Our Daily Dead

By way of the ubiquitous AP comes news that Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69.

Young Gary had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm, said his wife, Gail Gygax.

Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys, and eventually was turned into video games, books and movies.

The founding of Dungeons & Dragons is considered to be the beginning of all modern role-playing games and thus, according to Wikipedia anyway, the beginning of the entire role-playing game industry.

An interesting predecessor to D & D was originated by one Jeff Perren and then expanded by Gary Gygax. Chainmail was a set of medieval minature rules with fantasy supplements. Chainmail players controlled armies rather than single characters as is done in D & D.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Gary Gygax, Dungeons & Dragons, Dave Arneson, Jeff Perren, Chainmail

Steve Gerber, the comic book writer and creator whose signature character was the alienated, cigar-chomping Howard the Duck, has died at the young age of 60. Gerber, who also co-created Marvel’s “Omega the Unknown” and created the 1980s animated series “Thundarr the Barbarian,” suffered from pulmonary fibrosis.

He died Sunday in a Las Vegas hospital from complications related to the disease, said Mary Skrenes, a friend and writing partner on “Omega” and other comics.

The “Howard the Duck” series became a fast hit after its January 1976 debut on Marvel and remains a cult favorite. Its lead, a disgruntled duck from another universe with a bombshell sidekick named Beverly “Thunder-Thighs” Switzler, was hailed as both smart and subversive.

Smart and subversive. Perfect.

You might want to read the Howard the Duck movie review over at BadMovies.org. (Hint - they rate the movie a sure fire must see.) We aren’t sure if its Back to the Future Lea Thompson in her underwear at the 42 minute mark or the line “Hey, if I had some place to go I certainly wouldn’t be in Cleve-Land”, but something just screams RENT ME about this flick. Or you could buy it below of course. Nudge, nudge…

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Steve Gerber, Howard the Duck, Omega the Unknown, Thundarr the Barbarian, Thunder-Thighs, Back to the Future

From the kids at RTE Entertainment is their obit version for Suzanne Pleshette. The husky-voiced star best known for her role as Bob Newhart’s sardonic wife on TV’s ‘The Bob Newhart Show’ has died at the young age of 70 of respiratory failure.

The Irish folks go on to say that dear Suzanne was often picked for roles because of her beauty and her throaty voice. “When I was four,” she told an interviewer in 1994, “I was answering the phone, and (the callers) thought I was my father. So I often got quirky roles because I was never the conventional ingénue.”

Ok so let’s end this on a happy note, eh what? Suzanne, according to TV Fodder, starred in one of the top 6 TV Happy Endings. True. True.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Suzanne Pleshette, Bob Newhart, The Bob Newhart Show, respiratory failure, ingénue, TV Fodder, Happy Ending