Jackass

Actor Richard Kiel died at age 74.

Lauren Bacall Dies at 89, Taking America's Mind off of Robin Williams

Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall died today at the age of 89, putting a final note on an era of Old-Hollywood glamor and providing a celebrity death which makes sense to take our collective mind of the mind-fuck that is Robin Williams' suicide.

"Okay, no, this one, I get it," said SAG president Ken Howard. "Robin, I can't even fucking deal with, but this, I mean, it's sad, but she was almost fucking 90."

Bacall rocketed to fame in the film To Have and Have Not, playing opposite Humphrey Bogart and giving the film world an iconically sexy screen presence that secured her place in film history at the tender age of 19. Her romance with Bogart provided America with a new kind of Hollywood royalty.

Williams, on the other hand, what the fuck?

So, we thank you, Lauren Bacall, for your life, your contribution to film and for reminding us how our famous actors are supposed to leave us.

Casey Kasem Dead; Millions of Lazy Impressionists Mourn

Radio/voice-acting legend Casey Kasem has died at age 82, after a long illness and a truly undignified battle between his wife and children.

Mr. Kasem is best-remembered for his long-running American Top 40 radio program, which ran in syndication in the 80s and allowed rural Ohio teenagers access to the cheesy pop music that they so desperately craved.

Additionally, Kasem provided the voice for Shaggy and Robin in the Hanna-Barbera cartoons Scooby Doo and Superfriends, respectively.

We here at DeathWatch are particularly saddened by Kasem's loss. His was one of the very few voices that the founders of the site have ever been able to successfully imitate. Many was the hour Keith and Joe spent improvising requests from pretend listeners in Carson City, Nevada and cracking each other up.

With Kasem gone, we will be forced to work on our Christopher Walken impressions.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Stopped Singing

America has lost a great poet. To be more precise: America has lost that one lady that talked with that voice and spoke at Presidents' Day or something and I think my mom had a book she wrote or something.

Maya Angelou, one of three poets without a day-job has died at age 86.

Dr. Angelou lived an amazing life. She rose to fame as a singer in 1950s San Francisco. She worked as a civil rights activist alongside Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She was celebrated as one of the most inspirational poets of the modern day.

Perhaps her greatest accomplishment was a 2009 guest spot on Two and a Half Men, where she played a barfly who made out with Charlie Sheen.

Dr. Angelou will be greatly missed. If Charlie Sheen died, he most likely wouldn't be. Maybe the gang at the VD clinic would get misty, but that's about it.

Photo by Children's Television Workshop

H.R. Giger's Will Stipulates the Creepiest Fucking Coffin Possible

Design genius H.R. Giger has died at age 74, after sustaining injuries in a fall. A spokesman for Giger's family told Deathwatch that, in addition to being horribly saddened by his demise, their woes are compounded by Giger's request, stipulated in his will, that he be buried in "something that looks like a goat anally violating the Pope."

Giger apparently left some preliminary sketches for his coffin, but the family is considering burning them because they "gave us fucking horrendous nightmares."

One of the premiere surrealist artists of the modern era, the Swiss Giger is best known to Americans as the designer of the creature in the Alien movies. His instantly recognizable aesthetic helped lend the film series its otherworldly look, in addition to creeping most people the hell out.

Giger's work will live on, especially as posters in the dorm rooms of college guys who don't understand why women won't sleep with them.

Large Percentage of Americans Now Claiming to Have Read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Obituary

The great writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez has died at the age of 87.

Marquez was beloved around the world as the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Love in the Time of Cholera and other books. In America, he was mostly someone whose novels people told other people they'd read when they actually hadn't.

Now, a survey by Quinnipiac University has found that 68% of Americans are claiming to have read Marquez's obituary when they actually only scanned the headline.

The same survey shows that 14% of Americans, spurred on by the author's passing, will now put a Marquez book on their Amazon wishlist or reserve it at the library, then never get around actually picking it up.

Photo by Isabel Steva Hernandez

Mickey Rooney Will Never Again Get a Barn and Put on a Show

Mickey Rooney, an actor whose popularity predates 90% of everyone alive on earth, died this week at age 93.

Rooney, whose sensitive portrayal of an Japanese-American landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany's somehow failed to win him a Spirit of Asian America award, was, according to a Quinnipiac poll, already thought dead by the vast majority of Americans. A spokesman for Google says that "When+did+Mickey+Rooney+die" was the 57th most frequent search in 2013, right behind "What+are+signs+of+chlamydia."

Today, Rooney is remembered mostly for being referenced in old Warner Brothers cartoons that 40-year-olds watched constantly during childhood. And also because he apparently was married a lot or something.

Mr. Rooney died at home with his family. He was preceded in death by his fanbase.

Photo: Public domain studio still.

Creator of Teddy Ruxpin Leaves Very Specific Will

Ken Forsse, the creative genius behind the incredibly popular Teddy Ruxpin doll died this week. According to his lawyer the largest portion of his will is dedicated to making absolutely certain that his corpse is not propped up on the couch with a cassette tape in his chest cavity in order to read stories to children.

"Mr. Forsse," said the attorney, "was aware of the possibility that one or more of his family members might be a huge fan of irony. This is why he stipulated that anyone named in the will would be instantly disinherited if they committed any animatronic atrocities with his remains."

Fans will have to find some other way to memorialize the visionary Mr. Forsse, perhaps by creating a maze filled with old Teddy Ruxpin dolls that horrified victims can stumble across at particularly tense moments. Just an idea.

Photo by Worlds of Wonder

James Rebhorn Mistakenly Taken by Grim Reaper

The Grim Reaper has egg all over his face today. Apparently, he cut down amazing character actor James Rebhorn in a colossal goof.

"See, I thought I was taking James Cromwell," the Reaper told the Deathwatch staff in an interview this afternoon. "I always got those guys confused."

Afterwards, Mrs. Reaper pulled up a scene on YouTube from Cromwell's turn in L.A. Confidential and played it back-to-back with a couple of minutes from the Rebhorn-featuring The Game.

"Oh, wow. I can't believe I mixed these two up," the Reaper said. "I feel like such a dipshit."

Deathwatch extends condolences to the Rebhorn family and wants it known that we've always loved the actor's ability to make any movie he's in so much better.

Also, Mr. Cromwell needs to stay healthy.

Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris - © WireImage.com - Image courtesy

Phelps Dies, Country Scrambles to Find His Replacement Atop List of Most Despised Asshats

God hates gays, but loves volleyball, apparently?
I wonder if Christ has ever seen Top Gun?

Fred Waldron Phelps, Sr., 84, has died, according to multiple news sources.  Phelps was the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church*, an organization famous for picketing of soldiers' funerals carrying signs that show a purportedly divine disapproval of homosexuals, a decisive hatred of America, and a particularly specific distaste toward anal sex and Hilary Clinton (and presumably the combination of the latter two.) 

The news of Phelps' death came as a shock to many whose fears had been assuaged just moments earlier by the WBC.  "Fred Phelps has health issues," the WBC said in a statement Wednesday, "but the idea that someone would suggest that he is near death, is not only highly speculative, but extremely foolish considering that all such matters are the sole prerogative of God."   Our omniscient God, knowing this statement would be issued, summarily executed Phelps during the issuing of the statement.

When Fred Phelps wasn't attempting to disturb an American hero's final rest, or disparaging the homosexual community, he was writing letters to Saddam Hussein, praising the jovial dictator for creating, "the only Muslim state that allows the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to be freely and openly preached on the streets."  It was this kind of tireless and meticulous work that helped Phelps and his WBC rise through the "Most Hated" ranks, past ordinary cults like Heaven's Gate, beyond other frustrated, self-loathing, anti-gay-while-actually-being-gay-all-along, gay-as-gay-can-be, totally gay preachers like Ted Haggard.

So how hated a person was Phelps?  Well, it turns out that a man famous for hateful exclusion was hatefully excluded from the very hateful exclusion machine that he created.  Phelps had been excommunicated from the WBC within the past six months, for reasons that have yet to be made public.  

Kirk Cameron is a self-appointed religious advisor to the sinning world, and was recently voted as In Christ Magazine's "Most Likely to be Raptured in the 2014 Rapture."  Cameron, during a candid, caught-on-camera moment in a guest shot on CTN's Real Housewives of Gomorrah, piously speculated as to what caused Phelps' rift with WBC:  "Fred Phelps is an amazing example of a Christian, a man who sticks to Jesus' no-gays rule, no matter what.  Whatever he did to get left behind--and like the speculation was maybe that the WBC caught Fred committing a gay act--well, he probably wasn't doing it for real, he was obviously doing it just to show the little boy how bad being gay really is, like 'Hey kid, if you do something like this [Cameron then pantomimed oral sex on a man, using his clenched hand and and a repetitive, thrusting, tongue-in-cheek motion], then this is your path to Hell.'  So, Fred committing sodomy on a pre-schooler would be purely gay-preventative in nature, and does not count the same as actually being gay, and God knows that, even if the WBC got it wrong."

Finding somebody as hate-able as Phelps is not going to be easy, say public opinion experts, who claim that Phelps' death has created a vacuum atop the rankings of the most hated people in America.  Possible nominees include George Zimmerman (who famously stood his ground) , Michael Dunn (who more recently and more famously stood his ground, also), and O.J. Simpson (who, if you think about the definition of "stand your ground," probably could have made a case that he stood HIS ground).  But the most likely candidate waiting in the wings to take Phelps' post of "Most Hated" is disgraced former Penn State Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky. At the time of press, Mr. Sandusky was being shower-raped in an purposely-ironic way and couldn't be reached for comment.


*Perhaps the group's name should be expressed as the triple-air-quoted "Westboro" "Baptist" "Church,"  given that 
(a.) the building is not in Westboro (it's in Topeka, KS), and given that 
(b.) the organization is not affiliated with Baptism in any way, and given that
(c.) the organization is not really a "church" in any meaningful way, either, perhaps "hate cult" would be more appropriate.   
Wow, that's the most air quotes I've seen since "Liberty" "University" founder Jerry Falwell died!

This...Is Deathwatch: Resurrection.

Welcome to Deathwatch: Resurrection, your on-line home for the latest in bucket-kicking news.

In the Aughts, we got a group of friends together to place bets on when the famous and the infamous would shuffle off this mortal coil. After ten years of Mickey Rooney stubbornly refusing to die--five of which included the late, lamented Deathwatch Blog--we called it quits.

The Grim Reaper and Joe, however, missed the opportunity that our Deathwatch blog had given us to write kicky obituaries for notable corpses.

And now, we’re back! Since no money is being wagered upon these deaths, we don’t have to feel quite so guilt-ridden and can take greater pleasure in saying gently mocking goodbyes to those who’ve impacted American lives. (And occasionally taking a giant dump on dead people we hate. [Fred Phelps, we’re waiting for you!])

So please join us each week as we find the laughs in car wrecks and wring a chuckle out of massive coronaries. This is…Deathwatch: Resurrection.  

Original photo by Philip Rostron

Death Takes David Brenner as Last-Minute Fill-In

After Jerry Seinfeld dropped out and it was discovered that Tim Allen and Gilbert Gotfried both had schedule conflicts, death welcomed emergency fill-in David Brenner today.

Brenner, it was reported, had nothing else going on and was able to get to the afterlife in a hurry.

Brenner nearly died in 2013, following a car crash, but was bumped when James Gandolfini's death ran long.

Brenner is survived by three sons and his wife, Tai Babilonia. Seriously, Tai Babilonia.