The news of the world lately can make someone feel pretty powerless. Every day, President Stupid says something stupid, and it pushes the thing he said the previous day out of the public consciousness. I feel like all I do is scream into an ether (which, technically, I am thanks to stuff like this and Twitter), and the people who should be listening either aren't, or don't care.
Just this morning I was thinking "You know what we haven't had in a while? A big celebrity death that takes everyone's minds off of the madness in the news."
Well surprise, surprise, surprise when I read that Jim Nabors passed away earlier today. 2017 is relentless.
Yep, TV's Gomer Pyle left us to join the Mayberry in the sky, leaving Ron Howard as the last heir to the Andy Griffith Show fortune. I'll be honest, like Monty Hall, I thought he died years ago, but thankfully I seemed to check IMDB every now and then and get reminded that he was still alive. I don't think he did all that much in the past few years, but really, he didn't need to.
When I first heard the news, like most things in my life, my mind immediately went to the Simpsons.
And then I remembered that the Simpsons went to this well quite a bit. Most notably when Homer read an entry in an old TV Guide about Gomer Pyle USMC.
Not to mention whenever they referenced his singing voice.
Plus this oddly specific apron that Marge wore in "I'm Spelling As Fast As I Can."
I'm a sucker for grammar jokes, especially when pointing out that weird "i before e" rule English has.
Gomer Pyle influenced a lot of pop culture, didn't he? Obviously, Private Pyle from Full Metal Jacket goes without saying.
He also inspired the Shaggy clone Tinker in Speed Buggy.
Plus Futurama used him as Fry's grandfather Enos.
To paraphrase someone else, 2016 was the year where all your favorite celebrities died, while 2017 was the year your favorite celebrities became dead to you. Fortunately it seems that he was one of those people that was a genuine class act, where nobody that met or worked with him ever had a bad thing to say about him. I wish I was one of those people, but that seems to be a running theme this year (Adam West aside. Who was awesome).
If the US Marine Corps had any kind of sense of humor, they would've put out a statement on the passing on beloved Private Gomer Pyle, but I guess that's not happening right now.
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