Ding! Dong! Another Munchkin’s gone! Meinhardt Raabe goes off to the real Emerald City. Hello Judy?

Meinhardt Raabe had only about 13 seconds of uncredited screen time in The Wizard of Oz, but the role of coroner made him a little (Raabe was 3½ feet tall when the movie was made and eventually grew to about 4½ feet) big star.
Now he’s a dead little big star.
Raabe died Friday, April 9, at the age of 94, at Orange Park (Florida) Medical Center.
According to Bob Riegel, the president of the Penney Retirement Community in Penney Farms, Florida, where he Raabe had lived since 1986, Raabe started the day “as usual, enjoying breakfast and being as talkative as ever.” After breakfast he felt sick, called for a nurse and 911 was called.
The coroner thinks it was a heart attack.
We know he didn’t choke on an Oscar Mayer wiener, though Raabe was the mascot of the hot dog empire for nearly 30 years. (He toured America in the Oscar Mayer Wiener mobile . . . and was known as Little Oscar.)
Raabe was one of the 124 Munchkins in the film and one of only nine who had speaking parts. Yes, he was the one who unfurled the certificate stating that the Wicked Witch of the West was dead. And his beard and handlebar mustache was made of dyed yak hair.
And now he’s gone to join Judy, Ray, Jack, Bert, Billie, Margaret and Frank in the real Emerald City.
File this under Weird News: Raabe died six days after the anniversary of the suicide of Clara Blandick, the old pal who play old Auntie Em. Read about her here http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-40332-Dead-Celebrities-Examiner~y2010m4d10-Morbid-Curiosity-Remembering-Clare-Blandick-18801962-Auntie-Em-went-out-an-old-bag-literally
All together now:
As coroner, I must aver
I thoroughly examined her
And she’s not only merely dead
She’s really, most sincerely dead!

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Visit www.deadcelebsbook.com!

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“Even celebrities die, and they do so in far more grand-scale ways than mere mortals. Now that they’ve met their maker, they’ve also found their chronicler, Alan W. Petrucelli. He unearths the demises of the rich and infamous-from Valentino to Heath Ledger and beyond-with detailed research, dishy wit and insight. This book is to die for!” – Michael Musto

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