1998 Verde/NYPD Death Pool:
Participants lists plus consensus list

Participant/list:

    Mike Allen * (paid up halfway through 2000)
  1. Robert Downey Jr. (this guy is long due)
  2. Dan Quisenberry (maybe Strat will finally pay off with some cash)
  3. The Pope (I not even sure his name, but you know who I mean)
  4. John Popper (Blues Traveler lead singer, heart attack victim)
  5. Tommy Morrison (I need his AIDS to advance quickly)
  6. Ronald Reagan (won't be worth many points)
  7. Jan Micheal Vincent (accident waiting to happen)
  8. Saddam Hussein (with that many bullseyes on him, you never know)
  9. Christian Slater (Quit beating women and just do the drugs)
  10. Sacramento Kings baskeball team. (we haven't had a team plane go down for a while; will I get partial credit if one player goes?)
    Belen Alonso *
  1. Boris Yeltsin
  2. Pope John Paul II
  3. Frank Sinatra
  4. Ronald Reagan
  5. Strom Thurmond
  6. Elizabeth Taylor
  7. Larry King
  8. Bob Dole
  9. Ted Kennedy
  10. Bob Hope
    Tom Baier *
  1. His Holiness Pope John Paul II
  2. Frank Sinatra
  3. Katharine Hepburn
  4. Larry King
  5. Jeff Gordon
  6. Ed McMahon
  7. Benjamin Netanyahu
  8. Todd Bridges
  9. Puff Daddy
  10. Robert Downey Jr.

    Tiebreaker: Florence Henderson dies of a heart attack after the trauma of being caught at a Wesson Oil sex party involving several of her TV children.
    Jessica Bewsee *
  1. Robert Redford: skiing accident
  2. Tom Arnold: water skiing accident
  3. Hansons: Plane crash into ski resort
  4. Strom Thurmond: trips over skis
  5. Jerry Springer: hit with skiis
  6. Larry King: freezes to death waiting to interview Alberto Tomba
  7. Robert Downey, Jr.: snorting fiberglas
  8. Tommy Lee and...
  9. ...Pamela Anderson Lee: rough sex on skis
  10. Joan Rivers: shopping for skis
    Walt Bostian *
  1. Axl Rose
  2. Jason Robards
  3. Joe Williams
  4. Marlon Brando
  5. Joe DiMaggio
  6. Mike Ditka
  7. Richard Pryor
  8. Hunter S. Thompson
  9. Norman Mailer
  10. Walter Cronkite
    Andrew Bowers *
  1. Bob Hope, who recently began singing "Thanks for the... for the... " and died.
  2. Delta Burke, the Chris Farley of '98
  3. Abigail Van Buren, who will be lovingly eulogized by her sister... NOT!
  4. Charlton Heston: when my cousin Ben hears of this, we'll be at the zoo looking at primates and he'll get sick to his stomach over the news and I'll say, "Holy Moses, you stinking apes, Ben Hurled!"
  5. Socks the Cat: dragged down by tuna-flavored pet treat addiction and severely depressed over expanding press coverage of Buddy the dog, Socks will finally throw himself in front of Newt Gingrich's limo and be permanently downsized
  6. The Queen Mother, once described by Ambassador Joeseph Kennedy as "one cute trick"
  7. Ed McMahan will get into a "Herrre's Johnny" match with Jack Nicholson and have a stroke (Hell, even Dick Clark's beginning to look old)
  8. Bob Dylan: outraged at the attention given John Denver, Bob will purposely run out of gas on an L.A. freeway, step out of his car, and be hit and killed by the only other born-again Christian jew on the west coast.
  9. Doris Day: Que sera, sera...
  10. Leonardo DiCaptrio (if there is a God) will die in a James Dean-esque accident involving a skateboard and a '73 Chevy Impala

    Dire Prediction for 1998: Late in July, the parents of JonBenet Ramsey will NOT appear on the cover of a national tabloid.
    Ed Coates *
    Actually, the surest path to victory in this thing is to find Claudine Longet, set her up with a loaded piece and a one-way ticket to Aspen, then let her do her thing. In any case, here are my selections:
  1. Bob Hope - do we get bonus for the golf course as well? If so, I want O.J.
  2. Katherine Hepburn - another perrenial pick, I'm sure.
  3. Ronald Reagan - if his illness makes him ineligible, I'll take Nancy. [Jack's note: Ronnie's good to go.]
  4. Boris Yeltsin - Maybe he's already dead and Moscow put Fred Travelena in his place without telling us.
  5. Frank Gifford - One, he's been caught in a hotel room with another woman (the cause for an untimely end for many a married man), and two, he's actually related to the Kennedys!
  6. Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs - I don't know much about rap, but I know a trend when I see one: the last two rap stars to get coverage in the mainstream press (Tupac, Notorius B.I.G.) have since met the reaper.
  7. Charlie Sheen - Maybe Downey and Slater have been more public in their hedonism, but Charlie's been at it longer, and with more hookers - a good prescription for incurable disease.
  8. Peyton Manning - The first snap he takes behind that phantom offensive line in Indianapolis will vault him to to the head of the death class. Meet Mr. White, Mr. Randle, Mr. Smith, Mr. Lloyd . . .
  9. Yanni - I don't really want him to die, I just want him to please go away. My mother-in-law was once offered a Yanni video tape by a dental assistant to take her mind off the procedure. I'll leave it up to you which was the more painful experience.
  10. Frank Sinatra - This one hurts, but let's face it, the Chairman is about to face that final curtain. He'd be happy to know he beat out Rodney King (isn't he due to be pulled over again soon?) for the coveted final spot on the roster.

    As for the catastrophic event for '98, I think Michael Jackson fathering another child while Dr. Seed in Chicago is creating one in a petri dish is proof positive that God is about to whistle us all out of the pool.
    Dan Davis #1 *
  1. Bob Hope
  2. Frank Sinatra
  3. Robert Downey, Jr.
  4. Sly Stone
  5. Scott Weiland
  6. Snoop Doggy Dogg
  7. Ratko Mladic
  8. Ted Kaczynski
  9. Yasser Arafat
  10. Mike Tyson

    Catastrophe: violent revolution in Africa
    Dan Davis #2 *
  1. Ronald Reagan
  2. Michael Zaslow (actor on Guiding Light)
  3. Dan Quisenberry
  4. Milton Berle
  5. James Earl Ray
  6. Pol Pot
  7. Strom Thurmond
  8. Julia Child
  9. Rev. Billy Graham
  10. Frank Sinatra
    Theresa Hitchens *
  1. Robert Downey Jr., via what else?
  2. Jack Lemmon, and we'll miss him.
  3. Walter Mathau, pining for Jack.
  4. Barbra Streisand, via bizarre liposuction accident.
  5. Kit Culkin, McCauley's dad, via murder for hire (but McCauley will escape the death penalty)
  6. Richard Gere, plane crash in Tibet.
  7. Ted Kennedy, however he goes it'll involve alcohol.
  8. Christian Slater (see number 1)
  9. Donald Trump, in an arson plot on Trump Tower that got out of control.
  10. And, in a freak bus accident in Japan (suspected of involving glue sniffing and older women of ill-repute), at least one, if not all three, Hansons.

    Notable Horrific Event for 1998: Madeleine Albright weds Jesse Helms.
    Lorraine Johnson #1: *
  1. Pope John Paul II
  2. Boris Yeltsin
  3. Anthony Quinn
  4. John Wooden
  5. Mikhail Gorbachev
  6. Willie Nelson
  7. Fidel Castro
  8. The Queen Mother
  9. Tony Randall
  10. Strom Thurmond

    (now THAT'S a dinner party!)

    Tiebreaker: Don King does not go bald.
    Lorraine Johnson #2: *
  1. Jack Kevorkian
  2. Leona Helmsley
  3. Louis Farrakhan
  4. Prince Ranier of Monaco
  5. Mike Ditka
  6. Postmaster General Marvin Runyon
  7. Doris Day
  8. Saddam Hussein
  9. Betty Friedan
  10. Claus Von Bulow

    Tiebreaker: Tony Randall's sperm count goes up.
    Lorraine Johnson #3: *
  1. Bob Hope
  2. Billy Graham
  3. Elizabeth Taylor
  4. Doris Day
  5. Gerald Ford
  6. Marion Barry
  7. Norman Mailer
  8. Larry King
  9. Frank Sinatra
  10. Kirk Douglas

    Tiebreaker: The Pope Pulls a Pee Wee
    Tom Kenney *
  1. Ronald W. Reagan - his autonomic brain functions just got tired; after all his higher brain functions have been inactive since, oh, about 1982.
  2. Boris Yeltsin - one binge too many.
  3. Pope John Paul II - his life finally caught up with him; he's been propped up for the last year by a Polish cabal in the Vatican.
  4. Siegfried, as in Siegfried and Roy - one of his tigers was just a little bit more hungry than he anticipated.
  5. Frank Sinatra - his family ties weren't sufficient to cheat death.
  6. Strom Thurmond - after several hours on the Senate floor during debate, someone tries to wake him for a vote and they realize he passed to the great legislature in the sky.
  7. Fidel Castro - time does what the CIA could not, and with him communism, except of course for the some odd billion communists in the Peoples Republic of China.
  8. Pol Pot - I know, I know, but this time it's for real.
  9. Diego Maradona - again, one drug binge too many, after his latest comeback.
  10. JonBenet Ramsey's mother(I don't know her first name) - she just couldn't live with the guilt.

    Bonus pick: The Chicago Bulls - after several unsuccessful attempts, the two Jerrys finally kill Da Bulls.
    Anne Kern *
  1. Nancy Kerrigan slips on a patch of ice while shoveling her father's driveway, cracks open her pretty little skull.
  2. Charles, Prince of Wales follows his wife to the grave by plummeting off a rowdy-- or randy?-- horse during a polo match with the Sultan of Brunei.
  3. Jane Fonda languishes from a horrible infection caused by an implosion of her silicone breast implants.
  4. Madonna perishes after being shot on the streets of New York by enraged Hasidim.
  5. Barney dies catastrophically when his fat purple self collides with an immense meteor which causes so much dust to enter the atmosphere that another ice age ensues.
  6. Yanni is struck by lightning while performing his "electrifying" music at the Acropolis.
  7. Clarence Thomas chokes on a pubic hair in his can of coke during a Supreme Court luncheon.
  8. Woody Allen masturbates himself to death.
  9. Nancy Reagan wastes away from complications due to extreme anorexia.
  10. Dan Rather develops an allergy to hairspray and dies of anaphylactic shock (on the air?).
    SMK *
  1. Walter Cronkite
  2. Mr. Rogers (sob)
  3. Drew Barrymore
  4. Joe Namath (in skiing accident)
  5. The Queen Mother
  6. Mary, of Peter Paul and Mary
  7. Alan Greenspan
  8. Macauley Culkin
  9. Sally Jesse Raphael
  10. Frank Sinatra
    Debra LaJoie *
  1. Mo Vaughn
  2. Doug Flutie
  3. Richard Branson
  4. James "Whitey" Bulger
  5. Ted Kaczynski
  6. John Travolta
  7. Frank Sinatra
  8. Richard Pimental, a.k.a. "Captain Good"
  9. Janet Reno
  10. Picabo Street
    Olympia Lambert *
  1. Boris Yeltsin
  2. Pope John Paul II
  3. Bob Hope
  4. Dustin Diamond
  5. Kelsey Grammer
  6. Tommy Lee
  7. Bobby Brown
  8. Brett Butler (the actress)
  9. Bob Dylan
  10. Puff Daddy
    SHPOD *
    Here's my random list -- your basic mix of dictators, mass murderers, child stars (just to bring the average age down), entertainment moguls, and a royal.
  1. Saddam Hussein
  2. Fidel Castro
  3. Ted Kaczynski
  4. Timothy McVeigh
  5. Baby Spice (I have no idea what her real name is)
  6. Tiffany (ditto)
  7. Michael Eisner
  8. Ted Turner
  9. Sumner Redstone (though that would probably kill what's left of my Viacom stock's value and won't get me many points due to his age)
  10. Queen Elizabeth (just so Charles can stop moping around)

    Horrific Prediction for 1998: Alphonse D'Amato is re-elected.
    Peggy Loftus *
  1. Michael Jackson, through a cosmetic surgery accident, or during an attempt to remove sperm.
  2. Bill Clinton, clogged arteries after a Big Mac attack.
  3. Zsa Zsa Gabor, the judge handling her divorce gets his wires crossed and issues the death penalty instead.
  4. Cher, in mourning over Sonny, she buys a ski outfit and suffocates in it.
  5. Elton John, gets confused and does a tribute album for himself and then takes matters into his own hands when he decides sales would be greater if he were dead.
  6. Camilla Parker Bowles, in a horse riding accident; they later find the driver of the horse was under the influence, but the exact nature of the influence is unclear.
  7. Fergie, seems the cancer scare wasn't fake after all, or weight watchers diet works so well she simply disappears.
  8. and 9. and 10. The Three Mir Cosmonauts. It's just a load of old space junk, and when power fails for the last time the poor Russkies on board are destined for an orbital fade-out.

    Event: The Millennium Dome is constructed, but the organisers get so carried away they cover the entire city of London..

    Event3: Castro renounces Communism and converts to Catholicism, then overthrows the Pope!
    Lisa Nihan *
  1. George Clooney
  2. Cindy Crawford
  3. Boris Yeltsin
  4. Eddie O'Brien
  5. Al Sharpton
  6. Willie Nelson
  7. Tom Snyder
  8. Jerry Williams
  9. Robert Downey, Jr.
  10. Doris Kearns Goodwin
    Shayna Ponim *
  1. Strom Thurmond
  2. Jessie Helms
  3. Katharine Hepburn
  4. Howard Stern
  5. Tori Spelling
  6. Boris Yeltsin
  7. Dr. Richard Seed
  8. David Duke
  9. Christopher Lyden
  10. Quentin Tarantino
    Jill Provost *
  1. Steve Fossett
  2. Jackie Chan
  3. Larry Flynt
  4. Morton Downey, Jr.
  5. Robert Downey, Jr.
  6. Luciano Pavarotti
  7. Boris Yeltsin
  8. Dr. Ruth Westheimer
  9. Ted Kaczynski
  10. Liz Taylor
    Adam Spellman *
  1. Muhammad Ali
  2. Jackie Chan
  3. Shannon Doherty
  4. Robert Downey, Jr.
  5. Crispin Glover
  6. Bob Hope
  7. J.D. Salinger
  8. Christian Slater
  9. Eddie Vedder
  10. Boris Yeltsin

    Catastrophic event: California earthquake
    Jack Spellman *
  1. Yasser Arafat
  2. Ana Cordero (wife of Wil)
  3. Dom DeLuise
  4. Joe Piscopo
  5. Bob Probert
  6. William Rehnquist
  7. Phil Rizzuto
  8. Avery Schreiber
  9. Larry Storch
  10. Dick Van Patten

    Horrific Event: Space station Mir, knocked off its orbit by space debris, falls to earth, lands on DeForest Kelly, whose last words are "Damn it, Jim..."
    Mike Sullivan *
  1. Louie Anderson
  2. John Goodman
  3. Bob Hope
  4. Frank Sinatra
  5. Dan Rostenkowski
  6. Rosemary Clooney
  7. Goldie Hawn
  8. Pope John Paul II
  9. Antonin Scalia
  10. Macauley Caulkin

    Horrific event: Mudslides in California bury homes, obliterate roadways, negatively affect property values, spawn three tv movies of the week.
    Alfonso Villanueva *
    1-7: The septuplets McCaughey.
    8. Mick Jagger
    9. Jeff Gordon
    10. Boris Yeltsin

    I do not include in the actual list, but he could very well be in the "I wish it would happen" list, Pauly Shore.
    Bess Whitesel *
  1. Pope John Paul II
  2. Ronald Reagan
  3. Captain Kangaroo
  4. Bob Hope
  5. Richard Pryor
  6. Penn or Teller
  7. Boris Yeltsin
  8. Marilyn Manson
  9. Placido Domingo
  10. Jackie Chan
    FY: Hollywood Bad Boys/Girls *
  1. Drew Barrymore
  2. Shannon Doherty
  3. Luke Perry
  4. Tori Spelling
  5. Robert Downey Jr.
  6. Christian Slater
  7. Jack Nicholson
  8. Charlie Sheen
  9. Emilio Estevez
  10. Danny Bonaduce

    My horrific event is the assassination of Gerry Adams (of Sinn Fein and IRA fame). I almost put him on my list and went for an all Irish/Peace Talks theme, but I don't know all the players. Oh, well.
    John Kerr's ten individuals who will not die in 1998:
  1. Kermit the Frog
  2. San Diego Chicken
  3. Don Rickles
  4. Henry Winkler
  5. Abe Vigoda
  6. Frank Sinatra (he's an android)
  7. William Shatner
  8. Buddy
  9. any member of the Monkees

    THE CONSENSUS LIST:

    (Number of lists on which the celeb appears is in parentheses following name)
  1. Yeltsin, Boris (11)
  2. Sinatra, Frank (10)
  3. Downey, Robert Jr. and Hope, Bob (9)
    5. John Paul II, Pope (8)
    6. Reagan, Ronald and Thurmond, Strom (6)
    8. King, Larry, Slater, Christian, and Kaczynski, Ted (4)

* This participant has paid the entry fee.



Yikes! Get me out of here!