# J. R. finally dies - Larry Hagman dead at 81.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-r-finally-dies-larry-hagman-dead-at-81/641959
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 24, 2012, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-r-finally-dies-larry-hagman-dead-at-81/641959 "2012-11-24T04:18:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2012, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-r-finally-dies-larry-hagman-dead-at-81/641959/61 "2012-11-28T19:13:48Z")
> [@hogarth](#):
>
> And the doctor who refuses to let his patient be moved from a parking lot in “The Big Bus”!
And the scuzzy ambulance driver who gets blown away at the end of “Mother, Jugs and Speed.”
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2012, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-r-finally-dies-larry-hagman-dead-at-81/641959/62 "2012-11-28T19:26:47Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> I don’t remember DeLuise at all, but it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the movie. Walter Matthau is also good in it, as a coolly calculating Kissingeresque defense intellectual, not to mention a young Fritz Weaver as a conflicted Air Force officer. Sorrell Booke (later better known as Boss Hogg as _The Dukes of Hazzard_) plays a Congressman. Quite a cast.
The movie was great and fairly true to the book, but DeLuise’s performance just struck a jarring note for me. He played the AF Master Sergeant who tells the General in the War Room “The Bloodhound [AA missile] has both infrared and radar-seeking capability.”
In the book, the Sergeant is a big, kind of dumb lifer who’s all too happy to provide the information the General needs, and is seemingly oblivious to what’s really happening: they’re going to use the information to shoot down other American servicemen. In the movie, DeLuise plays him as a whiny, kind of faggy Sergeant who all too readily realizes the consequences of his actions. Whereas in the book he automatically follows orders with a silly grin on his face, in the movie they pretty much have to pry the information out of him.
Not at all what I was expecting, certainly, and I almost laughed out loud when I saw it.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-r-finally-dies-larry-hagman-dead-at-81/641959/63 "2012-11-28T19:37:38Z")
The whole point of the book _Fail-Safe_ being, of course, that if there ever were a situation where a nuclear strike was ordered by accident, American service personnel were conditioned to err on the side of action, rather than caution.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-r-finally-dies-larry-hagman-dead-at-81/641959/64 "2012-11-28T20:49:30Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> They’re going to use the information to shoot down other American servicemen.
Not only that: _They’re going to give it to the **Russians** so that **they** can shoot down other Americans._ A hundred million zillion gajillion times more heinous a crime! :mad:
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