IT TAKES A BIG MAN TO SOUND SO SMALL

Delightful character voice actor Walter Tetley was born in New York in 1915. He provided juvenile voices in several classic radio shows, and he’s probably best known to the TV generation as the voice of Sherman, the pet boy of the genius dog Mr. Peabody, in the “Peabody’s Improbable History” back segment of “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show”. Other roles included Leroy, the nephew of radio's Great Gildersleeve, and the Walter Lantz toon Andy Panda.

Walter Tetley was unofficially tagged “the world’s tallest midget”, because of his childlike voice, but he wasn’t a little person at all. Tetley was an averaged-sized man with a child-like voice, for reasons that remain mysterious. Officially, he had a hormonal disorder, but there was an urban legend (unproven), that his mother, unwilling to part with the paycheck of a child actor, had Walter “fixed” (castrated), so that he remained in a state of arrested development, permanently pre-pubescent, and destined to sound like a boy forever. Perhaps the truth will never be known.

Walter Tetley died in 1975, at the age of 60.

THE SHARP KNIFE OF A SHORT LIFE

Soul singer Tammi Terrell was born Thomasina Montgomery in 1945 in Philadelphia. She began her musical career at 13, and eventually changed her professional name to “Tammi”, inspired by the hit movie Tammy and the Bachelor. She signed with Motown Records in 1965. Tammi was a pop star in the classic sense of the term: though she did not possess a particularly strong singing voice, she was beautiful, vivacious, and had star quality, and became a Motown darling in short order.

Tammi is best remembered for her duet recordings with fellow Motown artist Marvin Gaye, with hits including “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, “Your Precious Love” and “Ain’t Nothin’ Like The Real Thing”. Her personal life was a little less idyllic: she was romantically linked to both James Brown and Temptations singer David Ruffin; both relationships were rumored to be abusive.

During an onstage performance with Marvin Gaye in 1967, she collapsed in his arms; she was later diagnosed with a brain tumor. Several surgeries were unsuccessful at alleviating her condition. Tammi Terrell passed away in March, 1970, in Philadelphia, at the age of 24.

GOOD, BAD AND UGLY, AND WE MEAN THAT IN THE BEST WAY

The piercing eyes. The big mustache. The even BIGGER gun. These images come to mind when you think of actor Lee Van Cleef.

Clarence Leroy Van Cleef Jr. was born in 1925 in New Jersey, of parents of Dutch ancestry. While performing in a touring theater company’s production of “Mr. Roberts”, Van Cleef was discovered by Stanley Kramer, who cast him in High Noon, and Van Cleef was officially on the map. He is perhaps best remembered as a badass in spaghetti westerns such as For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Van Cleef also overcame three accidents—two by fate, one by birth—that most people would probably never notice unless they were pointed out. He lost a kneecap in a car accident, but recovered sufficiently to ride a horse again; another accident took the last joint of his middle finger; and colored contact lenses disguised the fact that he was born with one blue eye and one green eye.

Lee Van Cleef died in 1989, at the age of 64.

SOME THINGS I’D LIKE TO SEE GO AWAY SOON

We all suffer from occasional iconic overload. Here are some things I've had more than enough of.




Ikea. Besides the cheap, spindly furniture, they gave their employees bikes, instead of money, as holiday bonuses. Nothing against bikes, but that’s what your parents and Santa are for. To add insult to injury: the bikes required assembly.

“Jersey” anything, and The “Real” Housewives of anywhere. Seriously, do you actually know anyone like that? Oh, and a fake orange tan after Labor Day? Fail.

S#*! My Dad Says. The Twitter page was hilarious for about 20 minutes. When will people learn: Hollywood ruins everything.





Those little white decals, of a nuclear family or some spinoff of Calvin & Hobbes, on the back windshield of cars and vans. It’s not cute if everyone’s doing it. Honorable mention: “Baby On Board” signs. They make people want to intentionally rear-end you, just to knock some reality into your brat in the back seat.

Radio Personalities. Besides the two words being mutually exclusive, aren’t we just over that as a form of entertainment? Isn’t it time for that to just retire, like movie theater Newsreels and carnival barkers?

 “Lazy-Folks” gadgets and products. Admit it, some of you actually bought Snuggies. You know who you are.

Auto-Tune, and every recording artist who relies on it. Getting rid of that alone will thin the herd considerably.





The Palins. All of them. Except Michael from Monty Python.

Constantly being asked to care about water on Mars, the reproductive habits of celebrities, or what Oprah thinks you should be reading. If you honestly believe Oprah has time to sit down and read entire books, please send me a color postcard of your home planet.



 

Lady Gaga.






“American Idol”, “America’s Got Talent”, or any other American no-talent show that promotes glorified Karaoke, with people whose musical “training” has entailed standing in front of a bedroom mirror, singing into a hairbrush.

The recent mushroom-like proliferation of Classic Rock radio stations in major Metro areas. Classic Rock Station? Fine. Five or six of them within a 3-county area? C’mon… how much ZZ Top are you nostalgic for?





People getting famous for having multiple-birth families. It never ends well. Did we learn nothing from the Dionnes?





What did I leave out? Feel free to add to this list. (pleeze keep it G-Rated tho.)  :)

EW, GIRL COOTIES!

I drew this portrait of an adolescent Bambi and Faline, in the process of becoming quite "twitterpated". I noticed the original movie still on the back of an old record. It's water based marker and wax pencil. I don't illustrate nearly as much is I should, but I have to draw Bambi at least once every few years. He's like an old childhood friend.

Within the cocoon of cultural oppression beat the wings of artistic freedom.

Thelma “Butterfly” McQueen was born in Florida in 1911, and worked on the stage until her Hollywood debut in the late 1930s. She gained the moniker “Butterfly”, because she was fidgety; always fluttering with her hands. The film role for which she’s best remembered is “Prissy”, Scarlett O’Hara’s panicky maid in the 1939 classic Gone With The Wind.

Other notable roles included parts in The Women, Flame of Barbary Coast, Mildred Pierce, and the radio show “Beulah”. Unfortunately she never really overcame that stereotype relegated to playing maids and servants, but she was highly admired as a character actress, and provided some much needed diversity and comedy relief to what could otherwise have been some pretty one-dimensional films. In her personal life she was quite the scholar; she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from New York City College.

True to the famous quote by her character in GWTW, McQueen indeed knew “nuthin’ ‘bout birthin’ babies”. She never married nor had any children.

Butterfly McQueen flew away for good in December 1995, at the age of 84.

“I never met a man I didn’t like.” Many people have made similar statements, but when Will Rogers said it, we believed him.

William Penn Adair Rogers was born in 1879 in Oologah Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and was both a cowboy and an Indian; part Cherokee on both sides of his family. As for the cowboy side, Rogers was a champion with a lasso, and even set some performance records. He started his modern entertainment career in vaudeville, and progressed to a few movies and wrote editorials for the New York Times. He was best known for his observational wit, and became the voice of the Everyman, with an iron hand of political and corporate commentary, cloaked in the velvet glove of his unique brand of homespun humor. “We only get to vote on some man;” he quipped, “We never get to vote on what he is to do.” The most significant thing about Rogers’ many quotes (and those tenuously attributed to him) is not just what was said, but that they’re more poignant today than ever.

America lost its most constructive critic in a plane crash near Point Barrow, close to Alaska, in 1935. Will Rogers was 55.