Death happens. Why not make it interesting?
The online competition to guess which famous people won't make it to the end of the current year. If they're elderly, ill, or just live a high-risk lifestyle, stick 'em in your team, and for each one whose death you correctly predict, you'll score points. DDP was dreamt up in Derby, England (hence the name...) by Big Iain back in 1996. Other hosts: Siegfried Baboon and Rude Kid (2003-7), Octopus of Odstock (2008-9, first tenure), The Man in Black (2010-17), Spade Cooley (2018-19), msc (2020-21), Grim Up North (2020-22), Reptile (2020-23), and Death Impends (2022-2025). Now the Committee of Banana (2023), time (2024), the returning Octopus of Odstock (2026) and the deadpooling equivalent of a gap year temp Marlfox (2026) oversee the biggest deadpool going...
From the “British Spunk And Times Obituaries” realm of DDPing comes Thomas Pearson who, until his death, was the oldest living British full general. He was always destined for that line of work: born into a military family, he attended Charterhouse and Sandhurst, where he was named a second lieutenant aged 20. His active service […]
Character actor Nicky Henson was first diagnosed with terminal cancer, which should have ended his career, in 2000. The son of musical hall comic Leslie Henson, Nicky first came to prominence as a potential leading man at the Young Vic in the early 1970s, handling both Shakespeare and Angry Young Man revivals with equal aplomb. […]
One of the greats of “actresses your girlfriend likes to use as desktop wallpaper but hasn’t seen any movies of” has died. Anna Karina was 79 and is survived by a lot of Tumblr gifs. She started her career in cabaret at the age of 14 and ran away from home to be involved in […]
The biggest DDP hit of the year came with the passing of the face of Emmerdale‘s “Attitude Era”, Leah Bracknell – and now we pay our respects to the face of its “Golden Era” Hulk Hogan. Sheila Mercier first started performing at a young age in concerts put on by her musician mother, and had […]
For a good two generations of British children, David Bellamy was their introduction to environmentalism. From Don’t Ask Me to Blooming Bellamy, along with endless appearances on the likes of Multi-Coloured Swap Shop and Blue Peter, he was also a go-to voice for any impressionist appearing on kids’ TV (just gummy yourself up and say “gwapple me gwapenuts”). He also […]
“The Bald Eagle”, as Jim Smith was known to fans and rivals alike, was one of the most reassuring faces in football. As a player he had lengthy spells in the lower and non-leagues with the likes of Halifax and Boston, but it was as a manager that he’ll forever be remembered. He spent nearly […]
Roxette were second only to ABBA when it comes to record sales by a Swedish act, and Marie Fredriksson was a huge part of that statistic. She met Per Gessle in the late 1970s when he was frontman of the hugely popular (in Sweden) Gyllene Tider, and Fredriksson was in a number of less successful […]
The end-of-year “Deaths of 2019” roundups usually bring us a few names that obituary writers overlooked during the year, and this time around it’s the BBC’s sports “in memoriam” reel that provides a second chance for one DDP team. The name in question is former racing driver Jim Russell, who died without a press mention […]
Pete Frates was a former minor college baseball squad player who helped kickstart one of the biggest charity movements of all time. Frates was the fourth person to ever take the “Ice Bucket Challenge”, and the first person diagnosed with ALS to do so. He’d been diagnosed with the condition two years prior and had […]
With Sesame Street marking its 50th anniversary this year, it’s perhaps fitting that the man who was second to only Jim Henson in his contribution to the Children’s Television Workshop classic has passed on. Caroll Spinney (so named because his mother went into labour on Christmas Day) was a keen puppeteer as a child and even […]
