When It Was Cool Dark

One of the 100 darkest moments in pop culture series. Tommy "The Duke" Morrison was a rising boxing star in the late 1980s into the early 1990s who famously held a version of the World Boxing Championship, defeating George Foreman. Tommy Morrison also got a break in acting by appearing as the character Tommy "The Machine" Gunn in Sylvester Stallone's 1990 Rocky V movie. But Tommy Morrison's lifestyle caused his star to tumble and a failed HIV test effectively ended his boxing career despite the fact that Morrison protested and denied having HIV or AIDS up to his death at age of 44 in 2013.

One of our 100 darkest moments in pop culture history series. Johnny Lewis played the fan favorite character "Half Sack" on the popular Sons of Anarchy TV series portraying the role of a motorcycle gang prospect in the first season, and full member in the second. Fans were stunned when he was killed off the show in season two and no one seemed to know why. This was just the first example of the extremely erratic behavior that would plague Johnny Lewis from then until it finally ends in murder and his own death at the age of 28.

One of our 100 darkest moments in pop culture history series. Michael Richards played the quirky character Cosmo Kramer on the popular Seinfeld television sit-com. Kramer was a fan favorite character eliciting cheers every time he popped in the door. After Seinfeld ended its run, while still an incredibly popular show, Michael Richards took a try at standup comedy... then it went wrong. Very... very... wrong.

100 darkest moments in pop culture history series continues and this week it is dark in many ways. The master of dark literature, Edgar Allan Poe, died under the most mysterious of circumstances. The famous writer was found wandering the streets of Baltimore, MD in dire straits, mumbling and dressed in someone else's clothing. There are a number of theories about the death of Edgar Allan Poe and we will discuss a few of them this week on When It Was Cool Dark.

Ernest Hemingway literally changed the entire genre of popular literature. Preceded by the flowery and verbose language of the previous era, Ernest Hemingway wrote in a more straightforward style, often holding back and allowing silence of action to speak loudly in a story. His novels are still read and reviewed in virtually every schoolroom in the United States. However, Ernest Hemingway battled mental demons throughout his life and ultimately they caught up to him in 1961. The death of Ernest Hemingway is one of the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history.

In this week's installment of the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history, host Karl Stern takes a look back at the March 20, 1991 death of classic rock legend Eric Clapton's four year old son, who died from falling out a high rise window in New York. From this tragedy, Eric Clapton penned one of his most famous and award winning songs: Tears in Heaven.

In 1999 television viewers tuned into the story about an out of control jet plane flying across the country from Florida toward Canada. The unresponsive plane was tailed by military jets across the country, failing to make contact with any ground control. Military pilots observed the windows of the jet frosted over indicating that the cabin had lost pressure. Adding to the intrigue was that onboard the jet was a famous sports personality- PGA Golf champion Payne Stewart. Part of our 100 darkest moments in pop culture series.

The latest edition of the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history takes a look at a football rivalry gone too far in my home state- the Auburn University Tree Killings. Why does the killing of a set of trees in downtown Auburn, Alabama rank as a dark moment in pop culture history? Because it was all about football fandom. The trees, used to celebrate Auburn football victories, were poisoned to death by a crazed Alabama fan who confessed to it on a national radio show.

One of the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history, 7th Heaven was a sappy moralistic drama series which ran ten (!) seasons on the CW Network famous for launching the career of Jessica Beal. The story revolved around a Christian family doing Christian things in a sugary sweet world where everything works out fine.  Then the actor who played the father (and Minister) did some stuff. Some very bad stuff.

Inarguably, one of the 100 darkest moments in pop culture history was the 2000 Paralympic Games where, brace yourself, Spain competed in basketball with players representing themselves as mentally handicapped who weren't. Yes, you read that right. They also won the gold medal and thus outed themselves once it hit the newspapers. The Paralympic sports committee obviously punished someone for this embarrassing atrocity right? Yes... the mentally handicapped who they banned from competing in future games. This one folks, will make your head melt.