I'll have a sports version coming soon.
Goodbye to Rene'Auberjonois at the age of 79.
The veteran actor was a regular on three television series and film for decades but is best remembered for his role as the prissy "Clayton" on the sitcom "Benson" and for his performance at the shapeshifting
" Odo" on the Star Trek series- Deep Space Nine.
The roles were so opposite that I wondered if Auberjonois could convincingly pull off the role of a security officer, but he was masterful in the role of a key cast member for the entire run.
Auberjonois also played "Father Mulcahy" in the "MASH" film in 1970 was the inspiration for the series.
Goodbye to Caroll Spinney at the age of 85.
Spinney was the voice and hands behind Big Bird and TRS favorite Oscar the Grouch for Sesame Street from the program's 1969 beginnings through 2018, although Spunney's 2018 performances were not televised until last season for Sesame Street's 50th anniversary.
Spinney almost left the show after the first season because he wasn't satisfied with the less than strong pay for working with a show involved with PBS in its infancy.
That was, of course, the first and only season that saw Oscar the Grouch as orange rather than his green fur that started in the second season and continues today.
Goodbye to Michael J. Pollard at the age of 80.
Pollard, a talented character actor, is most remembered for his role as C.W. Moss in the 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde", being the leader of a gang of children on a planet where people die in their teenage years from a plague in an episode of "Star Trek", and as the homeless fellow that freezes to death in "Scrooged".
Pollard also played an inventor in another TRS favorite action film "Tango and Cash" and as "Bug Bailey" in the 90s flop "Dick Tracy".
Pollard was also credited by Michael J. Fox as the inspiration for Fox adding the "J" to his name for professional reasons.
Goodbye to D.C. Fontana at the age of 80.
Fontana was a key person in the original "Star Trek" as a writer and editor on many episodes with writing credits on ten episodes.
Fontana would adopt the name "D.C" as a manner of being gender-neutral in a time where the female writer had a far more difficult time having their works judged fairly and therefore being able to spell scripts.
Leonard Nimoy credited Fontana for coming up with much of the Vulcan culture that was the foundation for the Spock character during the original series network run.
Fontana would later serve as the associate producer on the early 70s Saturday morning "Star Trek The Animated Series, write episodes for "Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine", and novels for the genre' as well.
Goodbye to William Ruckelshaus at the age of 87.
Ruckelshaus was the initial administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, which was started by the Nixon administration in 1970, before being moved to the FBI as acting director and then to the justice department as the deputy attorney general to Eliot Richardson.
It was in that role that saw Richardson and Ruckelshaus resign in the "Saturday Night Massacre" as the duo refused to fire Archibald Cox, who was the special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation.
Ruckelshaus led the charge at the EPA to ban the pesticide "DDT", implemented the Clean Air Act. and sued the Jones and Clark Steel Corporation for their companies dumping vast amounts of chemicals into the Cuyahoga River, which caused the Cuyahoga's toxic damage and included the famous river fire.
Ruckelshaus would return to head the EPA in the Reagan administration and would receive the Medal of Freedom in 2015 by then-President Obama.
Goodbye to Randy Colley at the age of 69.
Colley wrestled as several characters throughout his career but is remembered by most as "Moondog Rex" in the then-territorial WWF.
Colley held the WWF tag teams titles with two partners "King' ( Sailor White) and "Spot" (Larry Latham) for four months in 1981 as the Moondogs under manager Lou Albano won the titles from Tony Garea and Rick Martel in March and dropped them back to the same team in July.
Latham replaced White in the middle of the title reign, which may have been shorter than planned due to the switch, due to White being unable to enter the United States for reasons that have had several rumors, yet nothing established as certain.
Colley would have two other interesting times in the wrestling business with the first being as "The Nightmare" as a masked wrestler managed briefly by Sir Oliver Humperdink and then "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert, held the top title in Mid-South Wrestling, the North American title.
The Nightmare held the North American title for just under four months, defeating Terry Taylor to win the title and losing it on a Louisiana Superdome show to Dick Murdoch.
Colley would return to the WWF as part of a new face-painted team called Demolition and Colley has been credited with the idea of the team in which he partnered with Bill Eadie, who is remembered as the Masked Superstar as well as Demolition.
The story goes that at the first television taping for the new team and the second event as a team, despite the paint, dyed hair and trimmed haircut, fans immediately recognized Colley and began to chant "Moondog"!
The fans recognized Colley again at the next television taping and the decision was made to remove Colley from the team and replaced him with Barry Darsow, who had been wrestling for the NWA as "Krusher Khruschev".
Through the years of shoot interviews and podcasts, I've heard several people that were employed in the WWF front office claim that many of their fans didn't know of the wrestlers in other companies, which I guess is why they figured they could get away from Demolition as a similar-looking team to the NWA's Road Warriors to start with, but I never bought that reasoning for the most part.
However, the one thing that made me think they might have had a point is the Demolition issue.
Fans recognized Colley because he had wrestled for the WWF before, yet they didn't seem to figure out that Darsow was formerly "Khrushchev", despite being on a national television program on WTBS for a few years.
That completes the non-sports passings (plus one) for now.
No boxing this weekend, but we do have four playoff football games with the PPM and although I don't provide regular coverage of the New Orleans Saints, I have written playoff coverage in the past and I may do so this year as well.
I also have a sports passing post and yet another regular cleaning of the inbox, so hopefully, I can get caught up some time this week.
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