# Director Bob Clark dead at 65
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 5, 2007, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791 "2007-04-05T00:16:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2007, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791/1 "2007-04-05T00:16:16Z")
Clark’s lasting legacy are two films that could hardly be farther apart, except for their sense of 50s nostalgia: **A Christmas Story** & **Porky’s**. I was surprised to see how many films he’d done (though almost nothing he’d directed since 1983 seems to qualify as “good”).
Still, I hope [his death](http://www.canada.com/topics/entertainment/story.html?id=1d0f1e28-20e8-4721-b915-63b288e9a6f4&k=42398) was quick and painless and given that his son died also, it’s a tremendously bad day for the Clark family.
RIP.
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### Author:  [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2007, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791/2 "2007-04-05T00:46:33Z")
As a young man once said while decoding a secret message from Little Orphan Annie… **SON OF A BITCH!** I showed my grandparents _A Christmas Story_ for the first time last year and they both enjoyed it. I enjoyed seeing it again, too. So long…and we’ll forgive you for _Baby Geniuses_.
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### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2007, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791/3 "2007-04-05T01:29:44Z")
[QUOTE=ArchiveGuy]
Clark’s lasting legacy are two films that could hardly be farther apart, except for their sense of 50s nostalgia: **A Christmas Story** & **Porky’s**.
[/QUOTE]
And let’s not forget “Moonrunners,” which would later be tweaked and reworked into the TV series “Dukes of Hazzard.”
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Hildo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Hildo)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2007, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791/4 "2007-04-05T01:35:01Z")
Killed by a drunk, unlicensed driver. Well, enjoy your prison sodomy, fuckface.
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### Author:  [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2007, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791/5 "2007-04-05T01:40:46Z")
He should also be credited for Black Christmas (1974), the first and best (except for Halloween) of the slasher genre.
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### Author:  [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2007, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791/6 "2007-04-05T03:53:51Z")
Also, the first movie on the Jack the Ripper theory used in _From Hell_ - the Sherlock Holmesian _Murder By Decree_ starring Christopher Plummer & James Mason as Holmes & Watson.
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### Author:  [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2007, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791/7 "2007-04-05T04:36:53Z")
Bob Clark should have been punished for many of his movies (Baby Geniuses 1 _and_ 2!?), but death is not appropriate.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Hildo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Hildo)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2007, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791/8 "2007-04-05T06:56:14Z")
He was one of the few directors to have movies listed in IMDB’s Top 250 AND Bottom 100.
Has anyone else achieved that?
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### Author:  [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2007, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791/9 "2007-04-05T19:20:29Z")
Sons of bitches! Bumpuses!
I just read about this and it is a sad day. Granted, he’s done some bombs, but _A Christmas Story_ is a seminal holiday favourite, _Black Christmas_ is credited (incorrectly) as starting the whole slasher genre (it _did_ directly influence many slasher flicks to come after it though), and let’s face it, the first two _Porky’s_ movies (which he produced) are classic in their own rights.
Rest in peace, Old Man.
Burn in hell, drunk drivers.
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### Author:  [@want2know](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/want2know)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2007, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791/10 "2007-04-05T21:51:14Z")
According to IMDB, he was working on a remake of his 1972 horror film, [Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068370/). I was not aware that he directed that–one of my favorite low-budget 70’s horror flicks!
I actually really enjoyed the **Porky’s** films. Yeah, I know–sophomoric, crude, all that stuff. But I was always impressed with how he made those elements coexist with the films’ underlying anti-racism themes. He also managed to get that message across without being preachy.
A sad day for the film industry.
How come the asshole drunk driver never dies?
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### Author:  [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2007, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791/11 "2007-04-05T22:57:24Z")
[QUOTE=want2know]
How come the asshole drunk driver never dies?
[/QUOTE]
I don’t recall where I heard it, but the phrase “babies and drunks bounce” applies here. As I understand it, drunks, whose reaction times are greatly slowed, tend not to tense up immediately prior to a collision, resulting in the driver (and any drunk passengers) simply bouncing around rather limply. Perversely, this ends up saving their lives. Those who tense up and brace themselves for impact usually end up with more broken and shattered bones resulting from the blunt force of the impact hitting them more or less perpendicularly. Think jumping out a second or third storey window; he who keeps his legs stiff will likely break them, while one who just lets his legs buckle will probably just bruise and possibly sprain.
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### Author:  [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2007, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-bob-clark-dead-at-65/398791/12 "2007-04-09T03:25:00Z")
The drunken driver who killed him was also an illegal immigrant:
[http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=ff97593b-5561-44cc-be5f-e4cea19f98f1](http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=ff97593b-5561-44cc-be5f-e4cea19f98f1)