When Are Dead Celebs Fair Game?

Apparently there's no longer a moratorium on trashing dead people. Michael Jackson's body wasn't even cold Thursday when alleged comedians started yukking it up.

THE first commandment some pundits forgot on Thursday, shortly after Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died within hours of each other, was: Thou shalt not speak ill of the dead.

On his late-night ABC show, Jimmy Kimmel said, "What's especially sad is that most people of a certain generation only know Michael Jackson as a crazy guy who had a lot of plastic surgery -- whereas the truth is . . . He was an extremely powerful symbol -- a black performer who whites could relate to and then later in life, a white performer who blacks could relate to."

When the audience didn't laugh, Kimmel asked, "Is it too soon? I can never tell."

Uh, Jimmy, there was plenty of room for Jackson jokes before he was dead. Mere hours after he died? Not so funny.

Speaking of unfunny, they also note the odious Perez Hilton, as noted here yesterday. If anyone gives this moron a second of attention any more it's their problem.

Meanwhile, Jackson wasn't the only dead celebrity getting getting mocked. The always classy New York Times decided it was a good time to criticize the just-deceased Farrah Fawcett's acting chops.

Similarly, Fawcett fans were disgusted with yesterday's "appraisal" of her by Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times. "Not all of her performances will stand the test of time, but what is worth remembering is how hard Farrah Fawcett tried," the piece said.

Then, trashing NBC's "overproduced and overpromoted" special, "Farrah's Story," Stanley seemed to blame Fawcett for her anal cancer, saying the documentary "never made the public service point that . . . the HPV vaccine is the most promising form of prevention against this type of cancer, which in most cases is sexually acquired."

Stanley said, "She really tried. And for a sex symbol that alone can be like an accomplishment."

When Alessandra Stanley pases on, we'll all remember she was a no-talent hack at a worthless rag with junk-bond status, but she really tried hard to cobble together coherent sentences.

Stanley, in fact, may have already set records for most corrections to her stories.

At this point, New York Times star television critic Alessandra Stanley has all the credibility of a Wikipedia entry. Most of the information is probably right, but you shouldn't take anything as gospel because you never know what's real and what's just been invented by a bored 13 year-old in Iowa. Alessandra Stanley Correction Watch has gone from an evergreen subject to an old joke. Geraldo had to threaten to sue the Times to get them to correct something Stanley invented out of thin air. As a service to the human resources department at the New York Times, after the jump, we present the best (worst?) Alessandra Stanley mistakes since the last time we rounded them all up.

She might be consistently wrong, but hey, she tried hard.

RIP, Farrah Fawcett

This is sad. The poor woman went through such a painful illness. Let's hope she's in a better place today. She'll always be remembered for that iconic poster that seemingly every teenage boy had on their wall in the late 1970's.

Farrah Fawcett, who skyrocketed to fame as one of a trio of impossibly glamorous private eyes on TV's Charlie's Angels, has died after a long battle with cancer. She was 62.

Fawcett died at 9:28 a.m. PST at St. John’s Heath Center in Santa Monica, Calif. She had recently returned to St. John's for treatment of complications from anal cancer, first diagnosed three years ago. Her longtime partner Ryan O'Neal was at her side throughout her final days.

Like so much about Fawcett's life – including her bumpy relationship with O'Neal – her heroic struggle to beat the disease was closely followed by her legion of fans.

"I've watched her this past year fight with such courage and so valiantly, but with such humor," Fawcett's Charlie's Angels costar Kate Jackson told PEOPLE in November 2007.

O'Neal, in particular, remained a steadfast supporter of Fawcett, who, despite her frailty, spent the last months of her life filming a TV documentary chronicling her illness, including several trips to Germany to undergo experimental treatment. Fawcett is survived by her son with O'Neal, Redmond, 24, who is currently serving a prison term in California after repeated drug offenses.