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posted by LaminatorX on Friday September 05 2014, @11:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the deep-shallows dept.

"Moi is deeply saddened by the passing of my friend and fellow legend, Joan Rivers," Miss Piggy said in a statement on Thursday. "From our first appearance together as battling make-up counter girls in The Muppets Take Manhattan to our recent appearances together on QVC (Joan called it 'The Thrilla in Manolos'), we were always two of a kind. I will miss her. Can we talk? You bet we can, Joan! Forever and ever!"

http://www.etonline.com/news/150785_miss_piggy_deeply_saddened_by_joan_rivers_passing/index.html

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by dyingtolive on Friday September 05 2014, @11:22PM

    by dyingtolive (952) on Friday September 05 2014, @11:22PM (#90023)

    I'm... I'm really struggling to consider this newsworthy.

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fadrian on Friday September 05 2014, @11:43PM

      by fadrian (3194) on Friday September 05 2014, @11:43PM (#90028) Homepage

      Well, yeah, but... There's nothing wrong with something that's a little quirky, every now and then (as long as it's used in moderation), and, besides, some of us remember the classic Muppets and pre-Muppets quite fondly.

      --
      That is all.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:25AM

        by Marand (1081) on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:25AM (#90043) Journal

        There's nothing wrong with something that's a little quirky, every now and then (as long as it's used in moderation)

        Plus it's Friday (or better) for the readers, so this fits the trend for sites to do weekend fluff pieces instead of being completely devoid of updates. I think someone said SN was going to start saving these kind of things for weekend, and that's what they're doing, so what's the problem?

        Only thing that should change is maybe post this stuff to a "weekend" category that can be filtered out by the too-serious no-silliness-allowed-get-off-my-lawn-rawr types. Then when they complain anyway we can go "stfu and learn to filter, noobs"

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @05:29AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @05:29AM (#90103)

          I assume that everyone who comes here is working class.
          Aside from a few smug reactionaries who are convinced that their jobs will never disappear overseas or be handed to an H-1B, folks here seem irritated when workers get stiffed.

          Coincidentally, today I listened to a months-old webcast of the David Feldman Show that discussed her proclivities.
          At every turn, Joan Rivers (a member of the Writers Guild) screwed over the writers who worked for her.
          She made promises then broke them again and again.
          By rights, the union should have thrown her sorry ass out, but they didn't.

          Her slimy behavior reminds me of Ronald Reagan (former president of the Screen Actors Guild) who became a union buster (PATCO strike).

          -- gewg_

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday September 05 2014, @11:46PM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday September 05 2014, @11:46PM (#90029) Homepage

      Well, here's an tangentally nerd-related reference reference [clip skipped for convenience] [youtube.com] to Joan Rivers in the morbidly depressing children's movie The Brave Little Toaster. She is the appliance that falls out of the sky saying "barf barf barf, look at me, I'm a can-opener, a lamp, and a shaver. Oh God, I'm a mishmosh!"

      In case you all don't "get it," the context is that a group of appliances find themselves in an appliance repair shop, surrounded by broken appliances which are akin to Zombies and Frankensteins, etc, and then they all break out into a Phantom of the Opera-influenced song warning of doom when the shopkeeper comes to gut them for spare parts. What the Joan Rivers character is referring to in her lines is that she's had so many plastic surgeries, who knows what she is anymore?

      You can talk all the shit about childrens' movies you want, but their makers are geniuses in the arts of innuendo and adult inside jokes. I remember telling my mom that I felt sick to my stomach after watching that movie, and had no idea why. She understood but couldn't explain.

      • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Saturday September 06 2014, @01:49AM

        by dyingtolive (952) on Saturday September 06 2014, @01:49AM (#90063)

        You know, I have only the faintest recollection of that movie, but that kind of makes me want to see that out and watch it. The concept is interesting, but does the parody relate to the person at all? Or rather, would she have acknowledged the parody as being, well, for lack of a better word, "legitimate"?

        Either way, and as much as I love the muppets, I just find it hard to feel like it's something worthy of the site. Feels like more of a Buzzfeed or TMZ thing. I mean, SN is people, and by the end of it, Rivers was barely that.

        --
        Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday September 06 2014, @02:35AM

          by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday September 06 2014, @02:35AM (#90075) Homepage

          The reference is unmistakably Joan Rivers, however, that's the only satire of a specific person (that I know of) in the movie. The reference likely went unnoticed because the kids watching the movie didn't know who she was and the Adults watching the movie either didn't pay attention or didn't care for the movie (let's face it, the Don Bluth years were pretty much the dark-ages of Disney animation).

          Let me save you the trouble of watching the movie, this is all you need to see:
          The Air Conditioner [youtube.com],
          Clown Nightmare [youtube.com],
          Worthless (song) [youtube.com],

          Among the themes explored in the movie are the nature and existence of God, co-dependency, obsolescence (growing old in human lingo), death, abandonment. In fact, if you could turn this [xkcd.com] into a two-hour movie it would look a lot like The Brave Little Toaster.

          But there is a lighter side. For example, in the first link the air conditioner asks the vaccuum cleaner, "what you are gonna do, suck me to death?" In the third link, the woody wagon sings, "there were bikinis, there were buns, there were weenies..."

          And again a nerd-related song featuring technology and satirizing modern consumption: Cutting Edge (song) [youtube.com]

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by bob_super on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:50AM

      by bob_super (1357) on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:50AM (#90049)

      It's newsworthy, just not thisplaceworthy.

      I was OK with a nod to another actor passing away recently, because he was recognized around the world, and acknowledged as a Great by most, young and old.

      On the other hand, JR is mostly unknown outside of North America, and was the quintessential embodiment of navel-gazing shallow-as-my-plastic-parts Hollywood. How she publicly laughed at herself for doing it doesn't change that she did and profited from it, and therefore her only contribution to tech websites should be a thorough post-mortem analysis of her botox and various implant materials.

      And since I'll already get downmodded, I might as well point out how she's a good candidate for open-casket now, and 6 months from now, and probably 6 years from now... In fact, do they need to Give Lenin a break?

    • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Saturday September 06 2014, @01:31AM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday September 06 2014, @01:31AM (#90059) Journal

      Don't struggle, it only makes things worse! Let it go! Let it go! Let the Soylent News flow! The Queue never bothered me anyway.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Friday September 05 2014, @11:30PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Friday September 05 2014, @11:30PM (#90025) Journal

    What just happened here?

    Are we going to gain an idle channel?

  • (Score: 1) by MostCynical on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:23AM

    by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:23AM (#90040) Journal

    Queen of the Democratic Monarchy of Nerddom.

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:25AM (#90042)

    as low as /. beta. Goodbye for good SN! It was "short"...

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Lagg on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:37AM

    by Lagg (105) on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:37AM (#90045) Homepage Journal

    Let's ignore the talk of muppet nostalgia (what's the point anyway, Jim Henson did better stuff and so did his company if you want practical effects awesomeness) and think about this. It's on topic really, Joan Rivers was about as close to a lich as you get. Possibly even a demilich because let's be honest only necromancy can hold the skin on after that many surgeries and as we all know the news of a demilich dying is pretty damn big. Someone must have gotten to her soul container and casted greater heal on it.

    and don't get on my ass for talking about her like that, the woman was so gloriously self aware that she'd say the same thing.

    --
    http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
    • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday September 06 2014, @06:47AM

      by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Saturday September 06 2014, @06:47AM (#90116)

      If I only had mod points ...

      +1 Funny.

      I was never a huge fan of Joan but I always loved how she didn't take herself too seriously. I remember many times she made comments about how much plastic surgery she had had and put the audience in stiches.

      I would like to think that she would have laughed at your comment and then made some incredibly sarcastic and scathing remark that would have everyone laughing about it even harder.

      RIP Joan, you will be missed. Even by some who weren't really fans.

      --
      "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
  • (Score: 2) by unitron on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:56AM

    by unitron (70) on Saturday September 06 2014, @12:56AM (#90052) Journal

    ...because Spaceballs .

    --
    something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @03:11AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @03:11AM (#90088)

    The real story here is that she died from what should have been an outpatient procedure on her vocal cords.

    The most recent estimates put the number of deaths due to medical error at the hospital at a minimum of 210,000 per year. [propublica.org] That's nearly the equivalent of two Boeing 777's every day of the year, minimum. We have given up so much in the war on terror to save a tiny fraction of that many lives (if that given the collateral damage). We should be focusing on preventable deaths like what happened to Joan Rivers.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @03:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @03:37AM (#90093)

    And I suspect Joan Rivers would have approved the obit.

  • (Score: 1) by E_NOENT on Saturday September 06 2014, @10:12AM

    by E_NOENT (630) on Saturday September 06 2014, @10:12AM (#90144) Journal

    It's a fantastic bit of unintentional commentary that a puppet is 'Deeply Saddened' by an actress's death.

    That's life and death in 2014 America, folks. If you're Really Something, a puppet will be sad when you die.

    --
    I'm not in the business... I *am* the business.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @11:41AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06 2014, @11:41AM (#90158)

    Maybe:

    AC (an non person on this site) subs a story about emotional outpouring of a ... well ... non person (muppet), about a fake person (actress, entertainer, technology 'enhanced' human).

    works kinda.