A Very Busy Prince Sirki Closes The Hypnotic Eye, Turns Out the Bat-Signal and Deactivates IDAK!

Greetings From Beyond the Veil, Effendi.

Prince Sirki has been busy the last few days, in regards to the realms of Imagi-Movies & Imagi-TV.

Jacques Bergerac will no doubt be best remembered for his portrayal of Desmond, the criminal hypnotist at the center of George Blair’s THE HYPNOTIC EYE (1960) and immortalized by the line, “If you dare, look into… The Hypnotic Eye!”
Bergerac passed away on June 15, 2014 in his chalet in France, aged 87 ( though it was first reported on June 25).
He also played the part of French Freddie/Freddy the Fence on BATMAN, in two separate stories is a crony of Catwoman (Julie Newmar) and Minerva (Zsa Zsa Gabor).
He left show business in 1969 and became an executive for Revlon Cosmetics.

Bob Hastings was one of those actors whose face and voice you automatically recognize, even if you don’t know his name. He appeared in many TV shows, most notably as Lieut. Elroy Carpenter, Adm. Binghamton’s stooge, on McHale’s Navy for the entire run of the series. Devoted fans of Batman The Animated Series would know him best as the voice of Commissioner Gordon for the entire run of that series as well as the animated movies. Bob Hastings also supplied the voice for Clark Kent/Superboy on Filmation’s various SUPERMAN animated series.
Hastings passed away on June 30, 2014 at the age of 89.

On Irwin Allen‘s LAND OF THE GIANTS TV series, he played no-nonsense engineer Mark Wilson, who usually butted heads with Steve Burton (Gary Conway) captain of the Spindrift about being in charge.

However, actor Don Matheson made an unforgettable appearance a few years earlier on Allen’s other series LOST IN SPACE, with a phrase forever linked to the show, that was sometimes incorrectly attributed to various characters. The phrase is composed of three simple words:

“Crush! Kill! Destroy!”

This was the mission mantra of the robot, IDAK (Instant Destroyer And Killer) Alpha 12, dispatched by the Celestial Department Store to destroy Verda, an android sheltered by the Robinson Family.

According to a post by actor Stefan Arngrim (who played Barry on LOTG) on Facebook, actress Deanna Lund – Matheson’s ex-wife and costar on LOTG (as Val) – sent word that Matheson passed away on July 1, 2014 at the age of 84.

Please note: Though as of 2:37 AM on July 3, 2014, there is no note of Don Matheson’s passing on either Wikipedia or IMDb.com, my feeling is that it’s still official considering the fact that the news source was a former co-star and close friend, as well as being posted on the Irwin Allen blog website. Should this prove to be in error, I will of course immediately retract it.

In closing, in a bizarre string of coincidences there’s actually some connections between these three actors.

Don Matheson appeared in an episode of the second season of McHALE’S NAVY, which of course, Bob Hastings was a regular on.

As noted above, Jacques Bergerac appeared on BATMAN. Hastings once appeared as well, as an Air Force Major duped by the Penguin (Burgess Meredith). Bergerac and Hastings also guest starred on separate episodes of HERE’S LUCY.