What with all of the marathons on today (including Ab Fab on BBC America, and of course the Twilight Zone on Sci Fi – though I wouldn’t mind if they threw in some Outer Limits, too), there’s really no point in paying attention to the Sunday Boobleheads. Let’s face it, you know it’s just gonna be all Saddam, Saddam, Saddam, and how our preznit singlehandedly tracked him down, pulled him out of his hole, and then personally pulled Saddam’s beating heart of his chest and ate it in front of him while he died. And, gee, this will make everything all OK now, if you just give it another six months, and another 40,000 troops. Honest.

So, instead of the Sunday lineups, I’ll continue running down the deaths of 2006.

July

Frequent Hollywood Square Jan Murray died on July 2nd at the age of 89. On the 3rd, 89-yr old former basketball player Dick Dickey died (never heard of him, to tell you the truth, but “Dick Dickey died” is kind of fun to say – no offense to Dick’s wife or any little Dickeys running around out there). Social Worker and pioneer in bringing hospice care to the United States, Zelda Foster, passed away at home at the age of 71 on the 4th of July. She introduced end-of-life care to VA hospitals, and was the co-founder of the first Hospice Association, in NY. On the 6th, Kasey Rogers – the second actress to play Larry Tate’s wife, Louise, on Bewitched – died of a stroke at the age of 80.

Syd Barret, age 60, ended his troubled life on July 7th, as did Frank P. Zeidler, 93, who, as mayor of Milwaukee from 1948-1960, was the last Socialist Party candidate to be elected mayor of a major city. On the ninth, Milan Williams – keyboard player and founding member of the Commodores, died at the age of 58, from cancer. Also on that day, former Black Panther Michael Zinzun – only 57 years old – died in his sleep. Actor Barnard Hughes – my favorite was his grandpa character in the Lost Boys – passed away at the age of 90 on July 11th (which is also my anniversary). On the 13th, 87 year old Red Buttons died from vascular disease, and two days after that, Robert H. Brooks, chairman of Hooters, died – happily, no doubt – at the somewhat ironic age of 69. Mickey Spillane bought it from the Big “C” on July 17th, no doubt surrounded by dames, and a hard-boiled dick or two. He was 88. Jack Warden – one of many dead people who will show up during today’s Twilight Zone Marathon (he’s in the one where he’s convicted of murder, and sentenced to 40 years on an asteroid, but they give him a female android to keep him company) – passed away from heart and kidney failure at the age of 85 on July 19th. The very next day, the co-inventor of the Philly cheesesteak and co-founder of Pat’s King of Steaks cheesesteak emporium, Harry Olivieri, died at the age of 90.

August

Space physicist James Van Allen – for whom the Van Allen radiation belt is named – passed away at the age of 91 on August 9th. Talk show host and former singer with the Kay Kyser band (Kay was apparently a dude, but that was way before my time), Mike Douglas, died on August 11th. He was 81. Actor Bruno Kirby (my favorite was his portrayal of Lt. Hauk in Good Morning, Vietnam) died from leukemia at the age of 57 on August 14th. Jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson died on August 23rd, age 78, from kidney and liver failure. Joseph Stefano, who wrote the screenplay for Psycho and was co-creator of The Outer Limits, died on the 25th at the age of 84. On the 28th, Mary Lee Robb Cline, who played Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve’s niece Marjorie on The Great Gildersleeve, died at the age of 80 from heart failure. 90-yr old actor Glenn Ford died on August 30th.

September

Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin pissed off one animal too many (and this one rather unintentionally) on September 4th, getting nailed by a stingray at the age of 44. Pat Corley, the proprietor of Phil’s on Murphy Brown, died from CHF at the age of 76. On September 13th, Kimveer Gill opened fire outside the entrance to Dawson College in Montreal, shooting 20 people before killing himself. 18 year old student Anastasia De Souza died at the scene. That same day, former Texas Governor Ann Richards, 73, died of esophageal cancer. On September 14th, former Mr. Universe, ex-husband of Jayne Mansfield, and father of Mariska Hargitay (Law and Order: SVU), Mickey Hargitay, passed away at the age of 80. JFK’s sister (and ex-wife of Peter Lawford), Patricia Kennedy Lawford, died from pneumonia at the age of 82. Golfer Byron Nelson passed away at the age of 94 on September 26th.

October

Buck O’Neil, 94-yr old player and manager in the Negro baseball leagues, died of heart failure and bone marrow cancer on October 6th, having been denied entrance to the Baseball Hall of Fame. On October 14th, a pair of 69-yr olds died: musician Freddy “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” Fender died of lung cancer, and Gerry Studds, the first openly gay U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts (where else, right?), died of a pulmonary embolism. On the 20th, Jane Wyatt, one of the most famous TV mothers of all time (I refer to her being Mr. Spock’s mother, of course, though some may also remember her from Father Knows Best), passed away at the age of 96. Pitcher Joe Niekro died of a brain aneurysm at the age of 61 on October 27th. The next day, 89-yr old Red Auerbach of Boston Celtics fame died of a heart attack, and former heavyweight champ Trevor Berbick was murdered at the age of 51. And, on Halloween, Pittsburgh mob boss Michael Genovese died at the age of 87, while 90-yr old PW Botha – former Prime Minister of South Africa – died of a heart attack.

November

On November 1st, William Styron – author of Sophie’s Choice, among other things – died of pneumonia at the age of 81. Ed Bradley, 65, died of leukemia on November 9th, and 87-yr old Jack Palance died the next day. Mick Jagger’s dad Basil died on November 11th (he was 93). Mr. Free Market, Milton Friedman, died of heart failure at the age of 94 on November 16th. 78-yr old blues singer Ruth Brown died the following day, as did former football coach, Bo Schembechler, who was 77. On November 17th, the career of Michael Richards – such as it was – died a sudden, ugly death during a standup “performance” at the Laugh Factory (my advice, claim you suffer from Turretts). The King of the Hobos, Maurice W. Graham, died on the 18th, at the age of 89.

On November 20th, director Robert Altman, 81, passed away, from leukemia, Chris Hayward (also 81) – the creator of Dudley Do-Right and co-creator of The Munsters – also died, and former NFL star Andre Waters committed suicide, at the age of 44. That clown Emmett Kelly Jr (and son of that clown Emmett Kelly) died of pneumonia at the age of 83 on November 29th.

December (so far)

Unless any new candidates came in (or, rather, went out) during the night, here’s who’s died this month. On the first, Sid Raymond – the voice of Baby Huey – died at the age of 97, as did Ali Khan Samsudin, the so-called “Snake King” of Malaysia. He died from, um, a venomous snakebite. On December 4th, 35-yr old James Kim died, trying to get help for his family. Rather fittingly, on December 7th Frank Tremaine, the reporter who broke news of the attack on Pearl Harbor, died at the age of 92 from pulmonary illness. Also that day, J. B. Hunt, Sr., 79, – founder of, well, J.B. Hunt, died from head injuries due to a fall, and former U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick died of CHF at the age of 80. On the 10th, Augusto Pinochet, 91, died of a heart attack, and John Mohawk, Seneca historian and Director of the University at Buffalo Indigenous Studies Program, died at the age of 61, of cancer. On December 11th, Elizabeth Bolden, the oldest person in the world (with a birth certificate, anyway) died at the age of 116. Peter Boyle died from multiple myeloma on 12/12. He was 71. On December 14th, Mike Evans – who played Lionel Jefferson on All in the Family and on the Jeffersons – died of throat cancer, at the age of 57. On the 18th animator Joe Barbera passed away at the age of 95, and British talkSPORT radio host Mike Dickin (whose show was on after George Galloway on Saturday and Sunday) was killed in a car accident at the age of 63. The hardest working man in show business, James Brown, passed away at the age of 73 on Christmas Day. The US’s oldest living former president – Gerry Ford – died at the age of 93 the following day. And, of course, 69-yr old Saddam Hussein was executed on December 30th (Baghdad time).

December was also the deadliest month of the year for US troops, with 108 killed as of yesterday afternoon, and who knows how many more to come by the end of the day today.  More Americans have been killed in Bush’s war in Iraq (and we’ll never know how many Iraqis) than were killed on 9/11. I’m sure Bush thinks Saddam’s hanging was more than worth that, and whatever else is to come. Certainly he, Saint McCain and Honest Joe Lieberman are more than happy sacrifice a few thousand more of our kids before declaring victory – whatever that means.

Well, that’s a quick roundup of some of those who died this year. If you lost somebody near and dear to you this year, our hearts go out to them, you, and your/their families.

Whatever you do today and tonight, be sure to stay safe, and stay away from crazy drunk people driving vehicles. As for those of us here at my house, since, for some reason, you can’t buy champagne in a box, I think we’ll get a box or two of white wine and a case of Alka-Seltzer, and make our own whilst enjoying the TZ Marathon. Have a good day, a safe night, and we’ll see y’all again in 2007.