And it's prejudice, if you ask me.  A small minority of fans painting their entire upper body the colors of their favorite football team when it's 10° below doesn't lead to any media depiction of that team's fan base as "rabid."  But I'm not bitter.   

You're also not alone in noticing the distinction in treatment. It comes up in Henry Jenkins' Textual Poachers, which is the go-to text if you're interested in academic discourse on media fandom.

The standard argument that you hear from folks is that sports are "real" whereas media fandom is built around a fantasy or fictional world, but that all goes to hell when you start thinking about sports fans participating in fantasy leagues, and there actually is fan fiction based on sports figures.

When I taught my freshman composition course centered on fandom, the department asked me to include more material about sports fans. Other than articles on their buying habits or on soccer riots in Europe, it was very difficult to find anything that treated sports fans as oddballs that I could use in the course reader.

Happy Birthday to the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent MB! 

Someone in his 70s can be expected to pass away and Curtis' TV legacy was the butt of Letterman's humor, not Curtis' illness or the fact he died from it.  That's my own take on it.

The type of joke that Letterman told, or a version of it, has been a staple of the late night talk shows at least since Carson was doing them. Leno and Letterman both tell them now. You pick a person who invented or pioneered some unique item in American culture, and you make a joke about the nature of the funeral service based upon that person's contribution to society. For example, Leno once told this one: "The inventor of the Hawaiian shirt passed away. I hear the funeral will be dress casual."

If you've watched Carson, Letterman, or Leno, then you've heard some version of the joke Letterman told about Curtis before (and you probably didn't give it a second thought). It's not intended to be mean-spirited. If anything, it brings these folks' contributions to the fore for a moment. That Letterman could tell the joke and have it resonate with his audience speaks to the mark Curtis' work has left on American popular culture.

That's my two cents.

Plus, I know I have other knowledgeable cousins who could perhaps tell me what to be listening for (yeah, you Bobubas

As for the Times obit, was it necessary for Ms. Nelson to use campy AND rabid (as in "rabid fan base") in discussing Curtis' DS involvement? 

If that bugs you, then you definitely shouldn't read this article from the Norwalk Citizen-News. It's not a Curtis obit. It's an opinion piece on television's negative effects, and it refers to DS as "a violent goth soap opera that had no intellectually redeeming qualities." 

The obit in Variety notes that: "Donations may be made to Dr. Jeff Cummings Alzheimer's Research, UCLA Alzheimer's Disease Center, 710 Westwood Plaza, Suite 20238, Los Angeles, 90095."

VH1's Best Week Ever had some fun with the video game, especially Abe Vigoda's appearance in it. They showed several clips. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they're going to be airing it again, and it isn't in the outtakes on their web site. However, you can watch clips of our guy on the official site for the game, here. (You'll be asked for your birthdate due to the violent content. Yeah, that'll keep the kids away.  )

A few recent additions:

• New, better quality images from David Selby's 1975 appearance on Police Woman have been added to the Photo Gallery.
• The What's New? page has been redesigned to feature a new Events Calendar section.
• A link to photos from The Wonder of Reading's Explore-A-Story event has been added to the "Recent Appearances" section of the News page.

All new material is accessible directly from the What's New? page of the site.

http://www.ldrweb.com/davidselby