Dead Celebrities/Trivia

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"Dead Celebrities/Trivia"

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This page contains trivia for "Dead Celebrities". Remember, trivia must be factual, provable, and it is always best to cite your source for not-so-obvious trivia. If you would like to dispute a trivia point, please discuss it in the talk page.

Trivia

• According to this episode, Stan apparently has a stronger digestive system than Cartman, or as Cartman puts it, a "golden rectum of the Gods".
• While waiting at the Denver's Hospital for Children, Kenny is seen reading a Coco magazine.
• Cartman said that they still show Billy Mays' commercials. Mays' commercials actually continued to air after his death, including two new commercials he filmed shortly before his death. His commercials as well as his show, Pitchmen were eventually taken over by his friend and co worker, Anthony Sullivan.
• Billy Mays' son, Billy Mays III, has said that he is a huge fan of South Park and was proud of the portrayal of his father in this episode, finding it tasteful and funny.

References to Popular Culture

• Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson from The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) featured in Ghost Hunters are called in to investigate. Both have stated that they loved the parody.
• Cartman makes several references to Chipotle Mexican Grill, an American fast food restaurant specializing in Mexican cuisine.
• Most of the products Billy Mays pitches are fictional, with the exception of The Big City Slider Station and Mighty Mend-It.
• When Ike tells his therapist that he "sees dead celebrities" he paraphrases the famous quote "I see dead people" from M. Night Shyamalan's film The Sixth Sense.
• The episode parodies the film Little Miss Sunshine and the show Toddlers & Tiaras, with the children's pageant.
• The psychic from the hospital is a reference to actress Zelda Rubinstein, who acted as the eccentric psychic Tangina Barrons in the in 1982 supernatural film, Poltergeist. This role was previously referenced in "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson."
  • Although she is introduced as Dr. Philips, her badge clearly reads "Dr. Tangina" in reference to her character from the film.
• Dr. Philips description of purgatory--and the fact that purgatory really "is" an indefinite stay on an on-runway airplane--bears a striking resemblance to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Secondary Phase (copied in the second book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe) when one of the lead characters comes across a seemingly abandoned spaceport on a practically dead planet, with one functioning aircraft that kept its passengers in stasis, its robot flight attendants waking them up once a year to feed them, despite their restraints, and then put them back to sleep, while they waited indefinitely for their supply of lemon-soaked paper napkins.
• The song that Michael Jackson sings during the pageant,"Just a Little Girl" is a parody of his song, "You Are Not Alone".
• Some of the celebrity ghosts that Ike sees or are waiting on the plane in Purgatory are listed below:
  • Adam Michael Goldstein aka DJ AM - Musician (March 30, 1973 – August 28, 2009)
  • Arturo Gatti - boxer (April 15, 1972 – July 11, 2009)
  • Bea Arthur - actress (May 13, 1922 – April 25, 2009)
  • Billy Mays - TV pitchman (July 20, 1958 – June 28, 2009)
  • David Carradine - actor (December 8, 1936 – June 3, 2009)
  • Dom DeLuise - actor and celebrity chef (August 1, 1933 – May 4, 2009)
  • Ed McMahon - TV game show host (March 6, 1923 – June 23, 2009)
  • Farrah Fawcett - actress (February 2, 1947 – June 25, 2009)
  • John Hughes - director (February 18, 1950 – August 6, 2009)
  • Les Paul - musician and inventor (June 9, 1915 – August 13, 2009)
  • Michael Jackson - singer (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009)
  • Natasha Richardson - actress (11 May 1963 – 18 March 2009)
  • Oscar G. Mayer Jr. - businessman (March 16, 1914 – July 6, 2009)
  • Patrick Swayze - actor (August 18, 1952 – September 14, 2009)
  • Ricardo Montalban - actor (November 25, 1920 – January 14, 2009)
  • Steve McNair - American NFL Player (February 14, 1973 – July 4, 2009)
  • Ted Kennedy - U.S. Senator (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009)
  • Walter Cronkite - TV anchorman, journalist (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009)

Continuity

• Dr. Carroll from "Tonsil Trouble" is seen again; this time he works at the Children's Hospital of Denver and is wearing a brown wig.
• A fictional version of Michael Jackson re-named Mr. Jefferson appeared in "The Jeffersons." Despite them knowing his real identity, the boys do not seem to really recognize him afterwards.
  • Stan seems to partially recognize his voice, but not precisely.
• The scene when Billy Mays talks and the boys tell him to "shut up" references a scene in which the boys say the same thing to Butters in "Good Times with Weapons."
• One of the beauty pageant contestants resembles Estella from the episode "Pip."

Goofs

• When Billy Mays is trying to sell his products in Purgatory, he is seated next to Kennedy and Richardson and behind some background characters. At the end, when they land in Hell, he is seated next to someone else. At the part where all the celebrities yell, Mays is no longer present.
• In the scene where Cartman shows them Mays selling a product for cleaning blood stains out of underwear, they start out in Cartman's house when they go to the TV. However, when they go back to see the boys' reaction to the commercial, they are in Kyle's house.
• In a deleted scene, viewable on the Season 13 DVD and Blu-ray, where the boys and Michael Jackson (in Ike's body) were in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California, the tombstone shows a death date of 25 July - Jackson actually died on 25 June. However, many people believed this to be a clue that Jackson is alive.
• The male doctor says he will let Dr. Phillips take care of it, but the woman's tag says, "Dr. Tangina."
• At the end when Michael Jackson gets on the plane Patrick Swayze can be seen seated on the far left. He disappears and reappears between subsequent shots.

Hidden Visitors

• When Ike is announced winner of the pageant, a hidden Visitor wearing a wig and makeup is visible in the last row of the theater.