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Fake-or-Fact Friday: Death and TV Edition

October 10, 2014

Here are three weird news stories about memorializing the departed that somehow involve television. Two of the stories are true, and one we made up. Which one is false? The answer is at the end of the post.

A.

A man posted on Instagram a photo of the gravestone of his recently deceased brother. The perished was an avid beer drinker and home brewer, and loved beer almost as much as he loved The Simpsons. Per his request, and as shown in the photo, his epitaph read, “To alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems. It’s a quote from Homer Simpson, taken from a Simpsons episode in which Springfield bans, and then un-bans, alcohol.

B.

A woman whose brother recently died posted on a message board dedicated to discussion of the cult TV comedy It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. She wanted to let other fans know that her brother was probably the show’s biggest fan, because he requested that the epitaph on his headstone be a quote from the series. “Dayman, fighter of the Nightman,” his grave reads, cryptically, referring to an episode in the which the show’s characters stage a bizarre musical about a superhero called Dayman/Nightman.

C.

Willie McCoy was a professional backup and session singer, but is best known for singing Chili’s “I want my baby back, baby back, baby back” TV jingle that ran thousands of times on TV in the late 1990s. McCoy sang what he knew—he was a huge barbecue enthusiast. When he died, his family worked with a Dallas funeral home to give him a barbecue-themed memorial service. Pallbearers in chef hats carried the smoker-shaped casket, and guests dipped their baby back ribs in a barbecue sauce fountain.

Want more things that sound true…but aren’t? Then check out Uncle John’s Fake Facts. (Really!)