Death of Three Icons

In my life, I have noticed celebrity deaths coming in pairs and threes,
frequently thematically arranged. Orson Welles and Yul Brynner, two kings,
passed together in the 1980's. We lost Jim Henson and Sammy Davis, Jr., two
groundbreaking beloved entertainers, in the early 1990's.

Now Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson have passed away. And all
of them have spent time in the sci-fi fantasy world.

Ed McMahon, though never a big, featured player in the genre, did dutifully
bring his character to play in several episodes of "Alf," "Amazing Stories,"
"Sabrina the Teenage Witch," and the movie "Bewitched."

Who can forget the dreams we had of Farrah Fawcett after seeing her plead that
Michael York get "dark hair" in "Logan's Run," or in her space suits in "Saturn
3"?

And whatever else you can say about Michael Jackson, he was in the best produced
3D science fiction short film ever shown at Disneyland, "Captain Eo," and he
did create the "zombie dance" from "Thriller."

And here's one other thing that the two celebs who died on the same day have in common. They both got the world to refer to them by their first names.