Althouse: Annette Funicello has died.

April 8, 2013

Annette Funicello has died.

The greatest of all the Mouseketeers and the perfect early 60s teenage girl.

58 comments:

Hagar said...: And that's the best that TMZ could think of to say about Anette Funicello?

She was a wonderful person.; 4/8/13, 12:37 PM
Sorun said...: After seeing that Thatcher had died, I wondered who the next two would be. Now just the next one. If you are/were famous, be very very afraid.; 4/8/13, 12:39 PM
tim said...: We will soon know if she was a conservative by whether the left curses and spits.; 4/8/13, 12:40 PM
Glen Filthie said...: It is a social phenomena: we are losing our much loved movie icons slowly but surely.

In another generation the legions of new-age Hollywood scum will begin to bless us with their departure, and people will celebrate. I mean - who wouldn't buy a round for the house to hear that morons like Sean Penn or Matt Damon just kicked the bucket?

But I suppose that is disrespectful to speak of hacks like that in comments for Annette.

Godspeed Annette.; 4/8/13, 12:40 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: Trapped for a decade in a body frozen into stone by MS. Sometimes, death is a blessed release.

The Old Dawgz were doing a gig last summer and Big Joe's guitar went dreadfully out of tune. I had to kill some time while he got his shit together, so I sang:

M * I * C *
K* E * Y *
M * O * U * S * E
Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse
Forever let us hold our banners high!

Everybody still knows that song. The entire audience sang along.; 4/8/13, 12:41 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Sorun said...

After seeing that Thatcher had died, I wondered who the next two would be. Now just the next one. If you are/were famous, be very very afraid.

Roger Ebert.; 4/8/13, 12:46 PM
Darrell said...: Thatcher, Lily Pullitzer--now Annette.

There's your three right there. Unless you include Ebert and you're looking for two more.; 4/8/13, 12:52 PM
Anonymous said...: World's greatest 12 year old rack. I was mesmerized.; 4/8/13, 12:52 PM
Anonymous said...: I remember coming home from school everyday and watching reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club. I loved her in The Adventures of Spin and Marty.; 4/8/13, 12:53 PM
chickelit said...: tim said...
"We will soon know if she was a conservative by whether the left curses and spits."

Funicello typified the very white-bred, Wonder Bread sort of heteronormalcy which pervaded the 1950s and early 1960s. She and her ilk-- without so much as an apology -- denied equal opportunity to less popular women, women of color, women unable to stuff a bikini, and most importantly, women who like women. ~ Screed From An Imaginary Lefty; 4/8/13, 12:54 PM
madAsHell said...: Who da thunk that she would be replaced by Brittany Spears, and Miley Cyrus.; 4/8/13, 12:54 PM
sakredkow said...: Screed From An Imaginary Lefty

Well you can't argue with that.; 4/8/13, 12:57 PM
Sorun said...: Oh yeah, forgot about Roger Ebert. I'd thought we were just ripping on his movie reviews for no reason.; 4/8/13, 12:58 PM
traditionalguy said...: There but for the grace of God go I.

She was much loved even in the years after her nervous system had abandoned her.; 4/8/13, 1:00 PM
edutcher said...: She had a very rough life, most of it fighting MS.

I believe it's why she quit the Beach Blanket Blitzkrieg movies.

Glen Filthie said...

It is a social phenomena: we are losing our much loved movie icons slowly but surely.

No, it's generational.

For example, most of the people the original Boomers watched on TV were born between 1925 and 1935, so we'll be seeing a lot of obits like this.

Darrell said...

Thatcher, Lily Pullitzer--now Annette.

There's your three right there. Unless you include Ebert and you're looking for two more.

Not that many really knew Lilly Pulitzer, but, otherwise, you've got it.; 4/8/13, 1:03 PM
edutcher said...: PS I always liked Darlene a whole lot better.

Maybe it was that whole Irish-Italian thing.; 4/8/13, 1:08 PM
traditionalguy said...: Annette was a teenager in the era of tight sweaters. The 1950s era is long gone, but it glorified female curves in a way not seen since Jacobin Decolletage.; 4/8/13, 1:11 PM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: Annette Funicello ≈ Not Feculent Alien.; 4/8/13, 1:19 PM
Anonymous said...: The first Beach Party movie with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon (as well as Bob Cummings, Morey Amsterdam and even Vincent Price) is a complete hoot from 1963. It's plenty stupid, but still has a surprisingly complicated plot with decent dialog.

It also has Mickey Dora -- one of the best surfers in the world at the time -- as a bit player and surfing double.

What Beach Party boils down to, not surpringly, is love over sex with the ultimate goal of marriage.

Today's teens have movies like "Eurotrip" with Matt Damon singing "Scotty Doesn't Know" about a nerd who doesn't know that his girlfriend is getting her brains effed-out by bad-boy, rock-star Damon, while the nerd is in the audience. It's kinda funny but downright mean and lascivious.

I think teenagers were better off with Annette and Frankie.; 4/8/13, 1:21 PM
rhhardin said...: Do they ever have two celebrities die and then an airplane crash?

Maybe three doesn't always have to be all of the same kind.; 4/8/13, 1:41 PM
rhhardin said...: I guy in college liked Annette but I never heard of her.

All I know of the mickey mouse club is that the song doesn't work in German. Micky Maus. There's trouble right away at the missing e.; 4/8/13, 1:42 PM
victoria said...: I just loved her. Met her in the '80's and her innate goodness and kindness shone through. She was a class act.

Vicki From pasadena; 4/8/13, 1:48 PM
Known Unknown said...: Abe Vigoda, call your office!; 4/8/13, 1:52 PM
Known Unknown said...: M-I-C-K-and-Y ... M-A-U-S-Whee!

That's the best I can do for the Kraut kids.; 4/8/13, 1:54 PM
Robert Cook said...: She was the first girl I can remember developing a crush for. It was her role in BABES IN TOYLAND that entranced me...I was all of 6 years old!; 4/8/13, 2:00 PM
ricpic said...: In those days you went to Walt Disney for All-American whitebread. Annette was more All-American clam sauce.; 4/8/13, 2:10 PM
tiger said...: When ever someone 'famous' dies I wonder why people feel sad; you didn't know them/had no interaction with them/ and they didn't cure cancer so why feel sad?

Unless it's the existential sadness of knowing that we are going to die one day.

Other than that; 'meh'.; 4/8/13, 2:12 PM
glenn said...: Annette wasn't "whitebread". She was Italian American, and the people who weren't there in the 50's will never understand what this country lost in the late 60's.; 4/8/13, 2:15 PM
dreams said...: "I remember coming home from school everyday and watching reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club. I loved her in The Adventures of Spin and Marty."

Me too, and I really liked Spin and Marty.; 4/8/13, 2:23 PM
mccullough said...: Time for more Boomer Nostalgia; 4/8/13, 2:39 PM
T J Sawyer said...: She was 14 and I was only 12, but we were in love. Well, I was.; 4/8/13, 2:46 PM
LordSomber said...: Speaking of "whitebread," remember her Skippy peanut butter commercials in the '80's?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-VfjUnT29g; 4/8/13, 2:46 PM
Geoff Matthews said...: I was sure she'd outlive Lindsay Lohan.
She certainly has shown more class than her.; 4/8/13, 2:53 PM
SteveR said...: tiger, I suppose I see your point. It may be that some people's life or death means something beyond the fact they may have been famous or that we were fans in some way. Ms Funicello had a rough and undignified form of MS which she handled with dignity with her family at her side. Its a path I have started down and an end I may soon enough face. So I'm a bit sad, can't help it and am really ok with that. Sometimes being human is climbing a mountain, making love on a Saturday afternnon or walking your daughter down the aisle, or maybe its feeling hurt or sad or scared and looking for some very small things to feel alive.; 4/8/13, 2:55 PM
Anonymous said...: Depending on when you were born, various famous people become part of your interior landscape. No, you didn't interact with them, but they were still part of your life, and you notice when they are gone.

Nothing wrong with that.

It's also interesing, to me at least, to ponder the differences between Disney/Beach Party America and Obama/Hip-Hop America. Movies before 1965 are barely comprehensible today. I feel like an anthropologist when I watch them.

SteveR: Take care.; 4/8/13, 3:10 PM
DADvocate said...: Yes, Annette was the heart throb of every teenage boy I knew, including myself. She seemed to face MS very couragously.; 4/8/13, 3:12 PM
hombre said...: "... and the people who weren't there in the 50's will never understand what this country lost in the late 60's."

Hear, hear!; 4/8/13, 3:16 PM
Anonymous said...: She seemed to age well. She was pretty attractive at 50.; 4/8/13, 3:28 PM
Anonymous said...: ... and the people who weren't there in the 50's will never understand what this country lost in the late 60's.

I think it was 1968 that did it: the Tet Offensive, LBJ announcing he wouldn't run, the assasination of MLK, and the assassination of RFK.

Things were dicey enough with the JFK assassination, LSD, the counterculture, race riots, and the Vietnam War protests.

But after 1968 there was no going back to Disneyland.; 4/8/13, 3:56 PM
Sydney said...: I, too, used to watch the Spin and Marty reruns. There was also Annette. Loved that one, too.

There was a girl in my school who looked like Annette Funicello. I was a little jealous of her.; 4/8/13, 4:07 PM
DAN said...: I live in a middle class neighborhood in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley. One Halloween, my preteen daughter went trick-or-treating with her friend who was dressed as Annette from the Mickey Mouse Club days, a skirt, a sweater, saddle shoes, mouse ears, "Annette" across her chest. A few doors down from our house, a woman came to the door, put some candy in their bags and then said, "Would you like to meet the real Annette?" She was Annette's daughter. Annette was in the den. In a wheelchair, with MS. The girls traipsed back and, as my daughter's friend wrote today, had "a fantastic moment of life." RIP, Annette.; 4/8/13, 4:11 PM
Rick67 said...: From Utica, New York which is where my mom also grew up. Still have a lot of relatives in the area.; 4/8/13, 4:19 PM
m stone said...: I agree for the most part, creeley, but I'm not sure what the '50s had to do with the 60s, except in contrast. I was a youth in the 50s and remember a very static world quickly changed by the 60s, and not just by the events you note but the rebellion and anger and demands for justice, however warranted at the time. That entire decade reset our course as a society.; 4/8/13, 4:21 PM
Sydney said...: Here's Annette in a more wild 60's moment.; 4/8/13, 4:26 PM
Emil Blatz said...: sydney said...

Here's Annette in a more wild 60's moment.

Wow, she could shake it without breaking it.; 4/8/13, 4:52 PM
Cedarford said...: Yeah, the Reagan era was a long time ago and a lot of the principals are gone, and the remainder are into their 80s, even 90s (George Schultz).
America got some good from that time, but it also moved on for better or worse, and "going back to the good ol' days " is now a silly dream.

Funicello? Definitely a pop icon with a lasting cultural imprint - like William Shatner. Will be famous forever. Everyone knew who she was, even those of us well removed from the 50s era of Disney or the 60s bikini cult movies she did.
In my 20s, I saw "Beach Blanket Bingo" as some 'campy thing' on campus and thought it was pretty entertaining,though maybe not as the producers and stars intended it to be..; 4/8/13, 4:52 PM
Anonymous said...: Every time I hear 'Mickey Mouse' all I can think of is the ending of 'Full Metal Jacket'; 4/8/13, 5:00 PM
LYNNDH said...: My first crush. It does make me feel much older.; 4/8/13, 5:32 PM
Anonymous said...: I agree for the most part, creeley, but I'm not sure what the '50s had to do with the 60s, except in contrast. I was a youth in the 50s and remember a very static world quickly changed by the 60s, and not just by the events you note but the rebellion and anger and demands for justice, however warranted at the time. That entire decade reset our course as a society.

m stone: I'm a child of the sixties myself and in my twenties I was onboard for the whole program. Since then I've become conservative and I'm rather horrified at how far the country has swung in the past decade.

I look back at the past and wonder what went wrong and how much of the sixties is salvageable. Certainly the civil rights movement was necessary. I'd like to believe American self-loathing wasn't.

It seems to me that a softer landing was possible, but we didn't find it and the decade's assassinations plus the subsequent paranoia drove quite a lot of us, including myself, to suspect the worst about America.

Obama is the sixties' president we wanted but thought impossible back then. Now we have him and to me he looks like the worst thing to befall America since James Buchanan.; 4/8/13, 7:44 PM
Sydney said...: I have to say, that Tall Paul performance in the first video was a little creepy. Reminded me of thalidomide.; 4/8/13, 7:53 PM
m stone said...: Obama is the sixties' president we wanted but thought impossible back then.

Well said, creeley.; 4/8/13, 8:06 PM
William said...: It's easy to get lost after a certain amount of landmarks disappear....I could admire the way she filled out a sweater and not feel like a dirty old man about it....At a certain moment in time, her life looked like it was truly blest. Well, just about everyone gets their full measure of misery, and she was no exception. Still, it probably hurts so much more when the journey begins downhill on a sunny day. She handled her good luck with the same grace as her bad luck. She was a good person, and I mourn her passing.; 4/8/13, 8:22 PM
rcocean said...: RIP. I was too young for the Mickey Mouse Club or even the Beach Movies. But I always liked her and thought she came off as a nice sincere person.

At least she didn't grow up and become a drug addict or some screeching left-wing Harpy.; 4/8/13, 8:50 PM
William said...: Margaret Thatcher left much deeper footprints in the sand. Still, Annette is the one whose death I mourn.....I can't imagine anyone being so tactless as to say anything untoward about her. In England, a certain portion of the public are celebrating Maggie's death.....Horseman pass by.; 4/8/13, 9:09 PM
Carl said...: When ever someone 'famous' dies I wonder why people feel sad; you didn't know them/had no interaction with them/ and they didn't cure cancer so why feel sad?

Maybe you're an antisocial. Antisocials can't understand attachment to anyone who isn't personally useful.; 4/8/13, 9:39 PM
David said...: Sure, everyone noticed the breasts, but Annette had spirit. She always seemed to be actually enjoying herself not just faking. She was pretty but she had this confident gaze that was based on more than pretty. And she could sing.

The Tall Paul clip is a great look at Annette. In that goofy position with the strange stubby limbs and Dick Clark stomping around her head, she was fresh and enthusiastic and a total pro.

Great girl. Yeah I had a big crush on her too. RIP Annette. Say hello to Mrs. Thatcher. You two will get along great.; 4/8/13, 11:31 PM
Kansas City said...: What a lovely little song in the duet that Ann posted.

Was that really Dick Clark in the puppet video? If so, only time I ever saw him perform.

RIP. She seemed like a nice person.; 4/9/13, 8:28 AM
Dr Why said...: Annette Funicello was one of the most important women of the Twentieth Century, and here's why: If you accept Freud's idea that people are motivated largely or mostly by sex, Annette was the first motivation of the entire male half of the Baby Boom. And, the Baby Boom, in all its stages of life, defined the second half of the Twentieth Century; 4/9/13, 11:40 AM