R.I.P. Barbara Billingsley

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Snuffylover

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Rest in peace Ms. Billingsly. I will always remember you as the kind mother on Leave it to Beaver.
 
Yorick

Yorick

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Baby Rowlf said:
http://ca.eonline.com/uberblog/b206074_leave_it_beaver_star_barbara.html

94 years old....that's not a bad run.

But as a child of the 80s, I'll always remember her as Nanny.
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Well said. As soon as I heard the news I went here. I was just watching the last episode of MB the other day, and thinking how cool it was to still have her around in her nineties. She was perfect as Nanny. You know the saying, "I can't imagine it being anyone else" - well that's the case here. RIP Ms. Billingsely and thanks...
 
Baby Rowlf

Baby Rowlf

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Yorick said:
Well said. As soon as I heard the news I went here. I was just watching the last episode of MB the other day, and thinking how cool it was to still have her around in her nineties. She was perfect as Nanny. You know the saying, "I can't imagine it being anyone else" - well that's the case here. RIP Ms. Billingsely and thanks...
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Yeah. Her death got me pretty hard. Nanny was one of my favourite Muppet-related characters ever. Partly because I loved the randomness of these baby Muppet creatures overseen by a human caretaker. I always wondered how Nanny got saddled with that one!

But it was mainly because of her voice. Barbara Billingsley did a wonderful job giving Nanny the perfect maternal voice of reason and patience. She was very soothing to listen to as a child.

I will miss her very much.
 
Dearth

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I saw this headline yesterday and my first thought was to pass it along to the other members of my improv comedy troupe. I remember a couple of years back, we were playing a Christmas show at the country club, and during a break, we were just standing around shooting the breeze, having a free-form discussion of movies or performances that we still think are hilarious.

Someone brought up Airplane! and almost telepathically, we immediately zeroed in on two lines by Barbara Billingsley as being the ones we unianimously thought were the funniest in the film: "Stewardess? I speak jive" and "Chump don't want no help, chump don't get no help!"

We were almost wetting ourselves with laughter reenacting that scene. Sigh, good times.

She was great at being all-American mom June Cleaver, equally loveable as the Muppet Babies' Nanny... but don't overlook her comedic genius in Airplane!

Alex
 
muppfozz

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When I heard the sad news the first thing I thought of was Nannny and her striped socks.
 
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Drtooth

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Yorick said:
Well said. As soon as I heard the news I went here. I was just watching the last episode of MB the other day, and thinking how cool it was to still have her around in her nineties. She was perfect as Nanny. You know the saying, "I can't imagine it being anyone else" - well that's the case here.
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As long as they don't have to deal with this Nanny. That's too terrible to even think about.

Joking aside, this is very saddening, since we just lost one of the great Sesame Street illustrators as well. She was perfectly picked as Nanny, giving a nice, quite motherly tone to the otherwise rowdy characters. Muppet babies, warts and all (not getting in the great MB debate, especially since I'm on the Yay side), was a brilliant little kid's cartoon... and I don't think it would have had the same feel if we had a different VA to be nanny. She will be missed.
 
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