The 10 Most Dead People of 2006

03Jan07

Around this time nine years ago, back in my old Golden Words days, I made the astute editorial judgment that the world was ready to laugh about the untimely deaths of Princess Diana, Chris Farley, and the Notorious B.I.G. and wrote a well-received cover article called “The 10 Most Dead People of 1997″. At least, I know it was at least well-received by the other staff of GW, because the next year, the new editors followed it up with “The 10 Most Dead People of 1998″, thus beginning a new annual tradition of poking fun at dead folks.

Of course, in university, it only takes two years for something to become an annual tradition and only four years for a tradition to be forgotten, thanks to quadrennial student turnover. However, the reason this particular tradition ended before the world saw publication of a “The 10 Most Dead People of 2001″ issue had more to do with the fact that there turned out to be a lot more dead people that year than we had counted on, thanks to the September 11 attacks. That being a time when comedians were openly agonizing over whether it would ever be appropriate to laugh at anything ever again, it seemed kind of inappropriate to the then-editors to continue the annual “speaking ill of the dead” year-end roundup.

But, hey, it had a good run, and it was the closest thing to a legacy that I managed to leave behind. And since they’re not using it anymore and I’m the one who came up with the idea anyway, I figure I’m free to pull a John Fogerty and plagarize myself by writing a list of The 10 Most Dead People of 2006 and giving it to Cracked. And what do you know? I did, and here it is. Enjoy.

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