String of deaths:

Last week was a rough week for celebrities, as it seemed the Angel of Death was walking the Hollywood Walk of Fame in search of souls to send to the afterlife. First on the block was Ed McMahon. The Tonto of the late night television circuit was finally reunited with his Lone Ranger, Johnny Carson. McMahon had been battling a slew of health problems, including complications due to an infestation of mold in his home dating back to 2002, a rough fall that caused a broken neck in 2007, and another trip to a Los Angeles hospital due to pneumonia or bone cancer (neither has been confirmed nor denied by his publicist) last year. Whatever the ultimate cause, McMahon died last Tuesday at age 86 in the beginning of a bizarre wave of celebrity deaths. Two days later, Farrah Fawcett was confirmed dead at approximately 9:28 a.m. Having been in and out of the hospital since 2006 for cancer-related issues, Fawcett's death came at the heels of her announcement of her engagement to long-term domestic partner Ryan O'Neal. Fawcett's fame stems from not only her portrayal of Jill Munroe in the original Charlie's Angels, but also her classic Life Magazine pin-up poster, which shattered records in sales and is estimated to have sold more than 12 million copies since its publishing in 1976. Five hours later and three miles away, the King of Pop Michael Jackson was pronounced dead in Los Angeles, reportedly due to a cardiac incident. The story was initially broken by the celebrity gossip website TMZ.com and reports were later confirmed by the Los Angeles Times. Jackson was best remembered for a myriad of things, including his uncanny ability to write chart-topping hits-still holding the record for best selling album of all time with "Thriller" -multiple child molestation charges, and of course his ever-changing facial appearance. Jackson was also scheduled to begin a 50-date concert series in London two weeks from the announcement of his untimely death. Following the urban legend that celebrity deaths come in packs of threes, everyone thought that Jackson's unexpected death was the grand finale. However, early Sunday morning, infomercial mouthpiece Billy Mays (famous for being able to sell anything at 3:00 a.m.) was found dead by his wife in his Florida home. The cause of Mays' death is unknown, though speculation is leaning toward Mays' hitting his head during a rocky airplane descent Saturday evening. All pop culture icons in their own way, Jackson's death seems to have spurned the largest public response. Word of his death rippled across the Internet at an astronomical rate. AOL reported a 40 minute outage in their instant messaging service while Google defensively shut down due to thinking it was being hacked. Social networking giants Facebook and Twitter reported huge numbers of user updates related to Michael Jackson. Facebook stated its updates doubled while Twitter updates tripled, with 30% of updates being related to Jackson, causing Twitter to temporarily disable their topical links. The public outcry spread not only in cyberspace, but also outside of the dot-com world as well. National fans gathered outside the places Jackson had lived, died, and started his musical career while international fans gathered where they could, including places such as Notre Dame. Celebrities released statements, Congress observed a moment of silence, and President Barak Obama even sent a personal letter of condolence to the Jackson family. Record sales spiked, with Amazon reporting solo and Jackson 5 albums selling out within minutes of the news breaking, while iTunes reported "Thriller" returning to its number one spot with 19 other albums making it into the Top 40. In all of these ways, Jackson's death seemed to eclipse everything else that was happening, including the passing of three other celebrities. But, as he said himself, "The whole world has to answer right now, just to tell you once again, who's bad?"