"Here lies Good Old Fred,
A great big rock fell on his head."
A great big rock fell on his head."
Gravestones should generally be somber or reflective, so in fiction, it's common to put funny epitaphs on them. It could be a poem or a record or suggestion of an ironic or strange death. It could be a pun based on the late character's name. E.g.: "Paul E. Nate - A wonderful husband, father and florist." This is especially common in video games, as the player may simply ignore the graveyard, or be too busy fighting zombies or whatever. Can be used too as a Shout-Out or a Take That!, often suggesting the fate of a character from another, rival work. Can be an example of Truth in Television. Subtrope of, but Not to Be Confused with, Black Comedy. Can sometimes feature Lame Last Words. Compare to The "Fun" in "Funeral".
If you have some free time, drop by Trope Epitaph for a humorous case of this trope from This Very Wiki.
Examples:
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Advertising
- The Tombstone
frozen pizza brand has a slogan, "What do you want on your Tombstone?" A typical commercial would evoke an execution, with the accused being asked this and answering "Pepperoni and cheese."
Anime & Manga
- Lupin III: In the Part 2 episode "Lupin the Interred", Lupin commissions a gravestone for himself before going out to fight an assassin stalking him. In the dub, the gravestone reads:
Here Lies Poor Lupin,
Fujiko-less.
At least when she visits,
he can look up her dress.
Comic Books
- In Amazing Spider-Man #308, Spidey fights the Taskmaster in a derelict cemetery; in one large shot of the villain, he's shown looming over headstones with the names of famous Spider-Man artists: Steve Ditko, John Romita Sr., Ross Andru, Gil Kane, JR Jr. (John Romita Jr.), and Ron Frenz.
- In Mister Miracle (2017), Oberon's gravestone has the epitaph "Get me out of here!"
- In the Treasury of British Comics' Monster Fun Halloween Special 2021, the Birdman, Chicken & Sparrow strip features gravestones reading "The Star Wars Franchise 1997-2019", "Zombo: Just Resting", and "2020: Good Riddance!" The last one is heavily chained and padlocked.
- Jean Grey of the X-Men is known for her habit of dying and coming back to life, which was represented in a parody by having her grave say Jean Grey: BRB◊.
Fan Works
- A Diplomatic Visit: In chapter 7 of the sequel Diplomat at Large, the Storm King taunts Tempest by asking her if she really wants "Princess Twilight was right" to be what they carve on her tombstone — or into her, as he hits her with an Obsidian Orb and turns her to stone.
- Pit Stop has a particularly badass epitaph written over Courier Six's empty grave:
Here lied Old Green Eyes, risen from the dead,
Pity the bastard who shot him in the head
Films — Animated
- In Rango, there's a brief shot of the town's cemetery, featuring a cluster of graves belonging to former sheriffs. Some of them have humorous epitaphs, including "Hold my beer and watch this" and "He's Dead, Jim".
Films — Live-Action
- In The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, the MacManus Brothers, Connor and Murphy, visit the grave of their friend and partner, Rocco. As they silently pray, Murphy notices that the picture on the tomb is Rocco's mugshot, and that a painted-out police arm is holding his long hair up out of his face in a ridiculous fashion. All reverence quickly disappears.
- Haunted Mansion (2023): Underneath Crump Manor, Travis finds a room that contains several graves with humorous epitaphs, which is a reference to the graves found near the real Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World.
- In This Is Spın̈al Tap, David St. Hubbins suggests an epitaph for his own grave at one point: "Here Lies David St. Hubbins. And Why Not?"
Literature
- Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle: The tomb of Bludtharst Heterodyne, an Evil Overlord who led to The Good King Andronicus Valois leading a coalition against him and uniting Europa, reads "HE COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT ME."
- Arthur contains several epitaphs on the final page of Arthur's Halloween, with probably the most bizarre being "Here lies the body of Sally Bent: Kicked up her heels and away she went."
- The Catcher in the Rye has Holden remarking on profane vandalism and saying that his gravestone will most likely read: "Holden Caulfield, [date of birth]-[date of death], Fuck you."
- The Cat Who... Series: In book 20 (The Cat Who Sang for the Birds), Qwilleran goes exploring in a cemetery with a knowledgeable local and discovers a number of gravestones, one pair described as "the ultimate his and hers". One reads "Shot by her dear husband", and the other next to it announces that he was "Hanged for killing his dear wife".
- In one Doctor Who New Adventures novel, the Doctor, at a funeral, speculates on what his gravestone would say. Benny suggests "When I said 'Look me in the eye and pull that trigger', I was being metaphorical." He thinks it's more likely to be "Look out, he's behind you."
Live-Action TV
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. wraps up season 5 with Coulson's memorial plaque reading, "In remembrance of our fearless leader, Phillip J. Coulson. He gave us his wisdom, his love, and his life (a couple of times)."
- In The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon buys a monogrammed funeral urn for Leonard in case his deviated septum surgery didn't end well. It reads "Here lie the ashes of Leonard Hofstadter. He thought he was right, but his roommate knew better." He also bought one for himself, which read "I'm with stupid".
- In Blackadder Goes Forth, Blackadder says he wishes his tombstone to be inscribed:
Here lies Edmund Blackadder,
And he's bloody annoyed. - Buffy the Vampire Slayer: When Buffy dies at the end of season 5, her tombstone reads Buffy Anne Summers, beloved sister, devoted friend. She saved the world. A lot.
- The Catherine Tate Show features the extremely popular character of Lauren Cooper, a mouthy schoolgirl whose catchphrase is "Am I bovvered?" (bothered). In the 2007 Christmas special, she is kayaking and says this to a man who warns her to stay away from a particular stretch of water. She ignores his advice, and is killed when her boat goes over a waterfall. Her friends are then seen standing by her tombstone, which is inscribed with the words "I still ain't bovvered".
- Elementary: In Season Two's "The One Percent Solution", Sherlock adopts a pair of roosters rescued from an illegal fighting ring, and constantly tries to goad Joan into using the traditional word for a male chicken:
Joan: I don't care which cock I'm holding, I just want to know how it got there...! Okay, congratulations, you got me to say it.
Sherlock: I don't know if you've settled on an epitaph yet, but it occurs to me that would look fantastic on a tombstone. - In Friends, Phoebe once mentions that she wants her epitaph to be "Phoebe Buffay, Buried Alive".
- In Greg the Bunny, Count Blah (who has a Verbal Tic of saying "blah" after sentences) visited the grave of his wife, which reads, "Beloved Wife, Blah. R.I.P.B."
- In Married... with Children, this is Al's reaction to Kelly naming the new family dog "Lucky".
Kelly: Let's call him "Lucky" — Lucky Bundy.
Al: Gee, I was saving that name for my tombstone. - One episode of Red Dwarf features a psychic planet that makes itself into a physical manifestation of Rimmer's psyche. The other characters stumble across a graveyard of all his positive traits - Self-Respect died at age 24, Self-Confidence at 22, Charm at 3...
- In the reunion movie The Wild Wild West Revisited, James West and Artemus Gordon are shown the grave of their arch-nemesis Migelito Loveless, as made by Migelito's son: A Rushmore-sized carving of the man's last name in the side of a mountain, with tiny little plots staked out for the two heroes in its shadow.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons module I6 Ravenloft. The tombs under Castle Ravenloft have a number of funny inscriptions on their individual crypts.
- "Artista DeSlop — Court Ceiling Painter"
- "Prince Aerial Du Plumette (Aerial the Heavy)"
- "Artank Swilovich: Here interred and with great mourning courtesy of the Barovian Wine Distillers Brotherhood."
- "Sir Sedrik Spinwitovich (Admiral Spinwitovich). Confused though he was, he built the greatest naval force ever assembled in a land-locked country."
- "Ivan DeRose, Champion of Winter Dog Racing. The race may go to the swift, but vengeance is for the loser's relatives."
Theme Parks
- During the graveyard scene in Shrek 4D at Universal Studios, several of the tombstones say "COMING SOON" on them.
- Six Flags:
- The train ride Georgia's park in the late 1970s had a tombstone hidden among the weeds: "I Tole You I Wuz Sick!"
Video Games
- Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura:
- Every graveyard in the game has tombs with inscriptions like: "I told you I was sick!" "Here lies an atheist all dressed up and no place to go." "Quoeth thy Raven nevermore." "Hey who blew out the candle? Hello?" and "There was a light at the end of the tunnel, unfortunately that light was a train."
- There is also a hidden "Fan Graveyard" as an Easter Egg, where forum members familiar to the devs were eulogized.
- Baldur's Gate:
- The graveyard in Nashkel is full of these, including an Easter Egg that'll trigger an Optional Boss fight if you click on it too many times. You get things like "Here lies X, who was killed by (long list of summonable creatures)" followed by the Latin for "do not call up what you cannot put down", implying that this was a hapless summoner who didn't know what he was getting into.
- Dave F. Slain by 13 Gibberlings, 4 Kobolds, 6 Ogres and 2 Dire Wolves. Ne invoces expellere non possis. (Do not call up that which you cannot put down.)
- Betrayal at Krondor has a mix of ordinary and humorous quips on the gravestones, and you can also dig up the graves. Most graves have nothing special, some have hidden items hinted at by the eulogy (for example, a gravestone reading "Drank his milk every day" hides a few vials of milk), and some have "The fiend beneath this stone is trapped by dirt, not by death": Zombies!
- Breath of Death VII has plenty of tombstones set up as gags. One references the creators' previous work Molly the Were-Zompire, another is a fancy mechanism which Lita enthusiastically describes as having a camera to monitor the corpse's decay, among other fancy gadgets.
- On the cover of the NES port of Chiller, a gravestone reads, "Dead people are cool."
- Cthulhu Saves the World has many, many tombstones you can inspect for a joke of some sort. One example is a grave for Woody Allen with his quote about achieving immortality by not dying, another one is a grave your party member October has placed for herself despite being alive and well (having your own tombstone supposedly brings good luck!), and another appears to be a part of some puzzle (which you never get to find in any way).
- In The Darkside Detective, the inscriptions on the headstones in the graveyard are punning homages to the game's lead programmers and designers.
- The city of Haven in Dragon Age: Origins has a graveyard filled with humorous tombstones, including some Shout-Outs to others on the the page. ("Sensal Gaheris: 775-798, 798-801, 801-805, 805-807, 807-809 (VERIFIED), 'BEST TAX EVADER EVER' — CH") Also in those graves, is "T.O. Hanoi". Anyone who's played Knights of the Old Republic or Mass Effect will know of Bioware's fondness for Tower of Hanoi puzzles. Anyone who has played Knights of the Old Republic or Mass Effect will breathe a sigh of relief upon viewing that tombstone.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has a whole graveyard in its expansion pack, with new tombstones added with each dead character, regardless of involvement in the main storyline. Every new Sheothian has a unique narrative regarding their personality on their tombstones. Even the ones who are essential.
- In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, many of the word walls that you get your words of power from are epitaphs of some sort in the dragon language. A lot of them say something about some hero who died in battle, or some sort of ancient Nord proverb, but some of them say something like this:
Here lies Fjolmod Foul-Air who
stank as much on earth as
his body does now in the ground.
- Fable has many of these. Most using the rhyming pun. The deceased tend to be people who worked on the game. And then there's one Cpt. J. Sparrow. (May the wind always be at [his] back.)
- Final Fantasy
- Final Fantasy has a tombstone reading, "Here lies Erdrick," after the hero (well, hero's ancestor) of competing game company Enix's Dragon Quest.
- In the original Japanese version and the Dawn of Souls English translation, the tombstone read "here lies Link".
- Flaming Zombooka 2's title screen has several gravestones with joke epitaphs, like "Dariush: Yup he's dead too".
- Guild Wars 2 has a mix of both serious and amusing gravestones in several graveyards, particularly in the cemetery at Shaemoor:
He learned an important lesson about fighting
Don't stand in water when casting lightning - Grand Theft Auto:
- On a more minor note, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas features "R.I.P. Opposition" tombstones at a San Fierro memorial, referring to the rivalry between Rockstar North and developers of "GTA clones".
- Kingdom Hearts II has Zero's grave in Halloween Town; though the grave itself is just a grave, Sora will say that Zero is usually sleeping here.
- Mortal Kombat 3 features tombstones of the game's developers, as well as one reading "Cage", presumably a reference to Johnny Cage, the character who died before the events of the game.
- Mother 3 has a hurricane of "grave" puns. Also, a "NO ZOMBIES ALLOWED" sign at the cemetery entrance.
- NetHack: There are randomly generated graves with these. There are loads of them and several places add more to the file (nethack.alt.org has a massive collection). A few examples include:
- "Og friend. Og good dude. Og died. Og now food."note
- "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice"
- "Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake, Stepped on the gas instead of the brake"
- "Rest in Pieces"
- "1994-1995. The Longest-Lived Hacker Ever"
- Neverwinter Nights has a tombstone that reads along the lines of "Here lies X, who scoffed at the warnings of lesser men and built this fine tower. He discovered his error a few weeks later. Beware of trolls."
- The Oregon Trail has the potential for many, including the infamous "Here lies andy, peperony and chease"note .
- Pirate101 gives us a few while looking for Honest Ned's grave in the lighthouse graveyard. If the player has Brigus Latro as a companion, he'll get annoyed and hang a lampshade on it.
- The graves in Plants vs. Zombies can sometimes have funny inscriptions on them (e.g. "Bereft of Life", "Just Resting", "Expired",...)
- Primal has Jen smash a tombstone that reads 'RIP Laura Croft 2003' as a Take That! to Tomb Raider. The game came out in 2003, obviously.
- Quest for Glory can never resist having lots of goofy little poems on the tombstones whenever the game includes a cemetery. ("Here lies Lester Moore, gored three times by a wild boar. No Les, no more."). The fourth game's gravedigger character also constantly makes graveyard-and-death-related puns.
- Red Dead Redemption:
- John Marston has "Blessed are the Peacemakers." As in Colt Peacemakers.
- The graveyards in New Austin and West Elizabeth sometimes boast humorous tombstones such as one reading "Unknown person — So drunk he did not remember dying" or "If you are reading this, I must be dead". The Coot's Chapel graveyard manages to have inscriptions such as "Never try to milk a bull."
- The cemetery by the Ace of Spades Castle in The Riddle of Master Lu has such quirky inscriptions that the Player Character can make one of his "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" cartoons about them. One seems to contain a dating advertisement by the deceased's widow.
- RuneScape:
- The boss room of Gravecreeper is littered with graves of the game developers.
- The "last rites" option of Saradomin's holy book (like a Bible) reads "Thy cause was false, thy skills did lack; see you in Lumbridge when you get back." (Lumbridge is normally where players respawn).
- The PC game Sacred includes such epitaphs as "And he said, 'How long will the flying spell last?'" and the fourth-wall breaking "For the ultimate cheat of void, enter DOS, type 'format C:\' and enter."
- Sanitarium has a grave of Joseph Bruener, a character from War Wind II (a game which Sanitarium's developers had previously worked on). "This one says Travis W. Nice Goddamn Cat..." Granted, this was on a level that's basically a mangled bunch of all the previous levels, so randomness like this is expected.
- Shadow Warrior (1997) has a hidden tombstone that says "Chan — He Slipped in the Shower". The tombstone returns as the retro area of Chapter 16 in Shadow Warrior (2013).
- Despite generally being an otherwise straightforwardly serious cosmic horror story, the graves in St. Botolph's Cemetery in The Sinking City have funny inscriptions due to a contest run by the devs allowing people to get their messages put on them.
- Chapter 5 of StarTropics 2: Zoda's Revenge takes place in a Wild West setting, where you can find several humorous (and rhyming) epitaphs in a local mining town. "Here lies Lucky Larry. His luck ran out and now he's buried."
- Team Fortress 2:
- Spy: "Here lies Scout. He ran fast and died a virgin."
- Harvest_event has a tombstone reading "RIP The Tenth Class," a reference to players constantly clamoring to discover/add a hidden tenth class or the removed Civilian class from the Hunted game mode.
- The Soldier's Requiem has him plant down a grave (that he was carrying with him the whole time) that says, "R.I.P. Here lies maggot. I win. The end."
- The Japanese version of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link has a grave in Saria Town that reads "here lies Loto, the hero" (Loto being Erdrick's Japanese name in Dragon Quest).
Web Animation
- Homestar Runner: At the end of the Strong Bad Email "replacement", Strong Bad hasn't found a replacement host for his email show, but he has decided what he wants on his tombstone◊:
HERE LIES STRONG BAD
"CHECKING EMAILS AND KICKING CHEATS IN THE HEREAFTER"
BURIED WITH HIS HUNDRED GIRLFRIENDS
AND LIKE A JILLION DOLLARS
PLEASE DON'T DIG UP THE GRAVE - How It Should Have Ended has the following in their Captain America: Civil War spoof:
Steve's grave: Threw a mighty shield. When his girlfriend died, Cap didn't hesitate to make out with her niece.
Bucky's grave: He just wanted some plums.
Webcomics
- In Girl Genius, a visit to the Crypt of the Heterodynes reveals many amusing epitaphs. Perhaps most interesting is the tomb of Lazarus Heterodyne, with half a dozen dates crossed out. As well as Iscariot Heterodyne, "Every Man's Friend". The pile of skulls next to the crypt has labels like "Friend #115".
- Grrl Power: Upon seeing many roleplaying dice in her new store, Sydney confesses being tempted to go Pooled Funds with them, but then admits that "death by d4 lacerations" would be a pretty dumb way to die. Next panel shows a tombstone reading "SYDNEY SCOVILLE, JR — SHE DUMB".
- In the ending of "Let's Destoy the Shagohod!" from Hiimdaisy, the US President rewrites The Boss's grave to read "In Memory of a loser who was a loser". No need to say how Big Boss reacted.
- From Hale's Nuzlocke Comics, the prologue graveyard scene has two. A (ghost type) Gengar's epitaph reads "Lolwut?" A Mudkip's says "No one really liked him!"
- Eugene Greenhilt's tombstone in The Order of the Stick, in addition to listing his many dates of death and resurrection, reads, "Master Wizard, Devoted Husband, Passable Father". (He was lucky to get that much. They probably averaged out his treatment of Roy and Julia.) Other visible tombstones display similar humor ("Bloodmak the Unholy: Not coming back as a vampire. Honest.")
Web Videos
- At the end of The Angry Video Game Nerd's review of Raid 2020, he delivers a long speech about how he dreads having to review more games with years in their titles (Phantom 2040, Battlefield 2142, SimCity 3000, etc.) When he mentions Cyberpunk 2077, he believes he'd be dead by the actual year 2077, giving him the perfect excuse not to review it. Cut to a tombstone that reads:
"HERE LIES NERD
HE NEVER REVIEWED CYBERPUNK 2077" - Once The Cinema Snob sees a grave written "HANK TRACY. HE WAS JESSE JAMES' FRIEND.":
The Snob: I hope to God that when I die, my tombstone reads something like "Here Lies The Cinema Snob. He once reviewed Troll 4 with Phelous"
- Map Men: In "You'll never guess the most popular internet country code", Jon Postel's gravestone reads "www.hereliesjonpostelsuchalovelyandclevermanmissedbymany1943-1998.com/rest/in/peace". It's an actual website for those who are curious, and the site was created just for the joke.
- Max0r: In his "Incorrect Summary of Ace Combat Zero" video, the grave of the violently adamant flat-earther Anton "Dr." Kupchenko has the following inscription on his grave.
- Vinesauce Joel's Windows XP Destruction once System32 is deleted:
RIP BONZI BUDDY
1999-2014
"MY GREATEST DREAM
IS A WORLD WITHOUT JEWS" - Saberspark: After the sponsor segment in his review of Cool World, he says, "Alright, back to the gooning! (Beat) Put that on my tombstone when I die." There's also a quick cut to an edit of the gravestone of Squidward's Hopes and Dreams with the "gooning" line.
Western Animation
- Beavis and Butt-Head in their parody of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol: "Here lies Beavis. He never scored."
- Casper the Friendly Ghost: The credit sequence of The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper has tombstones featuring puns. Sometimes they vary things with jokes like a tombstone reading "I'm with stupid" next to another tombstone reading, "I'm stupid".
- Danny Phantom: In the TV movie The Ultimate Enemy, Danny enters a future where his friends and family have been killed, and he sees a collective gravestone reading "Gone, but not forgotten". Right next to it is a stone for Mr. Lancer, which just reads "Gone".
- The Family Guy episode "Family Guy Through the Years" has Peter's tombstone say "stabbed by Lady-boy" (Peter had died in The Vietnam War).
- It's very difficult to make out, due to the heavy grain effect, but the tombstones in the intro for The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy read "Evil Con Carne", "Time Squad" and "Robot Jones", which were fellow Cartoon Network shows that began and were cancelled in the time period between when the show was known as Grim & Evil (which Evil Con Carne was originally a part of) and it being given a Retool into just Billy & Mandy.
- Hey Arnold!: In the episode "Ghost Bride", when Arnold and the others enter the graveyard where the eponymous Ghost Bride was buried, Arnold attempts to read her tombstone:
Arnold: "Here lies Cynthia Snell. She lived her life and went straight to—" I can't read the rest.
- Rocko's Modern Life: In "Who's for Dinner", Heffer, after learning he was adopted, runs away and comes across what he believes is his biological father's grave at the cemetery and starts bawling until his father appears in a vision to remind him he isn't even dead. Heffer looks at the tombstone and reads the message on the front: "Here lies a big, wet cat."
- The Simpsons:
- The first five "Treehouse of Horror" episodes used these in their openings. The last one to use them actually had a tombstone reading "Amusing Tombstones", signaling the retirement of the gag, until it was brought back for the twenty-ninth Treehouse of Horror.
- In the "Treehouse of Horror I" segment "Bad Dream House", the Indian burial ground includes gravestones for Tonto, Mahatma Gandhi (who wasn't a Native American Indian), Crazy Horse and Not So Crazy Horse.
- The "Treehouse of Horror III" segment Dial "Z" for Zombies has graves marked "Fish Police", "Capitol Critters" and "Family Dog", all of which were animated series that tried and failed to compete with The Simpsons in primetime.
- After Homer fakes his death to get off working as a garbage collector, Marge is visited by Patty and Selma, who quite gleefully try to gift Marge what they have been saving for ever since she married: a graveyard spot for Homer with accompanying tombstone that reads "Homer Simpson: we are richer for having lost him".
- Another episode shows the family is using Bart's gravestone as a tea table. It reads "Bartholomew J. Simpson: Son, Brother, C-Student."
- The first five "Treehouse of Horror" episodes used these in their openings. The last one to use them actually had a tombstone reading "Amusing Tombstones", signaling the retirement of the gag, until it was brought back for the twenty-ninth Treehouse of Horror.
- In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode where Mr. Krabs goes to a graveyard to dig up a million-dollar hat, Squidward is mourning at a tombstone and when Mr. Krabs comes to see who it was, he sees that the engraving reads "Here lie Squidward's hopes and dreams." ("Pfft. What a baby.") In the same graveyard, there's "Diver Dan", whose tombstone has carved scuba gear on it; "Stupid" next to "I'm with Stupid", complete with pointing hand, and most importantly, the "#1" shaped tombstone of Smitty Werbenjaegermanjensen, whose name extends off the name plaque.
Real Life
- Two examples from Snopes:
- One grave is adorned with a parking meter that says "Expired", per the request of the lady buried there.
- Another tombstone has a sentimental-sounding acrostic spelling a... not-so-sentimental message.
- One grave
- Comedian Spike Milligan's grave says, "I told you I was ill". However, the inscription is in Irish Gaelic, because the bishop wouldn't allow it in English.
- Rodney Dangerfield's epitaph: There goes the neighborhood.◊
- In the Boothill graveyard near Tombstone, Arizona, there's a grave that reads, "Here lies Lester Moore, four slugs from a .44, no Les, no more." Another one reads, "Hanged By Mistake."
- In a Silver City, Nevada Boot Hill:
"Here lies Butch. We planted him raw. He was quick on the trigger, but slow on the draw."
- Comedian W. C. Fields used to say that he wanted his gravestone to read, "On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." Sadly, it doesn't.
- Older than You Think: Ambrose Bierce has examples of humorous epitaphs in The Devil's Dictionary, such as "Sacred to the memory of Jeremiah Tree. Cut down May 9th, 1862, aged 27 yrs. 4 mos. and 12 ds. Indigenous."
Here lies the late Senator Vrooman
Whose head was as hard as the heart of a woman
Whose heart was as hard as the head of a hammer
Dame Fortune inspired him to eminence, damn her! - Robert Burns wrote humorous epitaphs, like Epitaph on a Wag in Mauchline.
- Groucho Marx once jokingly suggested his tombstone be inscribed with 'Excuse me, I can't stand up'. They put a Star of David on it instead.
- Leslie Nielsen said he was going to put a fart joke on his gravestone. And he delivered.◊
- Mel Blanc's tombstone displays an appropriate, and well-known quote: "THAT'S ALL FOLKS"◊.
- Jack Lemmon's epitaph: "Jack Lemmon in"◊:
- Gilbert Gottfried, who infamously caught flak for making "too soon"-type jokes about current events, fittingly enough has "Too Soon"◊ engraved on his tombstone.
- Merv Griffin's epitaph: "I will not be back right after this message"◊.
- While it is about a grave and not inscribed on it, Lord Byron's quip about Viscount Castlereigh is just too delicious to not mention:
Posterity will ne'er survey
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveller, and piss. - The tombstone of Swedish author Fritiof Nilsson "The Pirate" famously reads:
Here lie the ashes of a man in the habit of putting everything off until tomorrow. He changed for the better on his deathbed, however, and did in fact die on 31 January 1972.
- Billy Wilder's epitaph makes use of the last line of one of his most beloved movies, Some Like It Hot: "I'm a writer, but then nobody's perfect◊".
- DeForest Kelley once joked that his tombstone would say, "He's Dead, Jim." (He doesn't actually have a gravestone; when he died, he was cremated and his ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean).
- The tombstone of Wild West gunslinger Clay Allison helpfully states that "he never killed a man that did not need killing."
- Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream's headquarters has a "Flavor Graveyard" for the company's discontinued flavors, with a rhyming epitaph on each tombstone. This was visited in the "Ice Cream" episode of The World According to Jeff Goldblum, with Goldblum adding to the humor by noting that since "Oh Pear" lasted less than a year, it was "taken in its infancy...That's the saddest thing I've ever heard!"
- Country Music legend Tom T. Hall once joked to an interviewer that his epitaph was going to be "What was that all about?"
- This man's epitaph has an acrostic poem that spells "F—— OFF". This was something that he would say to people if they rubbed him the wrong way.
- The "Merry Cemetery" from village of Săpânța, Romania. It is quite famous for its brightly coloured tombstones with funny descriptions of the people who are buried there, in addition to scenes from their lives.
Under this heavy cross
Lies my poor mother-in-law
Three more days should she have lived
I would lie, and she would read (this cross).
You, who here are passing by
Not to wake her up please try
Cause' if she comes back home
She'll scold me more.
But I will surely behave
So she'll not return from grave.
Stay here, my dear mother-in-law! - One Harry Edsel Smith's tombstone bears the inscription: "Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the car was coming down. It was."
- Keanu Reeves has joked/lamented, before he landed his much more well-regarded roles, that his epitaph would likely sum up his career as, "Here lies Keanu Reeves. He played Ted."
- After learning that he was terminally ill, writer William Saroyan contacted the Associated Press and gave them a "final statement" from him to print after he died: “Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?” (Saroyan died about a month later, and the line was indeed printed in various obituaries devoted to him).
