The DeathWatch story begins July 2, 1993. That's when Fred Gwynne died.

'My Cousin Vinny' had stormed the box office the year before, and the film propelled Herman Munster back into the spotlight, albeit briefly.

Jon Graney was in college in Connecticut, while John Cowan had recently graduated and was working in upstate New York. Shortly after Gwynne's death, Jon called John to tell him about Gwynne's death and otherwise catch up.

Less than two months later, Herve Villechaize (Tattoo on 'Fantasy Island') committed suicide, and this time John called Jon to talk about it.

Only a week later, Raymond Burr died, and the two talked again. When Vincent Price died the following month, on Oct. 25, 1993, John called Jon. But this time, the conversation was different.

The two made similar remarks to each other about how "we should be keeping track of who's getting each celebrity."

The two recalled the times they had recently discussed celebrity deaths, and Jon jotted down the names. John and Jon agreed to the game's first rule: the first person to call the other gets credit for the notification. DeathWatch was born.

1994: Rules and fridge magnets

It wasn't soon before John and Jon were rushing to the phone each time a celebrity died. But in early 1994, the game hit its first snag. That's when Hal Smith died.

"Who?"

Within a day of each other, Claude Akins and Smith died, giving John two quick points. But there was a problem. Jon didn't care about Akins, and didn't even know who Hal Smith was.

(He played Otis Campbell on the Andy Griffith Show.)

John was awarded the points, but over the next few weeks, Jon and John had drafted a comprehensive set of rules governing who could count. Basically, the two decided to stick to well-known entertainers from their generation (GenX).

But the most important rule -- a rule that is the very heart of the game and endures today -- is that no matter who made the notification, the two would talk honestly about each celebrity and decide together whether or not the celebrity should count.

The Web (as we know it now) was just starting to come into existance in 1994. DeathWatch, at that point, was only on paper and in WordPerfect 5.1 files. Jon would print the tallies and mail them to Atlanta. The rule, at the time, was that the tally had to be posted on the refrigerator at all times.

The problem was the tally quickly fell out of date as soon as someone died. With the advent of the Internet, that rule was removed by 1996.