New Rules Allow Celebrities to Die Four at a Time

HOLLYWOOD — New rules issued today make it okay for public figures to kick the bucket in groups of four.

For years the rich and famous “departed this worldly plane” in groups of three, according to a press release from the Kharmic Fame Center. “That system had been adequate for the last several centuries,” read the release, “because worldwide, there weren’t that many prominent people and we didn’t want to lose a lot of them at once.”

But today, a new celebrity is hatched on the internet or over cable TV “every fucking minute,” and people are more eager than ever to send them on their way.

“The world was devastated at the losses of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, who crashed and died together in an Iowa cornfield on Feb. 3, 1959,” said Emanuel Lewis, KFC President. “For a fan in the 1950s it would have been more than they could bear had, say, Little Richard bit the big one at the same time.”

Lewis, who gained his own fame as the child star of the 1980s TV series Webster, said that in the last fifty years, there has been such an overwhelming explosion of celebrities, people can barely keep up. “Were Lady Gaga, Seth Rogen and Zac Efron to meet the same fate today as those amazing entertainers did in the fifites,” he said, “under the new rules we’d be able to throw in a fourth, say, Amy Winehouse.”

Lewis added that most people nowadays wouldn’t mourn their deaths, yet alone even notice their absence.  “Who fucking cares?” he said. “‘Another spoiled lunatic departed from the earth, big fucking deal.’ That’s why we decided to speed up the process.”

Moreover, officials hope the new rules clear up confusion that has been ongoing in recent years.  When David Carradine passed away, people assumed he was first in a new set of three, according to KFC research, with Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon following at numbers two and three, respectively. 

“Then Michael Jackson turns up some daisies,” said Lewis. “Was he the first in a subsequent set of three? Or was he the third after Fawcett-McMahon — and was David Carradine actually the last of a previous set of three?”

With the new rules firmly in place, the answer is clear: the King of Pop is now officially the final act in a series of four (behind Carradine, Fawcett, and McMahon) and Walter Cronkite is first in line of the next set, with three more to follow (for example, Dick Cheney, CNN Host Gerri Willis, and any of the original ‘Brady Kids.’”)

An exception to the new rules allows people who are famous solely on the Internet to die en masse, quantity notwithstanding.