First is Billy Van. Billy starred in a series of commercials for Colt 45 malt liquor where he was the epitome of cool. All sorts of disaster occurred around him but he was cool, all silently while his own special piccolo theme played. I never drank the stuff and everyone now remembers Billy Dee Williams as the spokesman for the drink, but I remember him and thought he was cool.

There are tons of people like this, familiar faces that were never stars but you remember them. John McGiver, bald guy with a refined speaking accent who was on every show of my youth (it seemed). Fritz Field who used to punctuate things by making a popping sound by smacking his mouth with his hand. Here's to them all.

It seems like there used to be more Baldwins than there are now.

I mostly remember Billy Van from John Byner's Bizarre show on Showtime, back when it was made famous by Super Dave Osborne..

I worry about the fact that Tracy Nelson has kind of disappeared from view, after being semi-ubiquitous in the late '80s/early '90s.

She's still crazy hot.

Whatever happened to Gail Edwards? She was a knockout.

Billy Van also star of The Hilarious House of Frightenstein!


He was on a lot of variety shows back in the day. Sonny and Cher, Hudson Brothers, etc etc. He passed away back in 2003.

Burt Mustin, the perennial "Hey it's that guy!" He'd made an appearance in nearly everything.

This is exactly the kind of person I'm talking about. If you're my age, you saw this guy in almost every television show of your youth. Great find, Hugh.

Pretty much any actor that was ever in Dragnet, Adam 12 or Emergency would go on this list.
Jack Webb always drew from the same stable of character actors for his shows.

Crazy hot? Really?

Girl next door hot maybe.

Well, maybe that. If she was my neighbor or I worked with her, maybe then. If I didn't have crazy hot celebrities to compare her against.

She played a nun and she has that odd voice. I bet her elbows are pointy.

Forgive me father for I have sinned, but that nun is crazy hot!

Yeah, I tend to work places that have a "smurfette", which is a girl that isn't really that hot, but looks hot in comparison to the other women or simply by the fact that there are not that many women who work there. So a realtively plain looking woman it elevated to hot status by her mostly male co-workers.

I will be married 16 years in March so it's been a while since this mattered to me. It's just a socialogical observation I made.

Father Dowling is about to cop a feel, because he finds her crazy hot.

I call it Smurfette Syndrome.

Father dowling is turned on because she reminds him of Jenny Picolo.

Excellent name for it.

Doesn't help that Bully's Smurf name at work is "Vanity Smurf".

At my former job there were about an equal number of guys and gals, but only a couple were disproportionately hot. The others were plane Janes.

That book is perfect, Stephen. Just the kind of people I'm talking about.