tricks" segment dunking basketballs and a film was written for him. In fact, there have been at least six sequels made, with the dog learning a different sport in each of them. But of course Buddy got cancer and died at age 9 ten years ago today...so all those other dogs are impostors. Bitches.

So yeah. I don't really have a unifying theme here. I probably could find one if I wanted, like "cancer is bad", or something of that nature.

So, don't get cancer. Or you'll be dead, and some moron will write an idiotic blog post about you and put your picture next to a dog.