Death
Thomas suffered a stroke at the WGN-TV studios on April 1, 1985 and died on April 3, 1985. He had hosted the local Easter Seals telethon the day before he was stricken. He was survived by his wife, Ann, his daughter, Kitty, and his son, Jeff. Thomas received the Chicago Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' Governors' Award for his television work posthumously in 1985. The Thomas family donated Garfield and the rest of the puppets, along with Thomas' uniform, to the Museum of Broadcast Communications. The 2500 block of West Bradley Place in Chicago in front of WGN-TV's studios is honorarily named "Frazier Thomas Place" in his memory. In 2005, the Museum of Broadcast Communications awarded WGN-TV's Studio 1 a plaque to commemorate the forty years of children's television broadcast from the studio. Garfield Goose and Friends with a likeness of Thomas and Garfield, is on the plaque along with Ray Rayner with Ray Rayner and Friends and Bob Bell and Bozo's Circus.
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