August 01, 2003
LAUGHING LAST
From the Popbitch newsletter:
Posted by Tim Blair at August 1, 2003 02:15 AMPoor Bob Hope. Everyone's been waiting for him to die for years. His obituary in London's Evening Standard newspaper was written by Alexander Walker who died two weeks before him. And the one in the New York Times was written by a journalist, Vincent Canby, who died in 2000.
The best eulogy, if you can find it, is Drew Friedman's comic from Heavy Metal of Bob Hope's 200th Birthday Special. Hard to believe it won't still happen.
Posted by: Mike G at August 1, 2003 at 03:08 AMTo be fair, the press keeps these things on hand for any celebrity big enough to merit a death notice outside the gossip columns, including politicians and "world leaders".
When someone like Hope dies, they can pull the obit, check for any necessary updates, and have them ready to go in a couple of hours at most.
The one by Vincent Canby was not written in 2000, it was updated in 2000. It was probably written sometime in the late 70's.
Posted by: Gary Utter at August 1, 2003 at 04:46 AMKill our fun why dontcha, Gary!
Still, the thought that two guys who wrote his obits died before he did brings to mind one word:
[Nelson voice]HAHA![/Nelson voice]
Posted by: Ken Summers at August 1, 2003 at 06:33 AMWhen I was in high school, my grandmother read in one of her tabloids that a psychic predicted that a famous entertainer (or maybe it was "comedian" or "actor") was going to die that summer. I didn't believe in all that psychic nonsense, but I did momentarily think, "Gosh, I hope it's not Bob Hope. He's getting kinda old."
That was 1977.
Posted by: Angie Schultz at August 1, 2003 at 09:44 AMTim, Elvis is dead, deal with it. He died shortly after writing Shane MacGowan's obituary.
Posted by: Clem Snide at August 1, 2003 at 08:18 PMGood thing you quoted that it was from popbitch. MediaWatch takes a dim view on plagarism from that source.
I've seen MediaWatch's plagarism torture cells. It was a horrific scene. Actually I'm not going to describe what I saw there because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with MediaWatch, and right now I'm waging peace.
Posted by: Andjam at August 1, 2003 at 09:16 PMelvis is sharing a condo with spider savich tim
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at August 1, 2003 at 10:53 PMUm, Angie, a tiny bit of irony about your Bob Hope story...Bing Crosby died in 1977.
Posted by: Ken Summers at August 2, 2003 at 12:38 AMAt least the Evening Standard and the NY Times are giving accurate bylines. I don't think they'd make it up and give credit to the deceased. :^|
Posted by: Jabba the Nutt at August 2, 2003 at 03:17 PM