R.I.P. Catherine O'Hara

[The Count]

Been busy watching something else, but when I tuned for a spot of news I found out that famed Canadian comedic actress Catherine O'Hara died earlier today at the age of 71 in her Los Angeles home. This hit me and made me a bit sad, she's now the fifth member to have died from the cast of one of my most favorite movies of all, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Hopefully she didn't die as ironically stupidly as her character Delia Deitz in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the Cleopatra death. Another character portrayal of hers I remember fondly is Geraldine Ferrett from the episode of Tales From the Crypt titled "Let the Punishment Fit the Crime".

And hey, she also has some Muppet credits to her long distinguished career as I found by reading her Muppet Wiki page: Judith in Where The Wild Things Are; Leader of the Lost Fraggles from Back to the Rock; and an interaction with both and at the South by Southwest fim festival in either 2024 or 2025.

So here's to a terrific leading lady, we'll remember Miss O'Hara for all the great work she's provided through the years.

 

[YellowYahooey]

Did Catherine O'Hara also lend her voice to Tina Malone in the 1988 cartoon series The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley? I know Martin Short did provide his likeness and likely lent his voice to the title character.

I also read somewhere that the blonde Anything Muppet girl in the "Upside Down 11" sketch on Sesame Street may have been modeled after, or resembled O'Hara.

O'Hara also had a notable role in Home Alone, as Kevin McAllister's mother Kate.

 

[The Count]

To answer your question, yes she did voice the character of Tina Mallone as listed on her imdb page.

As for the Anything Muppet, that makes me smile. Not sure if the character from that Sesame Street sketch is officially recognized as such. When I was compiling one of the earliest versions of the Muppet Listings threads I posted here, I remembered the character from the sketch from my days of watching Sesame Street when I still had good vision. And since that was during my younger years, I was also watching SCTV the TV series on HA! (the original name for what we now know as Comedy Central), and the AM reminded me of what Miss O'Hara looked like and what her voice sounded like, so I dubbed the Muppet as the "Catherine O'Hara Muppet". If that fan-given name has stuck to become as official as the names for the Hitchhiking Ghosts from Disney's Haunted Mansion attraction then that makes me smile a skeletal grin.