and was once kicked out of the city of Louisville for drunkenness.

Johnny Bench on Hee Haw ...

It’s a case of popular culture meeting the pastime. An unusual photograph of Johnny Bench has been making the rounds on the Internet in recent weeks. It’s actually a black-and-white still of Bench making a cameo appearance on an episode of the old TV show, Mission Impossible. The episode, which first aired on Feb. 6, 1971, is titled The Catafalque, a word with which I was previously unfamiliar. According to IMDB, a catafalque is a raised platform that is used to support a casket during a funeral service. Providing us with further assistance, IMDB supplies the following description of the 1971 episode:

“In one of the IMF’s most audacious plans yet the team blatantly frames their victim and attempts to snatch the body of a deceased leader literally from under the noses of the honor guards. It’s all part of Jim’s plan to infuriate an official into revealing a sensitive document the US government wants to get its hands on.”

Bench is credited as “The Captain of the Guards,” so we can only surmise that he is the leader of the group of honor guards who are watching over the dead body. [...]