The Practice. He appeared in "Never Con a Killer," the 1976 pilot for the crime drama The Feather and Father Gang. Darden was later featured in the 1985 comedy Real Genius as a highly respected, but befuddled college dean, and in 1986 in the Off-Broadway improvisational sketch comedy show Sills & Company, directed by Paul Sills. After triple heart bypass surgery, he lived in semi-retirement in Los Angeles; he then moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1992, where he died of congestive heart failure at age 65. His interment was at Lake Lawn Park and Mausoleum in his hometown of New Orleans. Works Routines The Metaphysics Lecture This faux university lecture was developed by Darden while with the Compass Players. It was first performed as a solo act in 1959 at the Gate of Horn music club. According to his New York Times obituary, this routine was influential with two generations of comedians. Darden assumes the character of a German-accented speaker, Prof. Walther von der Vogelweide (borrowing the name of the famous medieval poet). An announcer introduces the lecture as A Short Talk on the Universe, and the professor begins as follows: "Now, why — you will ask me — have I chosen to speak on the Universe, rather than some other topic. Well, it's very simple: there isn’t anything else!" The lecture is loaded with digressions and double-talk about time, space, etc., ending with questions from the audience on which he improvises. Oedipus This was another Prof. Walther von der Vogelweide lecture (with the assistance of the rest of the Second City cast). The subject was "free will and necessity in the light of […] Oedipus Rex", or "what would have happened to Oedipus if he had read the book before going on the journey". The professor plays the role of Oedipus and refuses to perform the acts that would lead to his fate, but finds that despite his apparent agency the other characters respond in ways that produce the same results. In the first scene, Oedipus encounters his father Laius, knowing that if all goes according to the book the two will get into a brawl, and he will commit the serious sin of killing his own father. Aware of this, Oedipus is very deferential to Laius, only to find that the father is extremely touchy and hostile to anything that smacks of sycophancy. Despite Oedipus' continued