Get Well Soon, Rodney Dangerfield

one thing i've never gotten is how he was on this steady upward trajectory thru the late 70s and early and mid 80s culminating with 'back to school', big summer smash blockbuster comedy, and then - poof - nothing for years, until he popped up in 'ladybugs' like six or seven years after 'back to school'. did he have health or drug problems? what derailed his career in the late 80s?

Vegas, possibly?

i can't help but imagine him breakin' the surgeons balls - 'hey whose scrubs do i have to yank to get a cocktail round here? woah look at doogie howser here, don't lose your rolex in there pipsqueak - ah i'm jus kiddin' you're alright'

did he just cash-in? understandable, esp. with the money that gets thrown at top acts (i mean they snagged celine dion).

sit. was there a thread on the rolling stone article about him? Where it said basically he sits around in his apartment getting high and waiting to die.

Dangerfield didn't really start making some real cash from comedy until he was well into his 50s and was in his early 60s when he made those movies in the 80s. I'd imagine he kicked back and spent a bunch of his cash.

Anybody here read his book?

Caddyshack, i am too consumed with worry to say anything else.

i love rodney. he's one of my heroes. supposedly he's a real sweetheart -- on one of his hbo specials some comedian friends put together a "roast" for him, but no one could think of anything bad to say.

i hope he pulls through.

i hope he will, after all, HE'S A MELON

RIP

FUCK

Oh shit.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rodney Dangerfield, the bug-eyed comic whose self-deprecating one-liners brought him stardom in clubs, television and movies and made his lament “I don’t get no respect” a catchphrase, died Tuesday.
He was 82.
Dangerfield, who fell into a coma after undergoing heart surgery, died at 1:20 p.m., said publicist Kevin Sasaki. Dangerfield had a heart valve replaced Aug. 25 at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center.
Sasaki said in a statement that Dangerfield suffered a small stroke after the operation and developed infectious and abdominal complications. But in the past week he had emerged from the coma, the publicist said.
Clad in a black suit, red tie and white shirt with collar that seemed too tight, Dangerfield convulsed audiences with lines such as: “When I was born, I was so ugly that the doctor slapped my mother,” “When I started in show business, I played one club that was so far out my act was reviewed in Field and Stream,” and “Every time I get in an elevator, the operator says the same thing to me: ‘Basement?’ ”
In a 1986 interview, he explained the origin of his “respect” trademark:
“I had this joke: ‘I played hide and seek; they wouldn’t even look for me.’ To make it work better, you look for something to put in front of it: I was so poor, I was so dumb, so this, so that. I thought, ‘Now what fits that joke?’ Well, ‘No one liked me’ was all right. But then I thought, a more profound thing would be, ‘I get no respect.’ ”
Dangerfield is survived by his wife, Joan, and two children from a previous marriage.

Did he make preparations for his clone before he died? I hope so, because it's hilariously bizarre.

i saw his simpsons episode again the day before he passed*. rip.

* "i don't get no regard!"