Barry Nelson and Tom Schecker had some morbid business to attend to when they began writing their new book. A collection of obituaries of “the most famous people who never lived,” “Mr. Ed: Dead” required them to not only eulogize pop culture icons, but kill them, as well.
“In the beginning, we were saying, ‘Who are the bad guys? Who does everyone want to be killed off?’ But we realized that it’s the beloved, the innocents, that needed to be killed,” recalls Nelson of the preliminary grim reaper duties. “Betty Crocker is helpful, she does all these wonderful things for people, but she needed to go.”
So, too, did Hello Kitty (whose lack of a mouth proved fatal), Herbie the Love Bug (carbon monoxide poisoning), and that cute-but-maddening Microsoft Office paperclip (foul play was, not surprisingly, suspected in Clippy’s untimely death).
But while it’s fun to imagine the demise of characters, the book’s real humor comes from their playful adherence to the language and mechanisms of obituary writing. “I admire obituarists. They’re interviewing friends, families, parole officers — the good ones are terrific,” says Nelson, who looked to Marilyn Johnson’s 2006 book on the subject, “The Dead Beat,” for inspiration, as well as British newspapers that tend to devote more space and flair to the pieces. “These obituarists are really writing about life and taking it from a storytelling angle.”
