Watching Sitcoms

By now you’ve probably all heard about Bernie Mac dying on Saturday morning, August 9, 2008. He was only 50 years old. I was reading lots of articles about it that day, and I just couldn’t help thinking, wow, I’m almost 45. Someone dying at 50 seems very wrong. From what I read, Bernie died from complications with pneumonia. Most people do not die from pneumonia, but apparently Bernie had a pre-existing condition called sarcoidosis, a term which anyone who watches House will have heard before.

Sarcoidosis is an inflammatory lung disease and in the same family with connective tissue disorders. I read that his publicist said Bernie’s death was unrelated to the sarcoidosis, which had been in remission since 2006, but I’m not sure I believe that. It just seems that too big a coincidence to me that someone who has sarcoidosis, would then get pneumonia and die at 50, without the sarcoidosis being a factor. One of the reasons that it stuck out in my mind at all, is because connective tissue disorders is one of the many random not-quite-diagnoses that the many doctors I’ve been seeing have thrown out at me. Nothing is proven yet, and probably never will be, but it just made me think.

Bernie Mac, born as Bernard Jeffrey McCullough, started out as a stand up comedian, who won the Miller Lite Comedy Search when he was 32 years old. He went on from there, through the 1990’s to perform in comedy shows and movies. In 2001, he starred in The Bernie Mac Show on FOX, which was based, somewhat loosely, on his real life. It was a pretty funny show, wherein he and his wife take in his sister’s three children when she enters rehab. Along with the standard sitcom story lines, Bernie was also able to address the audience directly, breaking the “fourth wall.” The show itself won awards, which is probably why FOX failed to renew the show after the 2006 season. In case you can’t tell, that’s me being sarcastic. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you’ve probably heard me rant about how FOX kills off shows before their time. So I won’t do that here.

I just wanted to say goodbye to Bernie Mac, a great comedian and actor, who died way too young.

Yvonne DeCarlo, known to almost everyone born after 1970 as Lili Munster from the show The Munsters, has passed away of natural causes at the age of 84.

I was never a big fan of The Munsters. I was always an Addam’s Family girl, but for some reason (I am suspected cheaper prices for stations to buy the syndication rights) The Munsters were always on in the summertime when I was a kid in the 80’s. While I was not a fan, I did like Yvonne as Lili, she played it like a 50’s tv mom but with a funny, quirky twist that never really was over the top (and really would have been expected since they were, you know, monsters).

Yvonne grew up in Canada with her mom, took all sorts of lessons and danced her way to LA where she had contract as a bit player at the major studios. She married a stunt man, Bob Morgan (a big name in the stunt industry at the time), and had two sons. When her husband was shooting “How The West Was Won”, Bob had an accident involving the train and he lost a leg. Yvonne stopped working and took care of him. They later divorced.

While some actors hit a wall in, say, television, and just stop working, Yvonne would just switch gears. She sung opera, did theatre and movies as well. She is very well known as Moses’ wife in The Ten Commandments! A lot of actors would be mad that they are pigeonholed as one particular character. Not DeCarlo. She was thrilled that it breathed new life into her career and millions of kids knew who she was and loved her for it. Not bad for a show that only ran for 2 seasons. Thats a lesson many actors today should take note of.

So, god speed Lili Munster!
I hope you and Herman and Grandpa are having a good time brewing up something special somewhere with cool cobwebs and a dragon under the steps!