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People You Thought Were Dead

There were definitely an Elvis Presley and a Tupac Shakur hologram, but I don't know if it caught on. It's just a variation on the Pepper's Ghost illusion, so I believe.
 
Wasn't there one of Freddy Mercury after his death?
Or...did I imagine that?
 
If they didn't I'm sure May and Taylor considered it.
 
I just now read in the New York Times that baseball great, and master of mangled sayings Yogi Berra has died at the age of 90. I really did think he had died years and years ago. I mentioned this to my husband and he said, "It's like deja vu all over again [one of Yogi's infamous sayings]".
 
A Berra-ism which I've always liked is, "You should always go to your friends' funerals, so that when the time comes, they'll do the same for you". No doubt his deceased friends will be flocking to bid him farewell; though come to think, this saying can also be interpreted in a way which isn't nonsensical (it's reckoned that the stuff which Yogi came out with was quite often wise, in a weird way).
 
I also thought he had died years ago!

My favorite Yogi-ism is "when you come to a fork in the road, take it." :)
 
I've only just realised now, that Ridley Scott isn't dead. This is extremely odd....checking on the internet a few moments ago, I'm told it was his brother, Tony Scott, that sadly commited suicide back in 2012.

Yet I was, up until today, utterly-convinced that it was Ridley who was dead. I remember hearing it on the news, and thinking what an irreplaceable loss this was. Very strange.....Tony's films were good, in my opinion, but hardly ground-breaking; conversely, Ridley's are (for me) amongst the best ever.

Totally bemused by this!

(EDIT: corrected to remove an extraneous 'Peter'...thanks @Peripart)
 
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Great Scott, yes, Tony, not Peter....and certainly not Ridley, either! Apologies... But I was completely-convinced that the reported suicide victim was Ridley, from the cinematic brothers-in-film.
 
Ulalume said:
I also thought he had died years ago!

My favorite Yogi-ism is "when you come to a fork in the road, take it." :)
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I had wondered whether his nickname "Yogi" arose from his characteristic sayings -- with their perceivedly making him sound a bit like an oriental wise man: Zen-ish wisdom in the guise of foolishness. According to Wiki, however, it originated from a friend's remarking that he looked like a Hindu yogi whenever he sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat, or while looking sad after a losing game.
 
amyasleigh said:
I had wondered whether his nickname "Yogi" arose from his characteristic sayings -- with their perceivedly making him sound a bit like an oriental wise man: Zen-ish wisdom in the guise of foolishness. According to Wiki, however, it originated from a friend's remarking that he looked like a Hindu yogi whenever he sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat, or while looking sad after a losing game.
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Was Yogi Bear based on him?
 
Ramonmercado said: Was Yogi Bear based on him?

Ulalume said:
That's what I've always heard.
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Wiki (which as of course we know, is never wrong about anything) informs: "Yogi's name was similar to that of contemporary baseball star Yogi Berra, who was known for his amusing quotes... Berra sued Hanna-Barbera [the cartoon magnates] for defamation, but their management claimed that the similarity of the names was just a coincidence. Berra withdrew his suit, but the defence was considered implausible and sources now report that Berra was the inspiration for the name. At the time [c.1960] Yogi Bear first hit TV screens, Yogi Berra was a household name."
 
Ugh. Wish he'd won the lawsuit; his quotes are brilliant. Just another reason I am no fan of Hanna-Barberra. Unattractively drawn cartoons. Imitating voices from Sgt. Bilko and the Honeymooners, but without funnyness. Give me 30's and 40's Warner Brothers and Jay Ward every time.
 
I never saw much TV as a kid; but from what exposure I got to "Yogi Bear", it struck me as pretty weak and un-funny. I suppose "Jellystone" (take-off of Yellowstone) Park is worth a smile; but otherwise...
 
GerdaWordyer said:
Ugh. Wish he'd won the lawsuit; his quotes are brilliant. Just another reason I am no fan of Hanna-Barberra. Unattractively drawn cartoons. Imitating voices from Sgt. Bilko and the Honeymooners, but without funnyness.
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This. For some years I bore a real animus against the low-rent US cartoons that UK TV companies bought to pad out their schedule, for devaluing animation as an art form. We got Top Cat and Yogi Bear, and knew no better. It was only when I met Krepostnaia, who grew up in a country where animation was valued and used for much more than rehashed sit com plots and second rate slapstick, that I began to realise what I'd - we'd - been missing. There's more great animation out there than I can watch in one lifetime, but I still encounter contemporaries who dismiss it all as "just cartoons". It's a first world problem, I know, but nonetheless it strikes me as some sort of crime.
 
Krepostnoi said:
This. For some years I bore a real animus against the low-rent US cartoons that UK TV companies bought to pad out their schedule, for devaluing animation as an art form. We got Top Cat and Yogi Bear, and knew no better. It was only when I met Krepostnaia, who grew up in a country where animation was valued and used for much more than rehashed sit com plots and second rate slapstick, that I began to realise what I'd - we'd - been missing. There's more great animation out there than I can watch in one lifetime, but I still encounter contemporaries who dismiss it all as "just cartoons". It's a first world problem, I know, but nonetheless it strikes me as some sort of crime.
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Yes, we American children of the 70's and 80's got the shaft when it came to cartoons. Most is too dreadful to speak of. Thankfully my own kids came along during the "cartoon renaissance" so we didn't have too suffer too much. We actually watch things like Courage the Cowardly Dog and Adventure Time on purpose. :D
 
OK, Yogi was pretty weak but other than that American cartoons were the best IMO .. it's hard not to smile when you think about even the less flashy ones like Scooby Doo, Hong Kong Fooey and Batfink .. then there was the ace era of stuff like I R Weasel and Dexter's Laboratory. The only vaguely edgy UK cartoons from the 80's I can remember were Danger Mouse and Banana Man. Nothing beats Bugs Bunny though :cool: ... I think the states can take a bow for cartoons.
 
One out of that general stable which I've never actually seen -- but from what I've read about him, quite take to -- is Pepe le Pew. A perpetually randy skunk who is forever "trying it on" with any female who crosses his path, regardless of species: seems so magnificently wrong and un-PC on various levels, as to be rather good value. I'm a bit surprised that he doesn't feature in James Whitehead's linked list of cartoons, reckoned dodgy by those with a conservative bent.
 
Why un-PC? He just doesn't discriminate, like an animated Captain Jack Harkness.
 
amyasleigh said:
One out of that general stable which I've never actually seen -- but from what I've read about him, quite take to -- is Pepe le Pew. A perpetually randy skunk who is forever "trying it on" with any female who crosses his path, regardless of species: seems so magnificently wrong and un-PC on various levels, as to be rather good value. I'm a bit surprised that he doesn't feature in James Whitehead's linked list of cartoons, reckoned dodgy by those with a conservative bent.
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I watched a slew of Pepé le Pew cartoons earlier this year - one of several compilations of Looney Tunes devoted to a single character. Along with Foghorn Leghorn, the amorous French skunk is one of the less-loved of the characters who starred in a series of adventures. Speedy Gonzalez comes to mind as another ethnic stereotype who was still promoted in videotape days but is no longer very visible to the kiddies.

Le Pew is probably best enjoyed in small doses with long rests between since all his cartoons follow exactly the same story: somehow a black, female cat acquires a white stripe - line-painting machines were used several times. The chase is on. The verbal jokes are also monotonous, consisting mostly of putting "le" or 'la" before Eenglish words.

They did, I see, sell the cartoons in France but the skunk was changed into an Italian! :fckpc:
 
JamesWhitehead said:
I watched a slew of Pepé le Pew cartoons earlier this year - one of several compilations of Looney Tunes devoted to a single character. Along with Foghorn Leghorn, the amorous French skunk is one of the less-loved of the characters who starred in a series of adventures. Speedy Gonzalez comes to mind as another ethnic stereotype who was still promoted in videotape days but is no longer very visible to the kiddies.

Le Pew is probably best enjoyed in small doses with long rests between since all his cartoons follow exactly the same story: somehow a black, female cat acquires a white stripe - line-painting machines were used several times. The chase is on. The verbal jokes are also monotonous, consisting mostly of putting "le" or 'la" before Eenglish words.

They did, I see, sell the cartoons in France but the skunk was changed into an Italian! :fckpc:
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I love Foghorn Leghorn.

 
I always laugh when Foghorn is up against his usual adversary, a tiny but determined bird who quickly establishes his nature,

"I'm a chicken-hawk and I'm gonna get me a chicken!"

So far, the thought-police have missed that. :evil:
 
Krepostnoi said:
This. For some years I bore a real animus against the low-rent US cartoons that UK TV companies bought to pad out their schedule, for devaluing animation as an art form. We got Top Cat and Yogi Bear, and knew no better. It was only when I met Krepostnaia, who grew up in a country where animation was valued and used for much more than rehashed sit com plots and second rate slapstick, that I began to realise what I'd - we'd - been missing. There's more great animation out there than I can watch in one lifetime, but I still encounter contemporaries who dismiss it all as "just cartoons". It's a first world problem, I know, but nonetheless it strikes me as some sort of crime.
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One of the advantages of being ancient is that I was a kid in 1950's America - a period during which television stations had to scrounge for content to broadcast. They had nothing to offer us little baby boomers but recycled cartoons dating back as far as the 1920's / 1930's (e.g., Fleischer brothers' stuff; early Warner Brothers cartoons; Walter Lantz productions; early MGM; Terrytoons; etc.).

By the time the first Hanna-Barbera cartoon show debuted (Ruff and Reddy; December 1957) they'd also begun occasionally broadcasting excellent animated content imported from central and eastern Europe.

Having experienced a lengthy diet of 'the good stuff', the Hanna-Barbera shows seemed crude and never appealed to me.

For me, the only bright spots on the post-1950's American TV animation scene were the Jay Ward productions and - to a lesser extent - the visually-similar but separate Total Television productions (King Leonardo; Tennessee Tuxedo). Friends within my generational cohort refer to these two cartoon lineages a lot. I can't say any of us geezers ever refer back to the Hanna-Barbera stuff (or any of the other crap of the period).
 
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