'You ever seen a grown man naked?'

I wonder if that's the sort of line Peter Graves thought he'd be best remembered for when he started his acting career.


Peter Graves passed away today at the age of 83. He died at his home in California's Pacific Palisades. Over his career, he starred in dozens of B-movies (like "The Beginning of the End") and several television series (like "Mission: Impossible" and as the narrator of "Biography", but nothing he did was as funny as his role in "Airplane!" one of the first and still the greatest "spoof" films.

Some of the humor in "Airplane!" is too dated to be funny or even comprehensible when viewed 30 years later, but it's still a milestone of madcap hilarity that it should be seen every so often just to remind ourselves that there USED to be madcap comedies better than "Disaster Movie!" and "An American Carol."

And to see Peter Graves with a straight face ask a young boy, "Joey, do you like gladiator movies?"