It’s not a good day to be a nerd.

First, news broke this morning that Patrick McGoohan, the man behind The Prisoner series, one of the best—if not the weirdest—thing that’s ever been on TV, had died.

And now, Ricardo Montalban—AKA KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!—has also apparently beamed away to that great star ship in the sky.

Lame.

I’m going to go rewatch The Wrath of Khan and write up a review of McGoohan’s recently released Scarecrow of Romney Marsh.

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee: Proving you wrong since 1983.

34 replies on “A Sad Day In Nerd”

  1. RIP Patrick McGoohan. I have loved the Prisoner ever since junior high; it was surreal and beautiful and suspenseful, and one of the most interesting tv shows ever.

  4. Michael Strangeways killed Ricardo Montalbon in the comments of one of Lindy’s posts yesterday. Never say you thought someone was dead, it’s bad luck.

  5. I always had a theory that ‘the Prisoner’ actually took place on the other side of ‘Fantasy Island’ – now I guess we’ll never know.

    Also, on the “celebrity deaths come in threes” theory – I’m guessing Swayze, unless Steve Jobs counts…

  7. I first saw “The Prisoner” in it’s original summer airing on CBS back in 1968 – at the tender age of seven I missed much of the nuance of the series, particularly it’s critique of Cold-War politics, but the action, the secret-agent milleu, and the now-iconic visual elements: the village, rover, the human chess games, et al left an indelible impression. It was, and still is IMO, simply the best short-run television series ever created.

    And Khan – damn. Montalban chewed the scenery right along with Shatner in “ST II: TWoK”; only when he did it it came off as operatic, as opposed to egotistical.

    Both will be missed, and given “the law of threes”, there are a lot of ’60’s era pop-culture icons out there who must be feeling very nervouse right about now…

  15. Comte, maybe the trio of 60’s pop icon deaths started with Eartha Kitt?

    and, Montalban is really more of a 70’s pop icon because of Fantasy Island…in the 60’s he was post-movies and pre-tv stardom and in reality, a bit of a has-been…

  17. reverend dr djriz… I think you are getting your Patrick Mc’s screwed up. Patrick McGoohan was never in the Avengers. That was Patrick Macnee.

  18. Aww, man. I never watched the Prisoner, but The Wrath of Khan occupies a beloved place in my family. We refer to the eating of Thanksgiving leftovers the day after Thanksgiving as “the Wrath”- because the only worthwhile sequel, to us, is The Wrath of Khan.

  21. @15:

    I think the role of Khan from 1967’s “Space Seed” was close enough to iconic status, although I grant Mr. Rourke was probably more so. But, I can recall him popping up all over TV in guest slots during the 1960’s: “High Chaparral”, “Mission Impossible”, “It Takes A Thief”, “The Wild, Wild West” are just a few that come to mind off the top of my head.

    I think she was #3 of a Majel Barrett-Roddenberry/ Harold Pinter/Eartha Kitt triad, so I would still expect a “new number 3” to borrow an appropriate phrase.

  27. akbar @ 17
    are you correct in uncovering my confusion..but the true source of it was that i’ve had my patricks confused for years..i confused mc goohan with mc nee because i remember seeing him in secret agent, which aired roughly in the same time period as the avengers here in the states.. the 60’s had a lot of british secret agents.. honesty blaise, emma peel, the mens from u.n.c.l.e., bond, and i was only ten and couldn’t keep up.. thanks for the correction … mc goohan in secret agent was a bad ass though.

  28. @ 24..Thanks
    You win the entire Prisoner Series..Seriously,it’s yours if you want it:)

    God I love that show…Hot chicks in Mod get-ups pondering the existential Question…”Why are we here?”….Plus all the ultra-cheesy effects.

  29. patrick mcgoohan was one of the coolest fucking guys on the planet. not just in ‘the prisoner’, but also in ‘danger man’, a long running series on britain’s ITV in the ’60s. we knew it as ‘secret agent’ in the states, along with that bitchin’ theme song by johnny rivers. he was the beginning of many crushes on cool british and irish guys. i’ll miss him.

  34. Why the FUCK didn’t Kirk raise the FUCKING SHIELDS?!? What possible benefit was there to keeping them down?!? Fighting in the Star Trek universe is waaaaaay too civilized.

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