Thursday, March 31, 2005

Comedian Mitch Hedberg dies at 37

He was often called David Letterman's favorite comic. Mitch Hedberg has died of an apparent heart attack:
Comedian Mitch Hedberg was found dead in a New Jersey hotel room Wednesday morning, according to Minnesota's Pioneer Press. He was 37. The cause of death has not been determined, and details concerning his death have yet to be released. The Pioneer Press reported that Hedberg's family has been told he suffered a heart attack. The comic — who bore an uncanny resemblance to Rush frontman Geddy Lee and once explained the reason his was not a household name was because most of his fans lived in apartments — spent much of his career straddling that fine line between cult status and relatively larger stardom.
Hedberg was known for his goofy observational humor and one-liners, like:
An escalator can never be broken; it can only become stairs. Rice is great if you're hungry and you want 2,000 of something. Imagine being killed by an arrow: "Look, there's a dead guy! Let's go that way..."
It was an odd sort of humor, delivered in a mellow laid-back manner that you couldn't help but like. Hedberg's candor and approachability endeared him to audiences, including this blogger. I saw him live three times, and I couldn't get enough. Rest in peace, Mitch.

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