Apparently I was too busy getting my drink hangover on this weekend to find out that the scariest astronomer from my childhood, Jack Horkheimer of "Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer", died this past Friday.

Okay so he wasn't that scary, but compared to Bill Nye and his zany experiments (and cool theme song) and Carl Sagan and his silky, buttery-smooth voice, Jack's superabrasive excitement was a bit much for me as a little kid.

As I got older and geekier though I took more of an interest in the astronomy and space and wound up watching a bunch of episodes on Beta which were straight gangster. When I'd catch the weekly prog on 'ol reliable PBS it led to many nights sitting on my deck, swatting mosquitoes and hoping that the naked-eye astronomy would be everything the guy on TV said it would be.

However, the fact that I actually remember the initial title "Jack Horkheimer: Star Hustler" and the theme song that went like this:

Some people hustle pool,
Some people hustle cars,
But have you ever heard about
The man who hustles stars?

before everyone got their panties in a knot in 1997 and changed the name "star hustler" to "star gazer" is definitely the best part of this story in my treasure chest of memories.