RIP-Clouseau’s Twitchy Boss

A fine comedic and dramatic horror actor has left us- Herbert Lom passed away in his sleep at the age of 95. Lom is usually associated with his role as the Paris police inspector who was driven to insanity by the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, played by the great Peter Sellers- but he has an honored place in the halls of horror for his work as “the Phantom of the Opera” in Hammer Studios’ 1962 version of the classic-and he also portrayed the vampire hunter Van Helsing in Hammer’s 1970 “Count Dracula” featuring Christopher Lee as the undead bloodsucker. He’s appeared on our show as Captain Nemo in “Mysterious Island” ,“Asylum”, and a 1989 version of “Masque of the Red Death”. While he appeared in “The Dead Zone” and other films later in his career, at that time of his life, he truly enjoyed his role with Sellers in the “Pink Panther” movies- according to his son, quoted in a TVWeek article, he was constantly having giggling fits set off by Sellers’ antics! Hopefully the two of them are laughing it up together now. On to a less worthy subject- what is the deal with this “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” show? I heard the name and had no idea what it was. I’ve since learned that it chronicles the reality show adventures of a “Toddlers and Tiaras” contestant, a less than cultured youngster who, in many ways, doesn’t fit the mold of the typical little pageant girl- and gives just as much time to her lower-income (and some say, lower class) family. This stuff is not my cup of tea, folks- but the goofy name triggered some typically dopey ideas in my cranium .Could we create new shows that play off the recognizable name? My first thought was a zombie show- with zombie popularity at an all-time high- perhaps we could have a zombie kids pageant star, looking as disgusting as any of the “Walking Dead” walkers- and the warning cry from normal humans would be- “Here Comes a Runny Boo Boo”! Perhaps we could have a sequel to the silly old horror film about giant rabbits- “Night of the Lepus”- in which another onslaught of over-sized hares cause major problems- not so much by their attacks, as by their- uh- “leavings”, which at their size would be rather formidable- and the title, of course , would be – “Here Comes Bunny Doo Doo”! (I won’t go any further in that direction, with other titles involving “poo poo”, etc.) We could just use a similar title to label a part of a movie- perhaps we could go through “The Godfather” and , when it comes to the part where Don Corleone’s hot-headed son stops at the toll booth- the dvd chapter title could be- “Here Comes Sonny’s Boo Boo”… What about newspaper headlines? If our fair city makes a budget error, could the article read- “Here Comes Money Boo Boo”? or, perhaps we’d have a story about the birth of an extremely heavy baby- could they cruelly title that article “Here Comes Ton-ny Goo Goo”? Or, if a group of female clergy decide to do a benefit in which they perform ballet, would that be “Here Comes Nun-ny Tu Tu”? What if we go full circle back to TV- and Ryan Seacrest decides to revive the old Dick Clark “Bloopers and Practical Jokes” as- “Here Comes Funny Boo Boo”? Maybe that’s not funny, and taking the whole thing this far is MY “ Punny Boo Boo”…boo hoo.