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Death of Billy Van


bradm

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There's a report in the Ottawa Sun today that veteran Canadian comic and actor Billy Van has died. He was 68.

ISTR talking about "The Hilarious House of Frightenstein" with some people recently, and just how freaky and weird it was. I also remember seeing him on "Party Game" and the old TVO series, "Bits and Bytes". I don't think he ever produced "high art", but he was a journeyman funnyman, and will be missed.

Aloha,

Brad

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Man thats too bad.I remember learning about Newton's law with his cartoon shorts and thats the first time I heard Sly and the family stone with the wolfman on The Hilarious House of Frightenstein,good old Harvey Wallbanger!

Esau13

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Esau13 reminded me of another aspect of his career ... Billy Van was voiceover guy for practically every science program TVO put out. Good voiceover work tends to go unappreciated, but his work helped me learn good basic knowledge of physics and computers that my normally rock-like degree of stupidity towards most topics might normally have kept me from learning .

Rob Not Bob

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Thr castle lights are growing dim,

There's no one left but me, and him.

When next we met n Frightenstone

Don't come alone.

One of the best children's shows ever, and Billy might have been happy to hear that the Librarian ("Jack and Jill....went up the hill! Are you getting scared my pretties?!? Well? No? Oh") genuinely scared the shit outa me.

Goodbye

Billy Van

Billy Van

Billy Van

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

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quote:

Originally posted by Velvet:

One of the best children's shows ever, and Billy might have been happy to hear that the Librarian ("Jack and Jill....went up the hill! Are you getting scared my pretties?!? Well? No? Oh") genuinely scared the shit outa me.


"Why aren't you frightened? These are tales of terror!!!!"

Rob Not Bob

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yup that show was a mainstay of Canadian childhood....I like to think my psychedelic urges were founded early by Billy Van. His physics shows were hilarious too, and the number of voiceovers he did staggering.

That classic Vincent Price intro and ending used to send shivers up my spine!!! I'm wondering if Michael Jackson saw Frightenstein before the Thriller vid....

The opening:

http://www.frightenstein.com/mp3/Frightenstein-Main_Intro_and_Music.mp3

and download an episode!!

http://www.frightenstein.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=000010

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I loved when Grizelda the Gourmet would fake throwing stuff in her cauldron to screw up the sound effects guys. As a little kid it kinda made me go "Hey...wait a minute" about tv. And the Ravi guy, and the mosquito, and the Wolfman, and Harvey Waaaalllbangerrrr, and the Sloth, and Igor, and the Veteranarian, and the Professor (what a strange stroke of brilliance, how did they pull that one off?), and the Librarian, and Hippie Superman, and much more. Wow. Wonder if you can rent Hilarious House of Frightenstien episodes...

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Geez. I was just thinking about him and Luba Goy the other day.

Bits and Bytes pretty much introduced me to computers. In grade 7, there was an ancient computer in our class room and our teacher played the entire series of the show for us.

It used to air on TVO regularly with great little animations on how a computer works and crap.

Then, a few years later, they introduced Bits and Bytes 2 when they had a new generation of computey thingies to discuss and teach everyone about.

you can find his entire body of work on www.imdb.com

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OMG, I had completely forgotten about Bits And Bytes 2. IMSMR, one of the things I enjoyed about that one was, while the first version was Luba Goy teaching Billy Van about computers, the second series had Billy Van now teaching the new guy, sort of passing the knowledge on.

Rob Not Bob

Tangled up in blue ...

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