So Long

Steve Landesberg has died. Reading about him, the first thing I noticed is no one's sure of his age.  He seems to have listed himself as being born in 1945, but others claim he was actually born in 1936.

He was a fine stand-up comedian who became best known for playing the well-read detective Dietrich on Barney Miller.  In fact, when the show went off the air in the early 80s, it almost seemed like he disappeared.  He kept working, but never in anything so high-profile.  I don't think it was typecasting so much as his never finding another role that fit him so well.



PS  Maybe now is not the time to bring this up, but I don't know when else.  One of his stand-up bits made fun of how pointless and trivial country music lyrics were.  In particular, he'd quote the line "pass the biscuits, please" from Bobbie Gentry's "Ode To Billy Joe."

This is a false-premise joke.  The song was a number one hit in 1967, mostly due, I'd say, to its evocative and unorthodox lyric.  People spent weeks trying to parse it.  (Weeks?  They're still talking about it.) Much of the power of the song comes from the contrast between the everyday setting and the big event they're talking about.  The last thing anyone should do is use this as an example of an average country music lyric.