Dead Celebrities - Production and Theme

Production and Theme

"Dead Celebrities" was written and directed by series co-founder Trey Parker, and was rated TV-MA L in the United States. It first aired on October 7, 2009 in the United States on Comedy Central. The day after "Dead Celebrities" was originally broadcast, T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts based on the episode was made available at South Park Studios, the official South Park website. It featured a frightened Ike standing above the phrase, "I see dead celebrities".

"Dead Celebrities" includes references to several actors, singers and other celebrities who died in the summer of 2009, when the thirteenth season of South Park was on a mid-season hiatus. The episode serves not only to parody the celebrities themselves, but also to provide commentary on the tendency of American media to exploit, idolatrize and excessively report on the lives of celebrities. The most prominently featured of these celebrities is pop singer Michael Jackson, who died from a cardiac arrest on June 25.

Billy Mays, a television advertisement salesman, is the first dead celebrity featured in the episode, and plays a large role in the early part of the script. Mays' son, Billy Mays III, a self-proclaimed South Park fan, said he loved "Dead Celebrities", and found its portrayal of his father tasteful and respectful. He said, "South Park gets a little edgy sometimes, but at their core, they're just social satire, you know? I think it was natural for them to do a dead celebrities episode with this whole summer and how it's been, and I think the way they did it was pretty tasteful for the most part." The spirit of David Carradine is shown wearing bondage gear, a reference to his June 3, 2009, death by autoerotic asphyxiation. Among the others featured in the episode were actress Farrah Fawcett, journalist Walter Cronkite, disc jockey Adam Goldstein (DJ AM), politician Ted Kennedy, actress Beatrice Arthur, television personality Ed McMahon, actor Patrick Swayze, actress Natasha Richardson, hot dog magnate Oscar G. Mayer, Jr. and actor/chef Dom DeLuise.