May Pop Culture RIPs: There goes a regular with the passing of Norm from Cheers

Yes, sure I loved watching Norm sit at the bar with all his lighthearted but self-deprecating jokes, but I like even more that George Wendt, the actor who played that role on Cheers, loudly proclaimed his favorite rock band to be The Replacements, who are my own fourth-favorite—and legendarily under-rated—band.

Wendt was arguably the biggest pop-culture name to pass away over the past month, at the age of 76 from unknown causes. He started his career with the Second City comedy group in Chicago. He eventually got into acting and appeared as a guest in classic TV shows like Taxi, Alice, and Hart to Hart before scoring his role in Cheers.

He was a major reason for the mass popularity of Cheers, which I ranked, as of 2014, my 15th favorite TV show of all time. Regulars at the bar could gravitate to the intellectual charms of Kelsey Grammer as Frazier Crane or the sexiness of Kirstie Alley as Rebecca Howe or the group of knuckleheads like Norm, Cliff the mailman, and Ted Danson’s Sam Malone.

We shouldn’t forget his memorable role as one of “Da Bears” fans in a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch. And while we may never know if The Replacements’ “Here Comes a Regular” is about Norm/Wendt, we can always imagine that to be the case.

Loretta Swit passed away at age 87 is what might rival Wendt’s in terms of obits for TV sitcom greats. She played the high-strung Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” on M*A*S*H, my 34th-favorite TV show of all time. Oh how she hated Alan Alda’s character Hawkeye for being too jokey in the dead-serious world of Korea War fighting.

Ruth Buzzi has weirdly stuck in my mind for basically my entire life. She has passed away from Alzheimer’s at the age of 88. The comic was of another generation, but when I was kid, it seemed she was always on TV with that awful hairnet, acting flat-out creepy and strange, and somehow being pretty hilarious and captivating in the process. I religiously watched The Carol Burnett Show and Sesame Street, so I think those are where most of my memories lie for Buzzi, although I surely caught her on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and other places.

James Baker was the drummer for Australia’s Hoodoo Gurus, whose album Mars Needs Guitars! remains one of my favorite releases of the 1980s. He passed away at age 71 from liver cancer.

Jim Irsay was perhaps the NFL’s hardest-partying owner. He always appeared with a red face, some sort of goatee stubble, and looking ready to blow before passing away at age 65 from cardiac arrest and a host of other ailments. He will forever be remembered as a traitor of the worst kind to fans of the Baltimore Colts after moving the team out of town under the cover of night back in 1984 to relocate as the Indiapolis Colts, where the football team remains to this day.

George Ryan, the former Illinois governor, passed away at age 91. He was from a time when Republican governors and members of Congress weren’t afraid to take stands against their U.S. presidents. Even though I never liked him when I was covering Illinois politics as a downstate newspaper journalist, I had to respect his moratorium on capital punishment because he was worried the inexact science of it all could mean innocent people would die. He commuted the sentences of 167 Illinois death-row inmates to life sentences, which is still the largest commutation in U.S. history. Christopher "Kit" Bond, a Missouri governor and U.S. Senator also passed away at the age of 86.

Kenneth Walker reported for ABC News Nightline about apartheid in South Africa, bringing the nightmare story to the U.S. public for the first time. He passed away at age 73 of a heart attack. He was named the journalist of the year in 1985 by the National Association of Black Journalists.

David Souter was the U.S. Supreme Court judge with a Republican background who consistently let down Republican presidents. He passed away at age 85.

And last but not least, Morris, the alligator from 1996’s Happy Gilmore left us at age 80. Carl Weathers’ bitten-off hand salutes you, sir.