• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, Yesterday

As 2025 comes to a close, the TV Blog says good-bye to the TV greats who left us this year -- the actors, reality stars, game show hosts, sportscasters, newsmen, newswomen, producers and directors who created the great TV moments we will long remember.

The death of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who drowned in the ocean off a Costa Rican beach last July, shocked us all.

Warner, 54, was mourned by tens of millions who watched him grow up as one of the child stars of “The Cosby Show.”

If Warner’s death was shocking, the violent deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife earlier this month were shocking and incomprehensible. 

The son of Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner made history as one of the four principal cast members on “All in the Family."

Rock legend Ozzy Osbourne was the star of an MTV reality-TV series centered on his family that set a standard for family reality shows that has rarely been equaled in the years since “The Osbournes” aired from 2002 to 2005.

Pro wrestling star Hulk Hogan had a family reality show of his own for a while, but he will always be remembered as one of the most colorful characters in the long history of TV wrestling.

Everybody knows the name of George Wendt, who was unforgettable in the role of the barfly Norm in “Cheers.”

Nor will we ever forget Loretta Swit, luminous star of “M*A*S*H” in the role of Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan.

Today, we say a final farewell to sitcom stars Jay North (“Dennis the Menace”), Loni Anderson (“WKRP in Cincinnati”), Danielle Spencer (“What’s Happening!!”), Polly “Kiss My Grits” Holliday (“Alice”), Lynn Hamilton (“Sanford and Son”), Pat Crowley (“Please Don’t Eat the Daisies”) and Jon Miyahara (“Superstore”).

One sitcom star deserves special recognition here -- the great Dame Patricia Routledge, 96 -- who played one of the funniest and most endearing characters in the history of TV comedy, the socially striving Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced “bouquet”) in the British sitcom “Keeping Up Appearances.”

Other funny ladies we lost this year will long be remembered by anyone who saw them perform -- Ruth Buzzi from “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” and “Hee Haw’s” Lulu Roman.

This year, we lost one of the biggest stars of TV history -- Richard Chamberlain, star of “Dr. Kildare” and two smash-hit miniseries, “Shogun” and “The Thorn Birds.”

From the world of TV drama, we also remember Jean Marsh (“Upstairs, Downstairs”), Pauline Collins (“Upstairs, Downstairs”, “Bleak House”), Harris Yulin (“24,” “Ozark”), Julian McMahon (“Nip/Tuck,” “Charmed”), Gil Gerard (“Buck Rogers in the 25th Century”), Isabell Tate (“9-1-1: Nashville”) and Michelle Trachtenberg (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Gossip Girl”).

From the long-ago world of old TV, we say farewell to Joey D. Vieira (“Lassie”), Will Hutchins (“Sugarfoot”), Randy Boone (“The Virginian”), Kenneth Washington (“Adam-12,” “Hogan’s Heroes”) and the incomparable June Lockhart (“Lassie,” “Lost in Space”).

At year’s end, we say good-bye to Food Network star Anne Burrell, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” musical director and bandleader Cleto Escobedo III, Pamela Bach (“Baywatch,” wife of co-star David Hasselhoff), Phil Robertson (“Duck Dynasty”), game-show host Wink Martindale and soap star Eileen Fulton, who starred in “As The World Turns” for 50 years.

Add to that list teen idol Bobby Sherman (“Here Come the Brides”), Rick Hurst (“The Dukes of Hazzard”), televangelist Jimmy Swaggert, Jerry Adler (“The Sopranos”), Lynne Marie Stewart (“Pee Wee’s Playhouse”) and Marilyn Howard Ellman, daughter of Curly Howard of “The Three Stooges.”

Anthony Geary (“General Hospital”) was one of the biggest stars in the history of afternoon soaps.

Composer Lalo Schifrin wrote the “Mission: Impossible” theme. PBS fitness instructor Mary Ann Wilson (“Sit and Be Fit”) was an inductee in the National Fitness Hall of Fame.

The list of the legends we lost in 2025 includes the man who brought us “Twin Peaks,” director David Lynch; commercial pitchman extraordinaire and boxing champion George Foreman; and producer/director Don Mischer, producer of Super Bowl halftime shows, Emmy and Oscar shows, televised political conventions and so much more.

From the world of TV and radio news, we remember Bill Moyers, David Gergen, CNN’s Charles Bierbauer and Peter Arnett, Oklahoma weatherman Gary England, ABC’s Jim Avila, CBS Radio newsman Mark Knoller and from public radio, Susan Stamberg and Leonard Lopate.

The TV sports world lost sportscaster and actor Bob Uecker (“Mr. Belvedere”), incomparable Olympics figure-skating analyst Dick Button, commentator Al Trautwig, ESPN’s Mike Patrick, sportscaster Bob Trumpy and boxing commentator Alex Wallau, who worked alongside Howard Cosell and eventually became president of ABC.

Above photo courtesy of Fox: Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s final TV appearance -- a guest role on the Fox series “Murder in a Small Town” that aired posthumously in October.