Sunday, November 28, 2010

SURELY YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS:  But I am serious: comic actor Leslie Nielsen has died at the age of 84 of pneumonia-related complications.  Few performers made such brilliant use of oblivious deadpan as a comic tool.  Thank goodness the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team recognized it, so we could enjoy exchange after exchange like this one in The Naked Gun:
Frank: It's the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girls dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.
Jane: Goodyear?
Frank: No, the worst.
And one more:



16 comments:

  1. Meghan9:39 PM

    Aw, that sucks. RIP, Lt. Drebbin.

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  2. isaac_spaceman9:46 PM

    Somebody needs to link us to a montage of the fake freeze-frames at the end of Police Story.

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  3. Joseph Finn10:07 PM

    "What's that smell?" "Oh, that would be me. I've been swimming in raw sewage. I love it!"

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  4. D'Arcy10:24 PM

    Meghan said it all. He will be missed.

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  5. Growing up on Airplane! and watching my share of the Naked Gun series, and then coming to "classic" sci-fi rather later in life, I was stunned to find him in Forbidden Planet.  I still expect that movie to be funny in a Naked Gun kind of way and not just in a weird old sci-fi kind of way.  It's like a pre-set that I can't reset.  RIP.

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  6. Dan Suitor10:39 PM

    Alright, with Leslie Nielsen down who are the next two for this cluster of three dead celebrities?

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  7. Joseph Finn11:02 PM

    Someone on Metafilter said they had the same reaction to seeing him on M*A*S*H, like at some point his lines would take that one degree from normal twist.

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  8. Dane Cook!  (If you're taking suggestions, that is.  If you wanted a guess I'd be stumped.)  And Andy Dick.

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  9. Paul Tabachneck10:07 AM

    .... Now THAT's service.

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  10. Ed Asner, Ernest Borgnine.

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  11. Looks like Irvin Kershner is #2...

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  12. Dan Suitor1:11 PM

    I just came here to update my post, but you beat me to it.

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  13. Dan Suitor1:12 PM

    If Ernest Borginine (92-year-old sex machine!) has survived this long, chances are he's just not going to die at all.

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  14. spacewoman3:01 PM

    Everything I see reminds me of her.

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