I’d like to take a moment to remember actor George Gaynes, who died this week at 98, which surprised the crap out of me because I thought he was 102 back in the 1980s at the height of his fame.
His two main roles that I remember:
- The bumbling Commandant Lassard in the Police Academy movies.
- The lovable curmudgeon Henry Warnimont on the TV show, Punky Brewster.
Yes. Punky Brewster. The best show ever about a poor elderly man who went to take his trash out one day, found a small girl living in the alley and decided to keep her…because it was the 1980s, simpler times when the automatic assumption was that the old man actually just cared about the kid and wanted to be there for her and wasn’t trying to keep her as a slave locked up in his basement or something.
Ahh how times have changed. Punky Brewster just wouldn’t fly as a TV show today. It was a good show. There was Brandon the dog. And her friend Cheri. And Cheri’s feisty grandmother. You know, Henry and Cheri’s grandmother really should have hooked up.
Anyway, you will be missed George Gaynes. The 1980s would not have been the same without you.
Bookshelf Battle 