FREBERG REQUEST

Legendary voice actor and comedy-advertising pioneer Stan Freberg departed last week at 88. In honor of this inside-the-system iconoclast…

Monster-of-the-Week: …this week let’s acknowledge Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent—the original puppet version from Time for Beany, the late ‘40s/early ‘50s TV fave, performed and voiced by Freberg.

Cecil was one of the earlier monsters of my experience; I had a stuffed Cecil when I was very small, although he was based on the later cartoon version, Beany and Cecil. Anyway, here are Cecil and Harry Truman performing “Ragg Mopp."

SIMPLY THE BEST

RIP to character actor James Best, passed on at 88.

Although his long career included three episodes of Twilight Zone, the recurring part of guitarist Jim Lindsey on The Andy Griffith Show, and roles in movies like The Naked and the Dead, Shock Corridor, Sounder, Hooper and Ode to Billy Joe, among many others, he will likely be, er, best remembered as nitwit Sherriff Rosco P. Coltrain on The Dukes of Hazzard.

But here…

Monster-of-the-Week: …we’ll also remember him as the courageous and resourceful hero of the 1959 late-night laugh-riot The Killer Shrews.

 This representative of the title characters is this week’s honoree…

Poor Best must not only contend with the oversized mammals—obviously played by large dogs in shrew drag—but with the panicky treacheries of villain Ken Curtis.

If you’ve never seen this unintentional comedy classic, you can watch it in its entirety here.

RIP also to the great voice actor and satirist Stan Freberg, passed on also at 88.

Watch this space for a Monster-of-the-Week in his honor...