For a while, we noted how with each passing death, the knee-jerk response was the posting of tasteless jokes:

We have not added the tasteless jokes greeting the subsequent deaths of other celebs, or various grim events ranging from destroyed buildings to tsunamis. It's more a question of time, than anything else. You get the idea by now, anyway. Comedy, as Steve Allen once theorized, IS tragedy plus time. And these days, the time it takes for something to go from tragic to funny is less than a nanosecond. Ask Jay Leno when he hears about Scott Peterson, Robert Blake, or Michael Jackson. Wife murder, pedophiia....it doesn't get much funnier, does it?

Yes, they gave joy to others. And their reward was a rancid demise.

Some of these dimly remembered comedians lie in graves, some are merely incinerated atoms of dust blowing into your eye on a fetid wind. Now...they are here in cyberspace limbo. Amuse yourself with their fateful tales...

Buchanan and Goodman
Creesh Hornsby
Mark Sheridan
Harry Fragson
Joe Welch
Charlie Case
Cass Daley
Eric Campbell
Zeb and Zarrow
Paul McCullough
Stringbean
Marceline

Read about Freddie Prinz and Professor Backwards in "Who's Who in Comedy" at your local library.

Added for Christmas '98: "Happy Deaths" of Parkyakarkus and Dick Shawn

In this section, we pay tribute to comedians who have made observations as misanthropic as they are comic, as tumorous as they are humorous, and drawn from the depths of tragedy in order to be called great comedy.

INSULTING COMEDIANS

COMING SOON: A BUNCH OF UNPLEASANT OBSERVATIONS