King for a year

Well! I didn't know that Mardi Gras too was originally a pagan celebration. Did the Christians start any that were not burned up filling the vacuum of another that had been banned? I'm sure the pagan Mardi Gras had moments to rival the sprawling revelry of the Big Easy, but some aspects of their approach, like the one described below by an Internet historian in an episode of something called "History Podcast" by a Mr. Jason Watts, well, let's just say like parts of the party can be a bit of a downer to modern eyes:

"When Mardi Gras was still a pagan festival, the pagans selected a man to be king of Mardi Gras, and his kingship entitled him to have all his wishes fulfilled for a year. When his reign ended, he was literally sacrificed."

That sounds really awful, but alas, as a cultural relativist, I can't pass judgment, ya know, per se, in this specific case. If that entire pagan society appreciated this practice, if even the year's king embraced his fate as a shooting star... Who am I to tell from crazy?