TV legend Andy Williams dies at 84

Another TV legend is gone: Andy Williams died this morning after a long bout with bladder cancer, per wire reports. He was 84. A quick look below at some old clips of "The Andy Williams Show" from NBC in the early '60s; it actually had a couple of runs (the earlier the more popular of the two) back when musical variety was a prime-time staple. Your memory will — if it goes back to those days — summon many images, probably all of them happy, including (maybe) Jonathan Winters, a frequent guest, or even the "Cookie Bear" — the show morphed into comedy in the later version .?.?.(Come on! You must remember the Cookie Bear: "Not now, not ever!!!)

But mostly the music of Williams, and so many others .?.?.

Williams was a TV natural — smooth, congenial, cool, and surprisingly funny. That voice — and just not the wonderful singing one but the speaking one, with a gentle singsong vibrato to it, and which wandered pleasingly from the TV to your ears. He also had another unique gift — the one which made his guests look even better than he. Thanks to those who posted these clips online — these do offer a glimpse of that faraway moment on TV.?.?.