Peter Graves, 1926-2010
Peter Graves died yesterday from a heart attack at the age of 83. He’ll likely be best remembered for his role as Jim Phelps in Mission: Impossible, as well as the gladiator-movie-loving pilot in Airplane! However, whenever I think of Peter Graves, I always remember his countless B-movies, many of which were featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. The Beginning of the End, Parts: The Clonus Horror, and my personal favorite, It Conquered the World, from which the above speech is taken. Man, It Conquered the World is a terrible movie, but Graves delivers his crazy speech (about Lee Van Cleef, who collaborated with an evil space cucumber) with dignity and gravitas. Mission accomplished, Mr. Graves. RIP.
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.