Mo Rocca On New Book: 'Dead People Are A Lot Easier To Deal With'

BOSTON (CBS) - In the last two decades, you've seen him as a correspondent on The Daily Show, as the host of My Grandmother's Ravioli on the Cooking Channel, and as a correspondent on CBS Sunday Morning.

Now, Mo Rocca is taking on another passion project: writing and talking about dead people. "Rather than profile live people, and I like live people," he told WBZ playfully. "But, like, dead people are a lot easier to deal with."

In his newly published book Mobituaries, named after his popular podcast with the same title, Rocca writes a series of obituaries his way. So what makes it a Mobituary? It's a lengthy tribute to people, things, and beliefs Rocca feels didn't get a proper send off when they actually died. For example: fur coats, the death of the station wagon, belief in dragons. And, of course, there are obituaries for real people, too, like Audrey Hepburn, Vaughn Meader, and Billy Carter.

Rocca has been on his book tour for two weeks, and said what has surprised him most is, "how much people want to hear a generous take on the past." For example, in his Mobituary to Billy Carter, he doesn't focus on the former president's little brother's reputation as a joke, but rather his life as a real person.

Rocca spoke to a packed audience at the JFK Library in Boston Monday night as part of the tour.

For a man who loves obituaries, a passion he gets from his late father, it wouldn't be right to leave an interview without asking him what he wants his obituary to say someday.

His answer: "Mo Rocca, who made people interested in things they didn't expect to be interested in, died today. He was 135."