Tuesday, June 3, 2008

THE HAT SQUAD: MITCH MULLANEY

In the last few weeks, we've said goodbye to Dick Martin and Harvey Korman, both of whom were best known in Toobworld as themselves, but who still provided long lists of TV characters they created. It feels good to know that even though we've lost them, they've left us a rich legacy of artistic work.

Sadly, some people aren't that fortunate.....

Mitch Mullaney has passed away from a diabetic stroke at the age of 39. He was a comedian and comic actor who appeared as himself as the host of a reality show 'All American Girl', but unless some other show ties in to it within their fictional script, we usually ignore reality shows.

Mullaney portrayed the title character in 'Nick Freno, Licensed Teacher' on the WB back in the 90s, but it had only a short run (even with Portia de Rossi in the cast). Other than that, Mullaney played a character named Joey in an episode of 'Hangin' With Mr. Cooper'.

He wrote and starred in a movie called "The Breaks", but other than those two credits above, there's not much chance that Toobworld citizens who resemble him are ever going to bump into each other.

39 is far too young and so I'd like to think his character of Nick Freno will serve as his legacy, outliving him in Earth Prime-Time. It's not likely the show will ever be revived so there's no fear that some other actor will come along and turn Nick into a "recastaway"; and there's no need to come up with a reason why Nick should have died in Toobworld as well.

So Mitch Mullaney is gone, but his Nick Freno, who had an even shorter "life", lives on.

May God Bless.....

BCnU...
Toby OB

3 comments:

Toby O'B said...

Wow. You totally misread that. I was saying that I hope he is remembered and thanks to the character of Nick Freno, he's got a shot at that kind of immortality.

I'm sorry you got so incensed over something that I didn't even say.

Anonymous said...

People should actually READ what they're reading...

It's nice that this blog will memorialize someone who made even a minor contribution to TV. You should be praising that, not digging into it with some pretty nasty language.

Or, barring that, stop posting comments while mixing whiskey and prescription medication. Doesn't make for very good reading...

Sheesh...

Anonymous said...

Some people are just psychos.

Yikes!

I.V.