You underestimate how popular Walker, Texas Ranger was. It wasn't pulling ratings like Seinfeld, ER, or Friends, but it was a solid primetime staple for almost a decade.

I never watched it myself, but the 50+ demo loved it.

Isn't that an obligation when you own a trademark? That you sue people, or else you may lose the trademark?

His round kick, Walker Texas Ranger and his fight with Bruce Lee. In Africa, to this day, some TV channels still play his stuff.

You’re assuming the jokes make people dive deeper. In reality I know the jokes and didn’t have a clue who he was and never cared enough to find out. The reality is the probably didn’t make much of a difference to how well he or his work was actually known.

The app probably used his pictures or his name, which are easy candidates for copyright or trademark-claims.

Seeing my dad, who grew up on these actors' action flicks, laugh himself to tears when Chuck Norris appears is one of my favourite memories.

https://markloveshistory.com/2018/01/06/death-had-to-take-ro...

They were obviously a bit more niche, but that made them funnier to my mind.

> For Bruce Schneier, all zeros of the Riemann zeta function are trivial.

Case in point: https://theonion.com/hijackers-surprised-to-find-selves-in-h...

And, as you say, in Chuck Norris' case, it's virtually obligatory.

It's been a long time since I read it, but didn't the current Death decide to retire and pass the role on?

I assume that most of the people here aren't considering becoming a homophobe because they think the chuck norris jokes are funny.

Of course they both had a change of heart- was it true change or they saw the direction of the political winds? Who knows?

I don’t know Chuck Norris’s views on LGBT. But if he was a self proclaimed “born again Christian” and a rabid Trump supporter, I can only guess. But I no more expect people who were insulted by what he said (which I personally don’t know) to give him more grace or reverence than I do is a Black man who couldn’t give two shits about a dead racist podcaster.

Other people no more need to “contextualize” homophobia than I feel a need to “contextualize” the racism of a dead podcaster.

In 1961, in his early 20s. You get ~80 years on this planet to make mistakes and have views that some other people will dislike. If these are the worst things we can accuse him of, while acknowledging all his charitable work, I'd say he fared OK compared to many other role models we have.

How about "Don't be a bad person when you're alive"?

I looked this one up. It's true. He's been going out of his way to be a political firebrand and claiming milquetoast Democrats are Satan for decades. It wasn't some offhand comment when cornered on stage. He's pushed white christian nationalism hard for quite some time.

Sad, because it was so unnecessary, divisive, and crazy--a black mark on his legacy.

> #1: "Chuck Norris was bitten by a cobra, and after five days of excruciating pain ... the cobra died."

The thing about Norris is that this isn't just generic policy stuff. I think pretty much all politics has impact on People and therefor matters, but you can abstract a whole lot away on a lot of policies in economics, etc. I think empathetic and caring human beings can disagree on many things.

But racism and homophobia aren't areas where I think empathetic and caring people can disagree, and I don't think those should be legitimatized by calling them political. He wanted to strip rights from gay people and propped up all sorts of racist rhetoric and birtherism against Obama. That's not political. That's being a shitty person.