Songspeak is sad to learn that actor Corey Haim, famous for his roles in popular 80s movies, The Lost Boys and License To Drive, has died of an apparent drug overdose. More recently, Haim and his frequent co-star and friend, Corey Feldman starred in an A&E reality series called The Two Coreys. Anyone who has watched the show knows that Corey Haim has struggled with drug addiction and alcohol throughout his adult life, while Corey Feldman has had his own issues as well. Needless to say, the two have had a tumultuous friendship.

Originally from Canada, Corey Haim was living in Los Angeles, California.

Boner
1968-2010

Some sad news just received here at Songspeak Corporate Headquarters. Andrew Koenig, better known as Richard Stabone, and even better known as Boner, on the hit 80’s sitcom Growing Pains, was found dead of an apparent suicide in a Vancouver park after going missing on February 14th.  If Andrew taught us anything in life, it’s that you can get away with having a character named “Boner” on a family television show.

And if there’s only one thing we learned from this story, it’s that his dad is Walter Koenig, who played Chekov on the original Star Trek.

Ken Ober, comedian best known as the host of MTV’s Remote Control, was found dead in his L.A. home on Sunday. He was found by his son Jason, according to his agent. Born in the Boston, MA suburb of Brookline in 1957, he spent most of his childhood growing up in Hartford, CT. He was a 1980 graduate of UMASS Amherst.

Los Angeles, California (CNN) — Ken Ober, whose MTV game show “Remote Control” was among the network’s first forays into non-music programming, has died at age 52, his agent said Monday. Ober hosted five seasons of “Remote Control,” a pop-culture quiz show that featured contestants strapped into easy chairs to answer questions from categories such as “Dead or Canadian?” The show first aired in 1987 and helped launch the careers of comedians Adam Sandler, Denis Leary and Colin Quinn, who was the program’s announcer. Ober later moved behind the camera as a producer of the Comedy Central program “Mind of Mencia” and the CBS comedy “The New Adventures of Old Christine.”

He was apparently complaining of flu-like symptoms, headaches, and chest pain when he was last heard from days earlier, and some reports suggest that he died of a heart attack.

Ken Ober, I watched your show a lot in the late 80s. I thought it was so so cool how you proved that MTV was more than just music videos.

Here’s a great clip of Remote Control featuring Colin Quinn singing some CCR:

Also, I don’t know if youze guys remember this, but he was the guy on the couch in the Blues Traveler video for Hook, back when John Popper was fat. Towards the end of the video, every time he uses his remote control to try and change the channel, it keeps switching back to Blues Traveler. That sounds like a living nightmare.

Patrick Swayze lost his battle with cancer yesterday, and though he will be recalled for his roles in Dirty Dancing, Roadhouse, and Ghost, his appearance on SNL is probably my favorite memory of his career.

Set to Working For The Weekend by Loverboy, this amazingly choreographed performance by Mr. Patrick Swayze and the great Chris Farley always brings a smile to our faces here at Songspeak.

We’re a little slow on the uptake sometimes here at Songspeak. But it wouldn’t be right if we didn’t mention that yesterday, Les Paul died at the age of 94. He invented the electric guitar, for chrissakes. It doesn’t get much more rock n’ roll than that. He died as a result of complications from pneumonia. So let us just say: FUCK YOU, pneumonia. You’ve gone too far this time.

R.I.P. Les. We know you’re riding that big whammy bar in the sky.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. John Hughes, a man from Illinois who took Hollywood by storm by making a litany of iconic movies in the 1980s, died suddenly of a heart attack this week.

From RogertEbert.com

The list of films Hughes directed, produced or wrote includes such enduring hits as “Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” “Uncle Buck,” “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Curly Sue,” “Mr. Mom,” “Home Alone,” “Pretty in Pink,” “Weird Science,” “She’s Having a Baby,” “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” “Beethoven,” “101 Dalmatians” and “Baby’s Day Out.”

… Hughes was a star-maker for a generation. Among the actors he introduced or popularized were Matthew Broderick, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Macaulay Culkin and John Candy, who worked in eight Hughes films. Some of those actors, freed from their confinement under Hughes, later became famous as the Brat Pack.

The music he used in these films became staples of 80s music. The best evidence of this, of course, is a song by Simple Minds called Don’t You (Forget About Me) which is almost always associated with The Breakfast Club. You may have heard it recently.

In fact, here’s a video tribute to John Hughes films (WITH audio/music) from from LA  Filmcutter…

Through The Eyes Of John Hughes from LA Filmcutter on Vimeo.

R.I.P. Mr. John Hughes.

Taco Bell’s chihuahua Gidget, the one made famous by the Yo Quiero Taco Bell commercials, has died at the age of 15.

Farewell, Gidget. You introduced the chalupa and the gordita to me, and promoted that 90’s Godzilla movie that I wound up seeing. I will never forget you.

I’ll be pouring a little baja blast Mountain Dew on the curb in your memory.

Via AdFreak.

Forget Michael Jackson. A true icon passed away yesterday. And that icon is Billy Mays. He was also 50 years old. Not a good week for pop culture. With his unmistakable voice and jet black beard, Billy Mays tried to sell us all kinds of ridiculously wonderful products. And, to the best of my knowledge, he never beat the shit out of any hookers. Probably best known for pitching Oxi Clean and Orange Glo on TV, one of my personal favorites was the Simoniz Fix It scratch remover. He really made me believe in the magic of this product, even though I never bought it. Somehow I don’t think any other products will seem quite so exciting from this point on…

R.I.P. Billy. You will truly be missed.

Michael Jackson, perhaps the biggest pop icon of our time, died suddenly yesterday in Los Angeles. The King Of Pop’s career and personal life took odd and controversial twists and turns in later years, but albums like Thriller absolutely defined our generation. He was a truly electrifying performer.

It saddens us here at Songspeak to hear news of the second celebrity death of the week, Farrah Fawcett, who died today. Former Charlie’s Angel, poster girl, and incoherent rambler, Fawcett passed away after a long struggle with cancer.

You were hot before my time, and I still don’t quite understand feathered hair, but R.I.P. Farrah.