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-Short Attention Span Theater-
TLC orders 'Best Funeral Ever' reality show
2012-12-15
[Insidetv.EW] TLC is ready to put the "fun" back into funeral.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, for your entertainment pleasure, here's Episode One of 'Burying Grandmaw'!"
The network has ordered a special/backdoor pilot, Best Funeral Ever, that goes behind-the-scenes of a unconventional funeral parlor.
"As you can see, Barbara, we're embalming the old girl with bourbon..."
At the Golden Gate Funeral Home, Dallas-based funeral director John Beckwith, Jr. works with the families to create a central theme for a memorial and then throws a wild party.
Oh, when I die, bury me
In my high top Stetson hat;
Put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch chain
God'll know I died standin' pat.

Examples include a Christmas-inspired funeral complete with reindeer, elves and snow,
... as in "Jingle All the Way to the End"...
and a singer known for his famous rib sauce jingle remembered at a BBQ-themed funeral -- including live pigs, praise dancers, and a BBQ sauce fountain where loved ones dip a ceremonious rib to say goodbye.
I want six crap shooters for pall bearers.
Chorus girl to sing me a song.
Put a jazz band on my hearse wagon.
Raise Hell as I roll along.

"We're going to make these families extremely happy at the worst moments of their lives," Beckwith says.
"... and then extremely embarrassed for the rest of their lives..."

Roll out your rubber tired carriage,
Roll out your old time hat.
Twelve men going to the graveyard
And eleven coming back.
Posted by:Fred

#8  Sniff, sniff, is there no one that will righteously say WTH???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2012-12-15 21:19  

#7  this is close - for the Holiday Season
Posted by: Frank G   2012-12-15 16:59  

#6  So, he wrote something other than "City of New Orleans."


AND!
The most important song ever written.
Posted by: Shipman   2012-12-15 16:00  

#5  That was "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request," by the late Steve Goodman. He wrote it 12 years after he was diagnosed with leukemia, and 3 years before that killed him. He died 11 days before the Cubs made their first playoff series in ages. So, he wrote something other than "City of New Orleans."
Posted by: Eric Jablow   2012-12-15 13:50  

#4  Why do I get the feeling that someone at TLC was joking but nobody got it?
Posted by: gorb   2012-12-15 12:04  

#3  Damn Eric, that's freaking beautiful.
Posted by: Shipman   2012-12-15 11:53  

#2  If only Steve Goodman had gotten his wish:


He said, "Give me a double header funeral in Wrigley Field
On some sunny weekend day (no lights)
Have the organ play the "National Anthem"
and then a little 'na, na, na, na, hey hey, hey, Goodbye'
Make six bullpen pitchers, carry my coffin
and six ground keepers clear my path
Have the umpires bark me out at every base
In all their holy wrath
Its a beautiful day for a funeral, Hey Ernie lets play two!
Somebody go get Jack Brickhouse to come back,
and conduct just one more interview
Have the Cubbies run right out into the middle of the field,
Have Keith Moreland drop a routine fly
Give everybody two bags of peanuts and a frosty malt
And I'll be ready to die

Build a big fire on home plate out of your Louisville Sluggers baseball bats,
And toss my coffin in
Let my ashes blow in a beautiful snow
From the prevailing 30 mile an hour southwest wind
When my last remains go flying over the left-field wall
Will bid the bleacher bums adieu
And I will come to my final resting place, out on Waveland Avenue
.
Posted by: Eric Jablow   2012-12-15 06:47  

#1  Reason No. 1028 I'm glad I got rid of the television.
Posted by: tu3031   2012-12-15 00:14  

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