Born: August 5th, 1964

Dead: May 4th, 2012

High of His Life:  I’d say 90% of it.  Adam “MCA” Yauch was one of the three founding members of The Beastie Boys,  who were pretty much one of the most influential artists in the rap world and one of the longest running hip hop groups. Their last album, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two,  came out in 2011 and they were still experiencing huge commercial success, 25 years after their first album was released.  Yauch himself directed many of the awesome Beastie Boys music videos we know and love, including “Intergalactic”, the greatest robot vs. octopus creature story ever told. And the Beastie Boys appeared as secret characters in the original  NBA Jam video game AND the 2010 remake. You don’t get bigger than that, seriously.

Low of his Life: Well first, he got all up in arms at the 1994 MTV Video Awards as his alter ego, Nathanial Hornblower, and flipped out about Sabotage not winning Best Direction over R.E.M. That was awkward.  In 2009, Yauch was diagnosed with cancer after finding a tumor in his salivary gland. Because of this, the band couldn’t tour, nor did they make appearances in videos for their most recent single releases. In fact, they said they would not tour until Yauch got better.  There’s nothing sadder than the fact that the Beastie Boys will never perform live as a cohesive whole again, but teenagers can at least still blast “Fight For Your Right” to piss off our moms.

Who Sees Him as a Hero: Eminem, young Jewish boys, Ad Rock and Mike D, anyone who grew up in the late 80s and early 90s.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Born: November 30th, 1929

Dead: April 18th, 2012

High of His Life: Dick Clark kicked ass back in the day.  He came into the spotlight by starting off as a substitute host and then moving to become the main host of American Bandstand (thanks to the original host being fired for a drunk driving arrest, win!). If you ask your mom, American Bandstand was a big deal back in the day. It’s the white person’s Soul Train equivalent.  From there, Dick Clark moved on to his own show, Dick Clark’s New  Year’s Rockin’ Eve. In fact, that man is so synonymous with the holiday I think he may have invented it. He was definitely old enough to.  And anyone who has a show with their name in the title deserves credit.

Low of His Life: Well, poor old Dick suffered from a stroke in 2004 and everyone thought that would stop his career. Instead, he took it to an even lower point in two ways; giving Ryan Seacrest his job and continuing to make appearances on  New Year’s Rockin’ Eve during the countdown every year. It was a lot less rockin’ and a whole lot more awkward since then. I don’t know who didn’t cringe every time that poor man would try to string a sentence together before having difficulty remembering the order of numbers from 10 to 1.  What a way to ring in the new year, with a dude who had clearly cheated death for too long. Sorry he caught up with ya, pal.

People Who See Him As a Hero: Ryan Seacrest, geriatrics who still aspire to stardom, white people in their 50s and 60s who actually remember American Bandstand.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Born: December 19th, 1925

Died: March 5th, 2012

High of His Life: Robert Sherman is one half of the Sherman Brothers, one of the greatest song writing duos ever. Yeah, you heard me. He wrote popular Disney songs like “Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious” and won two Academy Awards, best song and best score, for “Chim Chim Cher-ee”. Oh and don’t forget the Grammy he also won with his brother for that one. The Jungle Book, Aristocats, and Winnie the Pooh all have songs written by both of these great men. Beyond the movies, he also wrote songs for the parks, like “One Little Spark” for Journey to Imagination in Epcot, and “It’s A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” for the Carousel of Progress in the Magic Kingdom.  Pretty much most of those songs you grew up with as a kid were written by this guy and his bro. Heck, generations of people can say they grew up with their music. That’s saying something.

Low of His Life: He wrote one of the (arguably) most hated songs of all time, It’s a Small World. That song is synonymous with torture. In fact, I think prisoners of war have opted to be waterboarded over listening to that song on repeat. Also, it is used in a ride full of creepy doll children that’s about 8 minutes long and travels at 2 miles per hour, making you want to abandon the boat and swim back to the loading docks. Take it from someone who knows.  If you can get through that ride, you can get through anything.

Who Sees  Him As a Hero: Disney geeks, Randy Newman, and magical nannies everywhere.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Born: May 31st, 1162

Died: August 18th, 1227

High of His Life: He conquered people. Lots of people. He expanded the Mongolian Empire so that by the time of his death, it occupied a major portion of Central Asia and China. Khan pretty much kicked ass and took names all around. He’s also been portrayed in a ton of movies, video games (oh man is he a pain in the ass in the Civilization series)  and has even had bands and songs named after him.

Low of His Life: He died falling off a horse. Well, that’s one telling of it, anyway, but a pretty popular one. Think about it. You are a conqueror, loved by some, feared by many, with a great legacy. You’ve battled dozens, killed more, pretty much have your picture in the dictionary next to the word “badass”…. and you fall off a horse. You don’t even die from the fall, you die slowly of the injuries afterwards. That’s pathetic. Pathetic.

Who Sees Him As a Hero: Strategy/conquest gamers, Kahn from Star Trek, Bill & Ted, every actor whose ever played him in a film.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Born: February 2nd, 1947

Died: June 25th, 2009

High of Her Life: Known most famously as Jill from Charlie’s Angels, Farrah Fawcett was a sex icon and a well loved actress in the late 70s to early 80s. That famous red bathing suit poster was plastered on every male college dorm room wall (over 12 million copies have been sold to date). And we can’t forget the fact that she had thousands of women sporting “Farrah hair”. Men loved her, women wanted to be her, what’s a higher point than that?

Low of Her Life: Being diagnosed with anal cancer. Yes, anal cancer. Kind of an embarrassing cancer to say you had. It’s like you’d rather just tell someone you have syphilis or that you own a Justin Bieber album than tell them you have anal cancer. Also, having her death overshadowed by Michael Jackson’s. Sorry Farrah, we cared for about 4 hours. Then we deemed your entire life as less important.

Who Sees Her As a Hero: Every teenage girl in the late 70s, every adolescent boy who ever has and ever will live.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Dr. Jack Kevorkian

Born May 26th 1928

Died June 3rd, 2011, aged 83

High of His Life: Dr. Kevorkian gained infamy in his unorthodox methods of assisted suicide. He challenged the taboo of death by, you know, killing people. Granted they were terminally ill and probably had a much worse fate ahead of them if he didn’t help them out. You might argue that being known as Dr. Death would not be the “high” of his life, but to him the celebrity and public attention he got was exactly what he wanted. So he came out and bragged about how he had helped kill over 130 people in his life. Definitely something you want to broadcast to an entire nation. But Kevorkian became a name spoken in every household, usually uttered in the same sentence with other words like “creepy,” “psychopath,” and “WTF”.

He recently appeared in the news a month ago when the van he used for his assisted suicides showed up on Ebay, who then pulled it down saying it was against their rule of selling “murder-related collectibles”. Damn it, Ebay, for ruining the fun.

Low of His Life: Despite his best efforts to convince everyone that assisted suicide was ok, he was sentenced to jail for second-degree murder, where he served his sentence for eight years. His lawyers said he was suffering from Hepatitis C, and while they claim he got it helping some poor people in whatever 3rd world country, I have a feeling Kevorkian contracted it from his best prison buddy, Bubba.

Who Sees Him As a Hero:  Al Pachino (seriously, the dude praised him after playing him in that HBO special), any serial killer that ever lived, liberals.

Popularity: 11% [?]