From the Wikipedia article on Rodney Dangerfield, who died in October of 2004:

When Johnny Carson died on January 23, 2005, a correspondent from CNN called Dangerfield's longtime publicist, Kevin Sasaki, and asked whether Dangerfield would be available to share comments on the air about Carson. Sasaki replied "Unless CNN had a new way of linking up to the afterlife via satellite, that would be impossible."