RIP Dom DeLuise

Comic actor Dom DeLuise has died at age 75.

The Brooklyn-born DeLuise, 75, starred in such comedy classics as "The Cannonball Run" and "Blazing Saddles."

"Dom always made everyone feel better when he was around," actor Burt Reynolds said in a statement to Entertainment Tonight. "I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone. I will miss him very much."

Reynolds starred with DeLuise in several movies, most notably as fake ambulance drivers in "The Cannonball Run," an early 1980s cult comedy classic.

Dom DeLuise was in so many screwball comedies that I saw a million times as a kid: The Muppet Movie, Smoky and the Bandit Ride Again, The Cannonball Run (and its sequel), Haunted Honeymoon, Spaceballs, Going Bananas… He also provided the voices for twp of my childhood favorite animated movies: Jeremy in The Secret of NIMH and Tiger in An American Tail. I was a little bit too old for All Dogs Go to Heaven, but some of my younger cousins loved that movie, and I remember he did the voice of the awesomely-named Itchy Itchiford for that one, too (which he reprised for the TV series). Every time I saw him once I reached adulthood, he made me feel really happily nostalgic, which I hope and imagine he would have considered a compliment.

Here's some classic Dom on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson (no transcript necessary—it's all in the action):


[H/T to Shaker Seraph in comments.]