TVSquad

This is always the most depressing end-of-year list -- the TV people (in front of and behind the camera) who died during the past year. This is a big list, but if we forgot anyone, let us know in the comments (and check out the obituary category for more).

• Tim Russert
• Majel Barrett Roddenberry
• Bernie Mac
• George Carlin
• Estelle Getty
• Jack Narz
• Tony Snow
• Nina Foch
• Beverly Garland
• Bill Melendez
• Jeff MacKay
• Julius Carry
• George Furth
• Bernie Brillstein

A roundup of TV people from in front of the camera and behind the scenes who have passed away.

• Jeff MacKay: He was a veteran character actor who you know as Mac from Magnum, P.I. and his role as Bud's father on JAG. He was also a regular on Tales of the Gold Monkey and Baa Baa Black Sheep and appeared on other shows such as Diagnosis: Murder, Outlaws, Airwolf, The Greatest American Hero, Hardcastle and McCormack, and the original Battlestar Galactica. He also appeared in such movies as All The President's Men and The Wild, Wild West Revisited. He died of liver failure at age 60.

When the Billy Bob Thornton movie The Astronaut Farmer came out, a lot of us were amazed how the plot sounded similar to Salvage 1, a TV movie and later short-lived series on ABC that starred Andy Griffith as the owner of a scrap and salvage company who builds a spaceship and goes to the moon. I don't think this show has been seen that much since the late 70s, but TVShowsOnDVD is hearing from a source that Sony is going to release the show (the pilot movie and all the episodes, including 4 never shown on ABC) some time in 2008.

But that's not the only DVD news that TV fans are going to be interested in...