Words: Dom Passantino
For the majority, the death of Clive Dunn in December was marked with little other than a shrug of the shoulders or a trip to YouTube to catch the video for “Grandad” one final time. For a small group of devotees, however, it was a cause for celebration. They didn’t harbour any hatred towards the Dad’s Army pratfaller, they just had a lot riding on it. These people are the deadpoolers.
Deadpooling can best be described as fantasy football for those with an ICD-10 personality disorder. Pick a group of celebrities you think will die, whoever gets the most points wins. In his 19th century novel Bel Ami, Guy de Maupassant talks of members of Parisian high society placing wages on which member of L’Académie française will be next to croak. Gossip columnists at a 1930s New York newspaper were the first to formalise it as a game, making it at sweepstake of morbidity: everyone gets the names of a notable at random: when yours turns to a corpse, you win. Therefore we know for certain who the first two people to “score” on a deadpool were: American aviator Wiley Post and cowboy comedian Will Rogers, who died in the same air crash in 1937.
Relying on such fate isn’t good for the modern deadpooler, though: when so much is at stake, you can’t rely on a Cessna engine failing. Drugs and alcohol are frowned upon as well: ask most people unfamiliar with deadpooling to name someone who they think will die in the next 12 months, and they’ll always go with Keith Richards or Shane McGowan. These people have steadfastly refused to die for 40 years, it’s unlikely they’ll start now.
