Nothing Is Certain But Death and Taxes....Unless Death Takes a Holiday

Who woulda thunk that Kelsey Grammer would play the Angel of Death? Wait. He was responsible for killing two network hours with "Kelsey Grammer Presents The Sketch Show." Maybe it wasn't that much of a stretch.

If you watched "Medium" on Monday, you watched Kelsey Grammer play Death in an ep called "Death Takes a Policy." Of course, that ep title refers to the play and 1934 movie, Death Takes a Holiday. So far the nets have presented four different versions of this work:

• Death Takes a Holiday (''The Broadway Television Theatre,'' 1/5/1953)
  
• Death Takes a Holiday (''Kraft Television Theater,'' 12/30/1954)
  
• Death Takes a Holiday (''Matinee Theatre,'' 4/8/1958)
  
• Death Takes a Holiday (''ABC Movie of the Week,'' 10/23/1971)

Even though most of us have never seen the play on the telly, writers continue to pay homage to Casella's work. Turns out that Death is pretty greedy. Always taking something:

• Death Takes a Partner (''Man Against Crime,'' 3/11/1953)
  
• Death Takes No Holiday (''The Vise,'' 10/28/1955)
  
• Death Takes an Encore (''Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer,'' 3/7/1958)
  
• Death Takes a Lover (''Philip Marlowe,'' 1/26/1960)
  
• Death Takes a Holiday (''M*A*S*H,'' 12/15/1980)
  
• Death Takes a Curtain Call (''Murder, She Wrote,'' 12/16/1984)
  
• Death Takes a Dive (''Murder, She Wrote,'' 2/22/1987)
  
• Death Takes a Holiday on Ice (''Cheers,'' 11/9/1989)
  
• Death Takes a Coffee Break (''Dream On,'' 7/15/1990)
  
• Death Takes a Halloween (''Night Court,'' 10/26/1990)
  
• Death Takes a Holiday (''Time Trax,'' 3/3/1993)
  
• Death Takes a Three Day Holiday (''The Hughleys,'' 1/21/2000)
  
• Death Takes a Halliwell (''Charmed,'' 3/15/2001)
  
• Death Takes a Policy (''Medium,'' 5/8/2006)