R.I.P. comedian John Pinette

Comedian John Pinette has died of a pulmonary embolism. He was 50. A few months ago, the heavyset Pinette had posted a message to his Twitter followers announcing plans to abstain from performing for a period, telling his fans that “after losing a bunch of weight and having several small surgical procedures,” he was “physically spent.” Pinette added that we was “on the mend and… promise to hit the stage as soon as humanly possible so I can once again have the honor of making you guys, my friends and fans laugh like you’ve never laughed before.”
Despite his size—which he once described with typical self-deprecation as “somewhere between Louie Anderson and Free Willy”—Pinette had a gentle, non-aggressive stage presence, coming across as a very smart, overgrown child quizzically trying to make sense of the world around him. One of his favorite topics was his weight and the effect it had on those around him. In one of his many stand-up TV specials, he talked about his efforts to get healthier and how he had been tearing through the personal trainers: “Some quit. Some turned to drugs and alcohol.”