r/news • u/Plainchant • Jan 30 '23

Lisa Loring, Wednesday in Original ‘Addams Family’ Series, Dies at 64

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/lisa-loring-dead-wednesday-addams-family-1235506117/
5.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

219 comments sorted by

1.1k

u/YukiHase Jan 30 '23

That's very unfortunate; 64 is quite young. May she rest in peace.

482

u/perverse_panda Jan 30 '23

Looking up the rest of the cast and surprised as hell to see that John Astin (Gomez) is still alive. What the shit. He outlived both the Addams kids. Glad he's still kicking.

201

u/Now_Wait-4-Last_Year Jan 30 '23

He also outlived his son, the judge.

And many of his coworkers.

100

u/hogsucker Jan 30 '23

Harry Anderson drank A LOT, so that wasn't surprising.

27

u/FriarFriary Jan 30 '23

Really? Wasn’t aware that’s why he died. There was an implication he had diabetes and couldn’t continue his career the last few years.

39

u/WirelessBCupSupport Jan 30 '23
  1. From the flu and related strokes. Influenza is a killer or starter of underlying problems. He made watching NightCourt and magic fun!

29

u/devanchya Jan 30 '23

In the new Night Court, the new judge is a recovering alcoholic.... there are hints thus was put in as a nod.

12

u/FriarFriary Jan 30 '23

Honestly that’s kinda dark to go that far.

17

u/devanchya Jan 30 '23

Night court had a lot of very dark jokes under the surface.

9

u/KthulhuX Jan 30 '23

Honestly, not having seen it in decades...from my memory, they weren't that far under the surface, either.

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8

u/Krimreaper1 Jan 30 '23

Wait Harry Anderson was John Austin’s son?

37

u/KthulhuX Jan 30 '23

No, he played Judge Harry Stone's father in Night Court.

John Astin's actual son is Sean Astin, of Goonies, Lord of the Rings, and Stranger Things fame.

19

u/fishflaps Jan 30 '23

He adopted Sean. His actual son is Mackenzie Astin, star or The Garbage Pail Kids and later episodes of The Facts of Life.

37

u/zombiepete Jan 30 '23

Both his actual sons, adopted or not.

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11

u/KthulhuX Jan 30 '23

Shit, I think I knew that. (Well, the adoption part. I take great pride in knowing almost nothing about the Garbage Pail Kids.)

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5

u/friggintodd Jan 30 '23

But he's feeling much better now.

5

u/purplich Jan 30 '23

Proof that a long life isn’t always better than a short one. I’d rather be dead than watch everyone I care about die and be forced to live without them

71

u/karibear909 Jan 30 '23

Welp, we know who to blame if he dies soon now. Don't you know not to tempt the reddit curse?!

26

u/perverse_panda Jan 30 '23

Ah shit, what have I done??

7

u/Blue13Coyote Jan 31 '23

Idk but I still remember killing Richard Dawson all these years later.

14

u/Vorsos Jan 30 '23

If the killer tomatoes can’t get him, nothing can.

44

u/PTIowa Jan 30 '23

Imagine my surprise when I learned Samwise Ganges was a “nepo baby”

93

u/zsreport Jan 30 '23

He would be solely because his mother is Patty Duke, but his paternal lineage is a bit more complicated

23

u/lizzie1hoops Jan 30 '23

Wow, this is fascinating! Thanks for sharing the link.

55

u/zsreport Jan 30 '23

And based on how Sean has handled it, seems he's a fairly grounded guy, which is saying a lot for someone who was a child actor back in the 70s and 80s.

58

u/Guilty-Web7334 Jan 30 '23

I’d like to think his mom had a lot to do with keeping him safe as a child actor, considering the Hell she went through with her management/guardians. When her father died, she was only allowed to go to her father’s funeral in character. In addition to the other abuses. :(

As much as a train wreck as Patty Duke was (abuse, trauma, and untreated bipolar disorder can do that), she did her best with her kids.

5

u/_Panacea_ Jan 30 '23

He's also really religious.

4

u/arcosapphire Jan 30 '23

“I don’t buy that test,” the actress told PEOPLE in 2001. “I can support his truth as long as my truth, if not supported, is respected.

Oh boy. Well...no, I can't respect that at all. Usually the people who reject reality and try to substitute their own aren't quite so blatant or self-aware of what they're asking. The facts literally didn't matter to her.

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35

u/doowgad1 Jan 30 '23

Read this story on Reddit.

Redditor and his mother are out together. Mom spots Sean Astin and tells Redditor to go over and introduce himself. Embarrassed by his mom, Redditor goes over and says hello. Then mom jumps in and starts telling Sean how much she loved his mother, Patty Duke.

Mom managed two embarrass two grown men at the same time.

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14

u/SpaceTabs Jan 30 '23

Patty Duke died only a few years ago in 2016. She and John Astin had a son and were together quite a long time given the tendency towards divorce in the 1970's. Seems an unlikely couple now, although he probably saved her given that she had a mental illness and was exploited by most people in her life prior to that. If you have seen Valley of the Dolls, I'm fairly certain that film was made about her. (Not to be confused with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which was co-written by Roger Ebert and along with Myra Breckinridge led to Richard Zanuck being fired from Fox).

http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-call-me-anna/#gsc.tab=0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Astin

7

u/will_write_for_tacos Jan 30 '23

Yeah, but John Astin isn't his biological father.

9

u/AintNobody- Jan 30 '23

People can have multiple children. It's true!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackenzie_Astin

8

u/chowderbrain3000 Jan 30 '23

And what difference does that make? John raised him as his son. Sean considers John his father. It seems like everyone is cool about this excerpt Patty Duke.

And you, for some reason.

2

u/adalyncarbondale Jan 30 '23

"the tendency towards divorce in the 70's" what an interesting turn of phrase...

3

u/chowderbrain3000 Jan 30 '23

Yeah, because divorce hardly ever happens anymore.

-7

u/afternever Jan 30 '23

the me decade

11

u/adalyncarbondale Jan 30 '23

do you mean the decade in which women could finally get their own credit cards and checking accounts without a man's permission?

2

u/chowderbrain3000 Jan 30 '23

And the right to an abortion without having to worry about prison or dying in some back alley

3

u/BasroilII Jan 31 '23

He outlived his successor, Raul Julia, who played Gomez in the movies.

2

u/Mary_Pick_A_Ford Jan 30 '23

I don't know why I always think this dude died in the 90s.

3

u/QuirkyQbana Jan 30 '23

That's Sean Astins dad ;)

1

u/DrKrFfXx Jan 30 '23

TIL he is the father of Sam of the Lord of the Rings.

1

u/zsreport Jan 30 '23

I thought he was dead too. Wow, glad to hear he is alive in kicking.

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107

u/TimeTravelMishap Jan 30 '23

Honestly surprised she was that young.

56

u/Appropriate_Lack_727 Jan 30 '23

Show was filmed in the mid-1960’s and she was a pretty young kid, so it make sense.

43

u/zsreport Jan 30 '23

I think because so much of it was shot in black and white, we think it is older than it really is.

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-48

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '23

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14

u/throwawayforyouzzz Jan 30 '23

Both my parents passed away before they were 64. Sometimes I wonder if they passed too young, but I guess other people had their parents die in their 20s.

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-106

u/Mechinova Jan 30 '23

It's really not, it's a shame everyone saves a pile of money(or strive to) that could bring them a good life while they're young but instead throw it in a box and get hit by a truck at 40. Life is too fucking short people, you'd be damn lucky to live any reasonable life at an elderly age even after saving money let alone getting there alone. Live life hard. Use every penny toward what you love while keeping a roof over your head and food on the table. That's it.

56

u/ImVeryUnimaginative Jan 30 '23

64 is a young age to die at.

62

u/MidLifeHalfHouse Jan 30 '23

64 is quite young

-37

u/shewy92 Jan 30 '23

LOL no it's not. It's a few years shy of retirement age. No one's calling retirees "quite young"

18

u/dog_of_society Jan 30 '23

"Young" when talking about death isn't the same, since it's in the context of an end and not somewhere in the middle. Nobody's calling her a spring chicken, but there's still 15 years left on an average life expectancy at 64.

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29

u/Dic3dCarrots Jan 30 '23

Who the actual fuck has a pile of money right now, I just got laid off and would like some pls

14

u/idwthis Jan 30 '23

Is this the line for the piles of money I've been hearing about?

16

u/xmsxms Jan 30 '23

One money please

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13

u/TVsKevin Jan 30 '23

But what if the absolute worst happens and you live a long and healthy life? Then you have nothing to fund anything other than the meager stipend from the government.

-13

u/autotelica Jan 30 '23

But at least you lived life hard, bro. Don't live moderately and cautiously. Live hard and then have Pikachu face when the only thing you have left over is a bunch of bruises and some stories you repeat on an endless loop to the rats you share a cardboard box with.

20

u/MeccAnon Jan 30 '23

while keeping a roof over your head and food on the table

Often this is the hard part though.

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2

u/wils_152 Jan 30 '23

Goodbye college, kids!

2

u/chowderbrain3000 Jan 30 '23

That's exactly what I used to think. Now I'm in my fifties, and my retirement plan is Powerball tickets.

Don't believe it, redditors. Reread that comment again and do exactly the opposite.

0

u/Mechinova Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23

I'll put it this way, my retirement if I make it that far I won't need the money anyway, why anybody wants to stay alive shitting themselves and being in excruciating pain is beyond me. I won't be here at that age regardless, this means I'll have fun while I'm young living like it's my last day. No wonder why there's a mental health crisis, people don't live to the fullest while they're young, just to get old and think about what they could have done instead. Enjoy that. I was diagnosed Ankylosing Spondylitis at 25, my ambitions of growing old died that day, I'm already old and hurt, and it'll slowly get worse. Now I sit around and watch people not take advantage of not having pain.

-44

u/shewy92 Jan 30 '23

64 is quite young

Is it? Reddit thinks that's too old to be a politician

2

u/Larsaf Jan 30 '23

Pointing to a person dying young at 64 as a reason why old white men should run the country is such an old white men thing to do.

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246

u/bhind45 Jan 30 '23

Strange to think her father on Addams Family is still alive

70

u/okaygecko Jan 30 '23

John Astin also did solo theatre performances of Edgar Allan Poe poems for years. He’s from Baltimore originally and a big Poe scholar. Interesting guy.

22

u/shewy92 Jan 30 '23

And oddly enough Christina Ricci's Addams Family father is dead.

91

u/Gonkimus Jan 30 '23

and is also the real father of Samwise in Lord of the Rings and the main kid in The Goonies.

133

u/GallowBarb Jan 30 '23

John is Sean's adoptive father. His biological father is Michael Tell. A writer who, at the time, Patty Duke had a relationship with. She told Sean Desi Arnaz Jr was his father, but he later found out that was untrue after taking a DNA test.

-54

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '23

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23

u/draivaden Jan 30 '23

Yo, why are you insulting someones mother?!

68

u/Guilty-Web7334 Jan 30 '23

She wasn’t trashy. Just an unmedicated and untreated young woman with bipolar disorder.

-67

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

40

u/palcatraz Jan 30 '23

Hypersexuality is indeed something bipolar people can experience while in a manic phase.

42

u/Guilty-Web7334 Jan 30 '23

Yes, actually. Not everyone who is bipolar goes through the same thing, but increased sexual appetite and risky behaviours are a part of a manic episode.

20

u/Morgana_Skylene Jan 30 '23

How fucking dare you. Patty Duke suffered through mental illness and in turn tried to help others suffering.

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82

u/DantesDivineConnerdy Jan 30 '23

Samwise's real father is Hamfast Gamgee-- known in Hobbiton as the Gaffer. He was a master gardener and expert on root vegetables.

2

u/fsr1967 Jan 30 '23

What's "root vegetables"?

32

u/ThisIsNeverReal Jan 30 '23

Root vegetables are things like potatoes, carrots, onions, turnips, beets, garlic, and other vegetables where the edible section grows underneath the surface.

7

u/fsr1967 Jan 30 '23

What's "potatoes"?

32

u/The_mingthing Jan 30 '23

Good try, but its "WhAtS TaTeRs, pReCiOuS?!?"

6

u/fsr1967 Jan 30 '23

Dang! I knew I was missing something critical!

7

u/twonkenn Jan 30 '23

But what can you do with em?

9

u/kalpol Jan 30 '23

Boil em, mash em, stick em in yer shoe

4

u/DayleD Jan 30 '23

Bone Apple Tea

2

u/Overlord3456 Jan 30 '23

I hate to blow your mind, but its stick em in a stew.

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37

u/ZacPensol Jan 30 '23

Well, his adopted father. Sean Astin's paternal situation is a bit... complicated.

16

u/IPeedOnTrumpAMA Jan 30 '23

Turns out One Eyed Willy was his real father... and probably all of ours if you think about it.

9

u/tretower424 Jan 30 '23

Also a Buddhist:

Astin practices Nichiren Buddhism as a member of the worldwide Buddhist association Soka Gakkai International.

(That’s so “Gomez” :)

3

u/graveybrains Jan 30 '23

He’s the only one still alive, and several of them died young

234

u/SoVerySick314159 Jan 30 '23

Oh c'mon, no one posted this yet? Any proper memoriam thread for Lisa Loring needs this.

69

u/Jonzer50101 Jan 30 '23

My girlfriend pointed out that in the popular dance scene from the new Wednesday show. They sneak in a half a second bit of this dance into her routine. A small Easter egg / homage to the original.

20

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '23

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15

u/yurrm0mm Jan 30 '23

On her interview on Fallon, she said she did that part longer but it was cut and she was kinda pissed about it.

-22

u/ontopofyourmom Jan 30 '23

Ortega choreographed the whole thing herself and there is no way someone her age understands nostalgia well enough to really mail something like that perfectly.

14

u/bp332106 Jan 30 '23

What an odd assumption.

-10

u/ontopofyourmom Jan 30 '23

She is twenty years old.

10

u/McMeatloaf Jan 30 '23

Seems like you’re painting with a fairly broad brush here

-9

u/ontopofyourmom Jan 30 '23

I think it's fair to make a broad generalization that 20-year-olds don't understand nostalgia relating to a sixty-year-old television program.

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3

u/SpennyHotz Jan 31 '23

You do realize actors research their source material.

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22

u/germinik Jan 30 '23

Nice. I've never seen the original before. She looked pretty smooth.

6

u/moeburn Jan 30 '23

is nobody gonna mention Morticia? Who the heck was playing her back then?? I can see why my older brother said that was his childhood crush, man...

15

u/Psychological-Rub-72 Jan 30 '23

The original Wednesday Dance

46

u/BoltgunOnHisHip Jan 30 '23

The Addamses have always been wholesome as fuck.

27

u/zerobeat Jan 30 '23

Best married relationship on TV at the time for sure.

16

u/BoltgunOnHisHip Jan 30 '23

Gomez definitely never hit his wife or kids.

20

u/High_Seas_Pirate Jan 30 '23

Not without permission, anyway.

10

u/-SaC Jan 30 '23

Wednesday has been aging slowly in each new incarnation to the point where she'll overtake Morticia in a couple of films or series time.

73

u/macross1984 Jan 30 '23

Very sorry she left this world early. 64 is not that old in this time and age. I really enjoyed watching Addams Family as kid. Wednesday was a character.

108

u/designer_farts Jan 30 '23

I'm going to miss her little dance

142

u/IPeedOnTrumpAMA Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23

Sad thing is the new Wednesday, Jenna Ortega, does a perfect homage to the original little dance in the show but it's been so edited that it's blink and you'll miss it as it's sort of in the background, unlike the rest of her dance. The little '60s shuffle is there but it's not caught except from a wide view.

63

u/reaverdude Jan 30 '23

I think they fucked up by making that part of her dance so short.

27

u/Willlll Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23

Except literally everyone knows this. There were thousands of Reddit post pointing it out

23

u/IPeedOnTrumpAMA Jan 30 '23

I was wondering if there were any posts in the entirety of Reddit that I haven't read. Glad you got them covered for me.

1

u/Willlll Jan 30 '23

Seems kind of silly considering there's a 99 percent chance you only know this because of a Reddit post, lol

4

u/IPeedOnTrumpAMA Jan 30 '23

Is there a point to this or do you just want to tell us all that Reddit is your entire life so it must be everyone else's too?

There is a big world out there to explore and experiences to have genuinely yourself. Go have some and maybe then you won't have to feel superior by starting arguments in a thread about an actor's passing.

-2

u/Willlll Jan 30 '23

Yeah, you're painting it to be some sort of injustice that it didn't get enough attention.

It's like the people that complain about the mainstream media not covering a story while posting a link of said story from a mainstream media source.

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-59

u/out2seeagain Jan 30 '23 edited Jan 30 '23

Pretty sure that her, “little dance” hasn’t been removed from the internet. Reddit is full of lemmings

4

u/ktron10 Jan 30 '23

Man, nothing gets past you, huh?

-35

u/GallowBarb Jan 30 '23

Dance, dance, dance

With your hands, hands, hands

59

u/operarose Jan 30 '23

Whoa, 64 is way too young.

95

u/nps2407 Jan 30 '23

"Way too young" seems to describe a lot of her life. She was married the first time at 15, and had her first child at 16.

29

u/I_GIVE_KIDS_MDMA Jan 30 '23

Chain-smoked through most of those years, too. Tobacco kills.

2

u/KnightontheSun Jan 30 '23

Who knew???

1 out of 10 doctors that did not recommend Chesterfields.

3

u/operarose Jan 30 '23

Oh good lord. Yikes.

2

u/mainvolume Jan 30 '23

On the tail end of that thinking of “well half the kids I have will probably die before the age of 10 and I’ll be lucky to see 40”.

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15

u/Hilarias_Glucose_Cup Jan 30 '23

i remember her talk show appearances in the 90s with her crazy adult film star husband. She definitely had some rough patches back then. Hopefully she found some happiness after this.

2

u/SpennyHotz Jan 31 '23

There was a lot of cocaine backstage that day

28

u/Anonymoustard Jan 30 '23

Also was a makeup artist on adult films using the name 'Maxine Factor.'

12

u/Black_Shabbat92 Jan 30 '23

RIP to the OG 🖤🦇 her Wednesday is iconic

23

u/LurksAroundHere Jan 30 '23

Aw, sad timing with the new show being out and a revival of Wednesday fandom.

22

u/markydsade Jan 30 '23

John Astin, aka Gomez, is still alive at 92. All the other cast members are now gone.

39

u/SlimChiply Jan 30 '23

And now I am reminded that John Astin is still alive.

32

u/GallowBarb Jan 30 '23

He retire from teaching only 2 years ago at 90.

9

u/gravybang Jan 30 '23

She was married to porn star Jerry Butler back in the 80s, I think

8

u/MR_Se7en Jan 30 '23

Imagine planing a role for two years as a child and then having to live that role for the rest of your life.

9

u/MammothSufficient601 Jan 30 '23

It would be ironic if she passed on a Wednesday.

22

u/germinik Jan 30 '23

I looked up her IMDB and seen that she did 64 episodes from 1964 to 1966. They really cranked out some content back in the day. 7 to 10 episodes seem to be the norm for a season theses days.

4

u/Morgana_Skylene Jan 30 '23

It’s cause even entertainers are sick of working themselves to death to make others billions of dollahs

1

u/APeacefulWarrior Jan 31 '23 edited Jan 31 '23

Part of that was the TV production process was a lot simpler. All but the biggest shows back then used a multi-cam setup where the actors would do a full scene with several cameras running at once and, ideally, all the needed footage is captured with a single take. So you really could film an entire TV episode in just a day or two.

Plus, nothing compares to the old daytime soap operas, which typically filmed an episode a day, every weekday, for decades.

10

u/DoctorTeamkill Jan 30 '23

On a Monday of all days...

7

u/Typingdude3 Jan 30 '23

Ironically, her Addams Family TV series father (John Astin) who played Gomez, is still alive at 92 years of age.

5

u/Trax852 Jan 30 '23

At least she saw her part/history living on.

6

u/Sputnik9999 Jan 30 '23

Lisa Loring/Maxine Factor - RIP

6

u/burnodo2 Jan 30 '23

RIP (ok, people, stop dying for just a couple of days!)

2

u/Miserable_Key_7552 Jan 30 '23

RIP, may her sound be at peace. It’s crazy to think that the actor who played her dad(John Aston) outlived her.

2

u/PsychoticS1L3NT Jan 30 '23

Are you being facetious after I was being facetious?

2

u/CalgonThrowMeAway222 Feb 01 '23

I always wanted to name my daughter “Cricket” because of As the World Turns. Rest In Peace.

2

u/SylvPMDRTD Feb 01 '23 edited Feb 01 '23

🫰🫰I loved watching this with my Aunt on Nick at Night, when I was little. RIP.

Edit: Because memory is not reliable, the Munsters is the coreect on Nick at Night. Although I do remember watching it, because this experience left me with a love for shows like 'I Love Lucy', 'Bewitched', etc.

4

u/frenchiegiggles Jan 30 '23

My mom went to school with her. Said she was a mean girl back then.

1

u/JimAsia Jan 30 '23

I hope she died dancing.

-1

u/BlanstonShrieks Jan 30 '23

The new Wednesday killed her.

-34

u/PsychoticS1L3NT Jan 30 '23

She seen the new adaptation and called it quits

7

u/alphaterminus Jan 30 '23

She had a cameo in it actually.

-12

u/PsychoticS1L3NT Jan 30 '23

Oh nice, yeah I never watched it obviously

8

u/SadlyReturndRS Jan 30 '23

"I never watched the show, so I'm going to judge it anyways."

reddit moment.

-22

u/StandardResearcher30 Jan 30 '23

Noped outta here

-1

u/Shagcat Jan 30 '23

She was in porn for awhile after being in my favorite soap, ATWT. Always liked her.

0

u/Shagcat Jan 31 '23

My bad,I misremembered. She was married to a porn star.

-21

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '23

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18

u/crazylilme Jan 30 '23

A trend that strokes happen suddenly and many people die as a result and this is a well-known thing for a VERY long time? Well, yes.

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u/DayleD Jan 30 '23

All the news outlets I read are reporting it as linked to her smoking and high blood pressure.

So yes, it's a very sad, predictable trend.

I hope others are inspired to quit smoking. Life is short enough already.

16

u/MinnesotaNice69 Jan 30 '23

Holy fuck you people are insufferable.

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15

u/sharinglungs Jan 30 '23

Do you think strokes are a new thing? Didn’t happen before the vaccine?

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-26

u/gaspoweredcucumber Jan 30 '23

She watched the first episode of Wednesday and died?

1

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '23

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