And so on. That’s just a taste of the dizzying, giddy, sexually confusing thrill ride that was my six week break from the hideous confines of Cracked.com. I’m not going to go into too much detail, as I presume most of you don’t know who I am and the rest hate me, but let your collective deductive reasoning feast on these facts:

1. I was gone for six weeks.

2. John Hughes died.

3. I am now in possession of the original candles from Sixteen Candles.

And to answer your questions before you’ve even thought of them: Yes, there will be a new episode of Cracked TV come Monday; yes, I brought you back presents; and yes, he struggled. My god, how he struggled.

What? Your presents? Well, scroll down my ducklings, and feast your eyes on this fine Whitman’s sampler-style assortment of sketches from the Genius Camp 2k9 project. But be careful, one of them is coconut.

On Tents

Bigfoot Man

Long Weekend

That’s Weird

Tent Sex

Watch other In Tents videos.

The secret is this: We only have five jokes. That’s it. We dress them up, add or subtract zombies or vaginas wherever we see fit, but at the end of the day, the six active Cracked columnists could count the number of different jokes we know on our penises, and we’d still have Brockway’s penis left over. Of course, it could be argued that Brockway’s penis is itself a strange kind of joke, but it’s not really funny “ha ha,” if you know what I mean.

That’s why most comedy writers are so insecure. Just as Joseph Campbell boiled n95 percent of storytelling down to seven or eight basic plots, we’re worried that someday, someone will pull aside the curtain and reveal Oz to be little more than an organ-grinding monkey wearing plastic hillbilly teeth.

Well, I won’t be that betrayer. I’m not about to enumerate the several joke archetypes upon which all humor is founded, but I will tell you one of them: failure. Watching someone fail at something, or undergo misfortune, makes us feel better about our own shitty lives, and that’s something we humans find hilarious. The Germans call it “schadenfreude,” and it roughly means “child hits father in balls with football while Bob Saget narrates.”

That’s a sobering thought for comedians, because it means that no matter how much we polish up our jokes; no matter how precisely we deploy the word “nuggets” or how many parallels we can draw between Sarah Jessica Parker and a moldy beet, a video of a moron failing at something will almost always be funnier.

Which in turn explains why so many of us end up using “fake failure” in our comedy. Count off your favorite comedic characters (Homer Simpson, Borat, Michael Scott) and you’ll find that one thing they all have in common is being pathetic failures. But just when we think we’ve cornered the market on pathetic, along comes a true artist, a group dedicated to proving to all us would-be failures that succeeding to fail will NEVER be as funny as failing to succeed.

Watch, and wonder.

SIDE NOTE: that video not only illuminated the very essence of the comedic failure/success enigma, it also unwittingly mastered every other known form of joke, invented three new ones and caused the Marx Brothers to come back to life (although being interred in coffins, they quickly suffocated again).

Call me a deserter, but based on the existence of this video, I’m ready to predict that these young men commandeer and dominate all forms of comedy sometime in the next decade. Sorry my fellow comedians, but we had a good run. You just can’t compete with that. His PANTS WERE ON FIRE. And did you see the end? DID YOU SEE THE END?!

To see more of what these totally not gay guys have to offer, check out their fabulous homepage at whatthebob.com. For proof of the limitless entertainment possibilities found therein, look no further than this blurb on their front page:

“How did we come up with the name What the Bob? In December 2004 we wanted to make a web site so we were thinking of some names and we came up with What the Bob.”

I’m rofling so hard right now the fact that I can type a sentence is no small miracle. My choice is clear: I can either stand by my brethren, squelch this video and work tirelessly to pioneer and perfect exciting new forms of humor, or I can bow down to the “I’m On a Couch” phenomenon and sell out my craft for 15 minutes of fame as the guy who brought it to the attention of the world at large.

Judging by the fact that you just watched the video, I think you know which path I’ve chosen. This monotone, incoherent video has corrupted me with the sheer power of its viral memetic potential. It’s like someone marinated the One Ring in Midi-chlorians: I am powerless to resist (also invisible). Lead, O glorious video, and I, your humble servant and first disciple, shall follow.

4chan’s taken meme credit for too long, Crackedheads. Let’s get on this shit. I want to see remixes, Photoshops, t-shirt designs. I want this Dugg, Farked, YTMNDed and drunkenly tattooed. I want the “I’m On a Couch” boys to make “David After Dentist” look like “David Reads Quietly.”

The Johnstones have started the ball rolling, but it’s up to us to get this amazing video from a paltry 2,000 views to an astronomical 3,400. I will settle for nothing less.

Make me proud.

DATELINE: Hollywood.

In an expansive conference room, casting agents sift through a flotilla of headshots and resumés, sweat beading on their foreheads, every brain working feverishly, empty bottles of sparkling spring water piled in the corners and on the center of the table.

“He’s got to have range,” mutters one, for the 20th time that night.

“He’s got to be dynamic,” says another as she pushes a stack of headshots away in disgust.

“Literary, intelligent, yet capable of great savagery. A terrifying genius.” This from the oldest among them, the acknowledged master of the art of casting. He flips through the script again, searching for inspiration that will not come. The cover page reads Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

“Dammit!” shouts one of the agents. “We’re trying to cast a role played by Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Jack Palance, John Barrymore! Who in Hollywood can possibly live up to such performances?”

“I’ve got it!” says the old man. The others turn to him with mooning faces, ready to kneel at the altar of his wisdom. “I’ve got it,” he repeats like a mantra. And, with a suitable pause for effect…

“Keanu. Fucking. Reeves.”

The announcement stuns the room. Collective gasps are enjoyed by all, and a deep silence falls over the table. Finally:

“But…what? Keanu…uh…”

“I think you’re thinking of Christopher Reeves,” says an intern sheepishly. “And he died, sir.”

The old man grumbles from deep inside his chest. “I know that, you idiot! Who do you think delivered the eulogy?! I said Keanu Reeves and I meant Keanu Reeves!”

The other agents all suck air through their back molars simultaneously. One of them mouths the word “awkward.”

“He’s got to have range,” mutters someone, for the 21st time that night.

“No, right, I know,” explains the elder. “I was giving up.”

Relief washes over them. “Oh! OK. Then… strippers and hookah?”

“Natch.”

And with that, an instant film classic is born.

It’s an onscreen interaction that I’m betting will be a little less Smeagle/Gollum and a little more Neo/Neo with angry eyebrows drawn on. In fact, I think it’s safe to assume that the only personality combinations he can realistically bring to the role are:

• Stoic savior of the human race/Retarded 80s stoner
• Retarded 80s stoner/Unbelievable romantic lead
• Unbelievable romantic lead/Stoic savior of the human race

I’m hoping he goes with the first one, so we can watch Dr. Jekyll wage a grim fight against Mr. Hyde’s quest to invent Cheetos, thrash on the 19th century equivalent of an electric bass (which I believe would be the steam-bassoon) and hassle Tchaikovsky.

Plus the constant switch between a black duster and bright neon shorts is probably the only way the audience will know which character he’s supposed to be playing at any given time.

Keanu, if you’re reading this, don’t panic. I’ve got some simple, quick fixes that will help you give the impression of being able to play two whole characters, without actually going to all the fuss of doing so.

First, try some thick accents. No one’s going to confuse your Jekyll and Hyde if Jekyll introduces himself as a “man uh da sciences, eh?” and Hyde vows to “shtop at nosink!” Yes, it’s borderline racist, but if you settle for your usual caliber of performance, you risk offending facial paralysis victims everywhere.

If that doesn’t do the trick, give Hyde a thin black mustache. It’ll make him seem a lot more evil, and it’s easier to explain how a man can grow and ungrow facial hair throughout a movie than to explain how in the hell the producers thought you were a good choice for this role.

Of course, there’s also the “method” route. “Method” is a fancy actor word for actually doing whatever your character is supposed to do. So if you’re playing a crackhead, smoke some crack. It’s like cheating for actors. I guess what I’m saying is that you should try to invent a serum that turns you into a monster. Difficult, yes, but much easier than… well, you know.

And if all else fails, there’s always subtitles.

Oh and hey, Keanu, while I’ve got your attention:

SPIKE?! You’re playing fucking SPIKE SPIEGEL?! How DARE you! Get the hell away from Bebop! Or better yet, go method: Hurl yourself into space.

I am part of a minority in America, in that I don’t have cable. Like the proud Somalians, I must resort to piracy if I am to fulfill my material and entertainment needs. That is, until last week when my TV inexplicably started having all the major network channels where once there was static. I guess the Somalian analogy there would be getting sniped in the face, but in a good way.

And though I have since been enjoying occasionally-flickering episodes of House and the Simpsons/Family Guy hybrid that The Simpsons has become, I’ve also been repeatedly reminded why I canceled my cable in the first place.

No, I’m not talking about commercial breaks, episode preemption or Two and a Half Men. My cable-demon has a face. An old, plastic, wrinkled, terrifying face. It’s this guy:

Fuck. This. Guy. I fucking hate him. He looks like someone left a dead turtle in a stagnant pool of water for a month then put glasses on it. And as his parent, it’s your responsibility to abort him.

Let’s make one thing clear: This man has no business giving me advice on anything post-Cold War Era, let alone my choice of amusement park. If this guy went on a roller coaster, his putrefied organs would ooze out of every orifice. In fact, THAT’S what you should put in the commercial. Seriously, if you built a roller coaster called “Der Elderkiller” and killed off your mascot in the commercial for it, I promise I would call and buy a season pass immediately.

Where’d you get this guy? The Sopranos? The Progeria Center? Has Dana Carvey fallen so far?

There’s only one thing I’d buy from this man. Canned, unsalted peanuts. That’s it. Maybe adult diapers, but only if he promised his face wasn’t on the package.

I think what really gets me is that it’s clearly a young person wearing grotesque amounts of old man makeup. What’s the message there, Six Flags? Are you reaching out to old people? Young people who dress like old people? Musical Theater majors desperate for the most humiliating work possible?

Here’s a list of things that would have been more appropriate as a mascot for a roller coaster-based amusement park:

• A skateboarding duck.

• Six flags, each with a different disquieting personality disorder.

• An animate gust of wind.

• A coaster. Like, a drink coaster. Named “Roller.”

• An old tire.

• Fucking ANYTHING.

And come on: “More Flags. More Fun”? Why do you think that means ANYTHING to ANYONE? Admittedly, it is exactly the kind of thing a doddering old man would mutter to himself while being wheeled out behind the barn to be put out of his misery.

It’s a nonsensical turd of a slogan. The only times more flags equals more fun are at Semifore Camp and on Nickelodeon game shows from the late 90s. You are neither. You are a place that houses a collection of giant robots that push people around. And even THAT overly technical description of your function is a cooler-sounding slogan than “More Flags. More Fun.”

Plus, you’re leaving the door wide open for someone to found an amusement park called 12 Flags and steal all your business. Then you’ll go to 14, and the Flag Wars will be on. Where will it end? My guess is with a park just called “FLAAAAAAAAGSSSZ!!!” whose mascot is an Olympic runner made up as a paraplegic.

More Flags? More Fun? Mother Fuckers.

Your mascot literally makes me sick to my stomach. Get that hideous thing off of my television so I can get back to my Fear Factor rerun. Because honestly, watching someone hork down rotten dongs is a lot more palatable than this decrepit, polyurethane diaper-faced reject from a Buzbee Berkley Musical.

Eat Chocolate Skittles and die.

Sincerely,

A guy who hasn’t ridden a roller coaster since Viper gave him migraines.

Compared to the technological progress of, say, the dinosaurs during their tens of millions of years on Earth, we’re the equivalent of a guy who shows up at a party already hammered, shoots a liter of heroin and asks if they have any medical-grade adrenaline kicking around in the back. Clearly, we’re a little impatient when it comes to getting our next hit of sweet, sweet progress.

The problem is, our toys don’t always come with instructions, or even those “recommended for species aged 1-100 million years” stickers. And on occasion we end up with shit that, quite frankly, maybe we shouldn’t have access to. The atomic bomb, high fructose corn syrup, Star Wars III, what have you.

And according to a growing number of science fiction authors and, more importantly, a few actual scientists, that bad habit may catch up with us, and soon. That moment–when technology renders humans obsolete–even has a name.

It’s called the Technological Singularity, and it’s basically the point at which our toys start to consider us toys, and life as we know it starts losing its shit. Here are a few of the ways it could feasibly shake out.

The Gist:

This is your most basic version of the Technological Singularity, the one popularized by countless movies and feared ever since Pinocchio became self-aware and murdered his father (I didn’t watch much Disney as a kid).

The basic idea goes like this: One day in the future, a team of scientists working at a robot factory (let’s say Japanese scientists, because, hey, who are we kidding?) finally invent a robot that’s smarter than a human being, if only by an infinitesimal amount. It’ll still probably be a robot dog, but that’s fine; the point is, it’s the robot we’ve all been imagining all these years.

Then let’s say–since Japanese scientists are so notoriously lazy–they take the rest of the day off and have the newborn Mr. Roboto design more robots instead of doing it themselves. Makes sense after all: why do a job the hard way when there’s a tool that can do it faster and better than you? It’s kind of the basis of all human civilization, and, some would argue, our current unemployment rate, but shut the fuck up because robots are cool.

So while Mrs. Yakahara and the Morimoto twins are guzzling sake at the commissary, Mr. Roboto dutifully uses his superhuman brain to design the best robot he can, a robot that, as you’d expect–because he’s smarter than the people who designed him–is even smarter than he is. This continues for a couple hours, at which point Mr. Roboto’s great-great-grand-robo-children are so smart, they decide the best way to deal with “the human problem” is to send an android back in time to murder Sarah Connor.

Voila! Humans are obsolete.

Why It’s Plausible:

The big question here is whether you believe it’s theoretically possible for humans to create a robot as sophisticated as a human. If you’re a person of faith, you’ve got the whole immaterial soul thing to throw a monkey wrench into the works, at least until we manage to replicate the human soul using a powerful lens, some magnets and the tears of an orphan.

Even if you’re not religious, creating a robot that functions on the same level as a human being seems like a tall order, but think about it this way: the guy who built Deep Blue could probably shit a diamond more easily than beat it at a game of chess. And I’m guessing the guy who invented the hydraulic press couldn’t crush a car, either. And just try to recreate two midgets having sex with a horse more realistically than your computer monitor. Not gonna happen.

The fact is, we’ve made plenty of technologies that are more capable and efficient than we are at particular tasks. And the rate at which our technology has improved is only increasing. Is it too much to believe that at some point in the future we will build a machine that can problem solve and predict better than we can? That can actually think?

And is it too much to believe that that machine will then immediately wage war on us with laser cannons? I submit that it is not.

Upside:

OK, so there’s no particular reason our robot superiors should instantly want to kill or enslave us, other than that it makes for a much more entertaining movie than Bicentennial Man.

Assuming we could retain control of our robots as they got ever smarter and more powerful–say, with some Asimov-style laws hard-wired in–there’s a chance we’d actually come out of this with a willing race of slaves who know everything and can do anything. Not the worst deal ever.

Downside:

Of course, that’s quite an assumption. As machines design smarter and smarter versions of themselves, there will come a point when your robot butler is smarter and more sophisticated than your puny human mind can even comprehend.

And with all that brainpower, there seems to be a pretty decent chance he’ll figure out a way to circumvent the feeble “safety seals” the manufacturer slapped on at the factory. Then you’ve got omnipotent rogue robots on your hands, and ones so smart they probably view humans the way we view ants. Namely, good for observational study and fun to set on fire.

But the real negative here is how inevitable it all seems. If you grant that it’s even theoretically possible to make an android of greater than human intelligence, then it seems pretty damn likely that it’s going to happen at some point. And that’s scary.

Yes, you could pass laws against developing intelligent machines, but has the law ever prevented humanity from diddling with a dangerous new technology? Maybe for a little while, but if you don’t think anyone’s ever going to try to clone a human, you clearly haven’t met my friend “Michael Swaim Backup Alpha.”

And what if China develops a super-intelligent robot before we do? National security DEMANDS an American robo-man!

Human nature being what it is (greedy and paranoid), it seems pretty clear that if it’s possible for us to make a robot as smart as a human, we’ll do it, if only to marvel at our own ingenuity before our windpipes are crushed beneath the treaded boots of our metal masters.

The Gist:

One of the main problems with the robot theory is how freaking amazing the human brain is, and therefore how hard it is to believe it could actually be replicated. Naturally, there’s a lot of disagreement about the exact processing power and storage capacity of the brain. But a conservative estimate–made by a mathematician who thinks the Technological Singularity will happen as soon as 2030–puts it at around 100 times today’s best supercomputers, despite the existence of Internet comments.

That means the guy across from you at the bus depot grunting in frustration as he rips up today’s Junior Jumble is as smart as, say, 58 supercomputers. And with some of the new barriers microchip developers have been running up against, it could be quite a while before we can house that much smart in a single box. And even if we could, we’d probably just use it to play Halo 19 or something.

That’s why some futurists–fancy word for guys who get stoned and write books using math to predict ridiculous things like those on this list–think a much more probable road to the Technological Singularity runs straight through Cracked.com. Or the Internet as a whole. Whatever.

The Internet, if reckoned as one big fatty computer, is the most powerful thinking machine on the planet. Think of it like a network of neurons firing across an Earth-sized cerebrum. The problem is, it’s the cerebrum of a kid with ADHD who spends most of his time thinking about pornography or celebrity gossip and routinely shuts down sections of his mind for “maintenance.”

But imagine all that processing power working towards the same goals, or conducted as a single entity. Although, assuming people won’t stop masturbating long enough for that, you should actually imagine a LAN party of 150 supercomputers designed to work in perfect tandem.

That’s still a long way from a robot named “Terry” who will tell you stories and cure AIDS, but the raw materials, the tools, will finally exist. Then it just takes time, dedication and a willingness to work on AI algorithms between bouts of running the coolest Crysis physics demos ever.

Why It’s Plausible:

Well, the Internet existing is a pretty good indicator. And the “Internet gains self-awareness” scenario just seems to grow more smoothly out of our present conditions than a walkin’ talkin’ robot. Although perhaps the theory would seem more ludicrous if it had been featured in movies more often. Basically you’ve just got War Games and that 70s movie, The Colossus.

And while I’m not saying I necessarily endorse this theory, I do have to admit it feels a lot more plausible ever since Google came into existence. Every time I load up Firefox, part of me expects my homepage to be a white screen with multicolored letters reading “OBEY_OR…”

Upside:

An animate Internet, being essentially a bunch of boxes of electronics, wouldn’t necessarily be able to pull off any of the more physically threatening maneuvers inherent to an evil robot. Like, say “moving” or “seeing.” So in that sense, it might be a safer bet for humanity.

Downside:

However, it would be able to pull off more abstract maneuvers like “zeroing the world’s bank accounts” or “firing the rockets.” And as a conscious entity that lives entirely in a black void of pure thought, it’s even less likely than a robot to have any sense of kinship with the “strange, slimy creatures that scream when I bomb them.”

The Gist:

OK, let’s tighten the plausibility belt another notch. Let’s say that, for whatever reason, we just don’t believe in The Matrix or Demolition Man or anything cool like that; they’re just too badass to actually happen.

That’s not going to stop technology from rapidly and drastically changing the way we live over the next century. Don’t believe me? Imagine explaining Twitter, your GPS, pregnant fathers, text messaging and the iPhone to someone from the 1950s. Their Leave it to Beaver-watching head would explode. And yet, legend has it there are some people from the 50s who are STILL ALIVE.

The point being, technology moves fast, and as long as it continues to enchant us or make our lives somehow more enjoyable, we’re going to go along for the ride. I’ve got Wikipedia, the Library of Congress page and the World Library page open in different tabs right now; it’s like I’m Blaster and my computer is Master.

And as technology continues to improve–even if it CAN’T replicate consciousness or self-awareness–there will come a point when you and your various technological enhancements are synonymous. When you can get Internet access literally everywhere, your virtual identity becomes just as important as your real one.

More important in fact, because your virtual identity combines your consciousness with the stored knowledge of every computer on Earth.

Suddenly, being offline almost feels like being “dumb.” You’re cut off from a part of your brain that you’ve utilized from birth. Better still, a part of the brain where your name gets to be Kairhein_Von_Terrible26.

Soon enough you and your computer are basically one guy, and that guy has all the capabilities of a being of superhuman intelligence.

Mathematically speaking, You + Your Computer = An Android.

Why It’s Plausible:

Because it presupposes nothing other than the steady, gradual advancement of technology that we’ve observed since that one ape killed the other ape with the bone that turned into a space station.

There’s no question that people now spend a larger part of their days interacting with a computer, or with one another via a computer, than they did 10 years ago. Or two years ago. If we keep inventing new social networking platforms at this rate, we could be android-equivalent virtual beings sometime later this month.

Upside:

So far, this is the first scenario that doesn’t involve us either becoming extinct or slaves. But wait, it gets even better.

If it turns out computers are literally incapable of developing human-like consciousness (or at least, WE’RE not capable of building one that has it), then in some sense we’re off the hook. We remain our own masters, and keep on reaping those technological benefits.

And even further in the future, as user interfaces get more and more complex, the world could start looking an awful lot like Johnny Mnemonic, except, you know… way better. Still though, laser whips FTW.

Downside:

Sadly, the world is not so simple that “not having robots murder us all” is our only long-term concern. A full-on cyberpunk culture has huge potential for drastically altering life as we know it, even if we do stay in the driver’s seat.

For example, as video game technology improves–or even reaches the level of virtual reality–we must ask ourselves: what are the long term psychological effects of regularly playing video games where you shoot people in the face and it feels exactly like really doing it. Do you really want to hang out with the guy who has the number one spot on the Blood 2: Rusty Saws Edition virtual reality leaderboard?

And what about the “have nots,” who can’t afford to jack into the CyberNetSpaceZone (or whatever we call it)? Allowing such a radical disconnect between the way the wealthy live and the way the poor live is just begging for a violent class war, and unlike the poor, the rich will be fat and pasty from a life spent at the computer.

And of course, none of this takes into account the devastating droughts, famines and urban squalor that would result from giving the mass of humanity easy access to a perfect, wish-granting virtual world. Who’s going to wash the dishes when they could be eating a five-star meal with Oscar Wilde on the surface of the sun?

My guess is people would spend the entirety of their lives either logged on, eating sustenance pellets or rubbing against their CPUs in the hopes of somehow melding with them and becoming fucking cyborgs.

The Gist:

And why not? If we’re going to be defining our identities by our technology, what’s the harm in getting some of it sewn into our skin, or wired into our eyes, or burning the contents of our brains onto a 9,000-layer DVD and making several hundred backup copies?

In the cyborg future, surgery and computing have finally come together, and thankfully not in a really gross way. Amputees have the robot power legs they’ve always wanted, but never use them because, like everyone else, they’re too busy communicating with the human group mind, or “metacore.”

This is basically the future science fiction writers imagined before they got all depressed in the late 40s and started writing exclusively about the A-bomb. This is mankind as a transcendent being, our tool-using potential pushed to the maximum and reincorporated into the organism.

Instead of breathing life into machines, we ate their delicious electric hearts, thereby gaining their power like a robotic version of the bad guy from Temple of Doom.

And sure, you’d basically be a talking Leatherman multitool. But multitools are awesome, right?

Why It’s Plausible:

There’s no question that extreme elective surgery is more a part of life now than ever. I mean, just look at Michael Jackson or that cat lady. Or for that matter, the guy who’s been breaking world running records because he has… wait for it… robot legs. True, they’re basically just metal strips, but the bottom line is they work a heck of a lot better than your stupid legs.

So see? Technically, we’ve already got a cyborg. Embed his cell phone in his forearm and give him a laser eye, and we’re halfway there.

The only question left is whether humans, as a species, will ever actually want technology to become such an intrinsic part of their lives that it’s grafted onto their bodies. And as someone whose favorite Star Wars character is Boba Fett, I can tell you with confidence that yes, yes I do.

Upside:

Aside from the normal hiccups that come with any major technological revolution, there aren’t many downsides. As long as you don’t morally object to melding your identity with that of a computer, you’re golden. And even if you do, well, you’ll probably change your tune as soon as your friends start laughing at in-jokes they transmit to one another via in-retina status updates.

Downside:

I guess, technically, we wouldn’t become omnipotently powerful quite as fast as we could with an android intelligence thrown in here or there. And knowing how impatient humans are, that thought is probably enough to keep robotics and AI research going no matter how good our regular computers get, or how many we fasten to our bodies. Which takes us right back to the lazy Japanese Scientists, Mr. Roboto and the inevitability of a vast robot uprising.

Although at least in this scenario we get to fight back as cyborgs which, frankly, is the coolest possible outcome described in this article.

The Gist:

As you’d expect, each of the outlandish predictions I’ve described have their fair share of scientific detractors.

I’m not saying I don’t believe any of them could possibly happen (after all, I’m the blogger who declared it impossible to get Diet Dr. Pepper to taste more like regular Dr. Pepper), but they do take a certain leap of faith. Especially when all of the statistical evidence supporting them has been countered by cynics with arguments like “static analysis errors” and “logarithmic scaling” and “I’m a bitter cynic who doesn’t want anyone to find joy.”

So what if the people with sand in their vagina are right? What if their sandy vaginas house a delicate pearl of wisdom?

If it really is impossible for our technology to mimic the human mind; if, as many argue, we are in fact reaching the end of a period of rapid technological development, what will happen to us?

Basically, we’ll all die.

If you want to get less basic, experts have put forward a number of varied theories. Some predict food shortages leading to a collapse of civilization, while others go so far as to predict joblessness leading to a collapse of civilization. And of course there are the extremists, who predict a crippling economic downturn as a result of the dead-end technology market, leading to a collapse of civilization.

We don’t have claws, or tails, or super hearing; we put all our points into INT. Being smart and building things is basically our only trick. Take it away from us, and some shit is going to go down.

Why It’s Plausible:

Because the engine driving our advancement is and has always been increasingly sophisticated tool use. From the lever to the plow to the printing press to the Krispy Kreme doughnut, a constant increase in the effectiveness of our tools is the only thing that’s allowed us to keep our economy going and provide for the livelihoods and survival of all–or at least a majority–of the world’s citizens.

Maybe it won’t be as doom and gloom as futurists tend to predict. Maybe we’ll start finding ways to advance in other important areas instead, like learning to not be such assholes to each other all the time.

But there’s no question that if our population continues to grow, and advancements in technology fail to keep up with our needs, we’ll be looking at things like widespread terrorism, piracy, human rights violations, destabilized governments and global environmental crises.

Actually, in hindsight, I guess this entry is more a prediction of the present than the future.

Upside:

We’re already kind of used to it?

Downside:

For starters, it seems to be the most likely scenario. The more we learn about the human brain, the more we realize how little we know about how it actually works. Technological advances that took months a decade ago–like doubling the processing power of a computer–now take much longer, as the level of specialized knowledge required, people involved and chances of something going wrong all increase.

Even if we do reach that gleaming robo-utopia or cyberpunk VR haven or cyborg nation we’ve been dreaming of, there’s a good chance it’s going to take a lot longer than predicted, and we’ll get there limping, with a lot of stops and starts along the way. Which all adds up to the ultimate downer of the “real world” scenario: personal responsibility.

If you’re like me, you’d love nothing more than a radical perceptual shift in life as we know it to come along and transcend you to a plane of pure light and thought, where all human minds are as one and paternity tests always come back negative.

But until that glorious, improbable (but theoretically possible) day, it looks like we may have to busy ourselves worrying about mundane stuff like “the development of true human nobility” and “feeding and educating the world before the ice caps melt or we all starve.”

And even worse, we’ve got to do it with nothing but the tools currently available to us and whatever else we can come up with along the way. Not nearly as cool as hurling rockets into space or having VR sex with Sandra Bullock, but there you go.

My advice: Anything is possible, and most of the more likely possibilities suck balls, so in the meantime let’s all make the best of a bad situation, shall we?

At least until the Large Hadron Collider blows a hole into another dimension and we can steal their technology.

Normally I try to remain politically neutral on the blog. It’s not my place to tell you where to stick your genitals, or how to abort your babies, or which rifle butt to beat your spouse with.

But when I realized former Vice President Cheney had accidentally CC-ed me a batch of photos from Abu Ghraib destined to be released to the public by the Obama administration later in May, I knew I had a civic duty to pull in clicks for Cracked by splattering them all over the Internet a week ahead of time.

The ACLU have been trying to get the government to release the photos for a while now, hoping to build a criminal case against officials and guards who committed interrogation techniques they say constitutes torture. Meanwhile, the guys from the Bush Administration maintain that they worked within the confines of the law, and honestly, after seeing the photo packet Cheney is sending out, I think the ACLU might be overreacting.

The email made reference to whether “they’ll buy it,” but man, if this is how the detainees were treated at Abu Ghraib, I’ll buy a ticket there right now!

Originally, I wanted to write this article because of a book read to me when I was a child called Love You Forever, about a mom who rocks her son to sleep every night of his life.

And I mean every night. When he’s middle aged, she drives to his house while he’s sleeping, climbs through his bedroom window with a ladder, picks him up and rocks him in her lap. I’m assuming he never marries, because, well, let’s not kid ourselves.

Then when his mom is old and bedridden, he returns the favor by rocking her in his lap and screaming “YOU MADE ME THIS WAY!” Sure, the message was one of a mother’s undying love, but as a child all I understood was “Mommy is a crazy stalker, and one day she’ll die.”

But even that macabre tale of parental breaking and entering was swiftly booted off the list by these 10 atrocities. Brace yourselves; we’re talking Giving Tree levels of disturbing here.

The Screwed Up-edness:

As all Westerners know, exactly one important thing happened in Hiroshima. And yes, this book for kindergartners is about that. According to the author, the book is based on a true account of a woman leading her child out of the A-Bomb’s blast radius while carrying her wounded husband on her back. According to the picture on the cover, it’s about women running topless through a sea of blood.

What Were They Thinking?

“Too long have the people of our country felt bewildered sorrow whenever they think of Hiroshima. We must help the new generation come to terms with an event that is, like it or not, a part of our history.”

What Kids Who Read It Think:

“Men from the sky can kill us, our friends and our family at any time. Also, fuck America.”

The Screwed Up-edness:

If you’re not already convinced this book was a terrible idea, try reciting the title at a cocktail party and see if you don’t get beat down. And while the book’s answer to the question is actually “we should ALL care about disabled people,” the people it considers “disabled” include fat kids, kids who huff paint, alcoholics, athletes and child prodigies (you know, because they’re so lonely). Maybe I’m not as tolerant as I could be, but the day I see a drunken, paint-huffing basketball prodigy park in a handicapped spot is the day I get arrested for vehicular manslaughter.

What Were They Thinking?

“If kids learn to see that everyone has their own unique imperfections, they will realize that intolerance harms us all.”

What Kids Who Read It Think:

“Great, I’m surrounded by cripples. And you can get high by huffing paint? Who knew? Me, now. Awesome.”

The Screwed Up-edness:

I find it really hard to believe that an alcoholic father would buy this book for their own child, and we can assume if he found the mother reading it he’d smack her one. So who exactly is this book for? My theory is that it was written so kids with a functional family can learn that there really are monsters in the world, and sometimes they look like daddy. Because, yeah, you’re never too young to get that little life lesson out of the way.

What Were They Thinking?

The author’s other books—gems like My Big Sister Takes Drugs, Nobody Wants a Nuclear War, My Two Uncles and When Eric’s Mom Fought Cancer—suggest that she thinks any traumatizing event in a child’s life can be cured with about 12 watercolors and 150 words.

What Kids Who Read It Think:

“I wish Daddy didn’t drink so much, and this book helpfully reminded me of that fact in public when the teacher read it to us. Now I also wish that I hadn’t cried and wet myself in front of all of my classmates.”

The Screwed Up-edness:

This is the book the movie The Labyrinth was loosely based on, so you know it’s going to be pretty horrifying. And where the movie had a young girl battle self-decapitating monsters to win her kidnapped brother back from David Bowie’s enchanted crotch-pouch, the book has her doing… basically the same thing, but then she makes all the goblins kill themselves by dancing until they collapse due to fatal exhaustion. Many other details were altered, but thankfully the movie stayed true to the simple, heartwarming story presented in the book: young girl hates baby brother, wishes him away and must slaughter a goblin army to win him back.

What Were They Thinking?

“Children are often jealous of the attention lavished on younger siblings. They should know that this is normal, and that their parents love them both equally.”

What Kids Who Read It Think:

“I am often jealous of the attention lavished on my younger sibling. It’s good to know that goblins will gladly take them if I ask.”

The Screwed Up-edness:

A parody of “This is the house that Jack built,” this book takes children on a magical, whirlwind tour of things they have no reason to want to know about: from the workers toiling in Colombian fields to the pushers on the street corner to the homeless crackheads auctioning off their orifices for that next sweet hit. It’s like the film New Jack City crossed with an episode of The Magic School Bus. Read this one to your kids at bedtime, and they’ll never look at Pixy Stix the same way again.

What Were They Thinking?

“The earlier kids learn about the evils of drugs, the better chance they stand of avoiding them.”

What Kids Who Read It Think:

“That crack dealer lives in a GIANT MANSION! Screw fireman; I want to be a dealer when I grow up!”

The Screwed Up-edness:

Ever wonder what someone with bipolar disorder looks and sounds like to their children? The answer is as upsetting as you’d imagine, and thanks to this book you don’t even have to develop a mental disorder of your own to let your kids know the depression and terror of that experience. Annie’s (single) mommy behaves like a coke fiend on one page and Debbie Downer on the next. Thankfully, Annie’s grandmother calls her on the phone to help talk her through things, and Annie learns a valuable lesson: her grandmother doesn’t love her enough to save her from her crazy mother.

What Were They Thinking?

“Mental illness in a parent is heartbreaking, and children need to know that it’s not their fault and that they can turn to friends and family for support.”

What Kids Who Read It Think:

“No matter how normal our parents seem, they could easily snap at any moment and try to drown us in a bathtub.” Actually, pretty solid advice; probably saved some lives.

The Screwed Up-edness:

This German collection of children’s stories has the double distinction of being the only book on this list to feature an abomination of nature on its cover, while also being the only book on this list that’s Nazi propaganda against the Jews. Whimsical tales like “The Poisonous Serpent,” “The Tapeworm” and “The Filthy Jew” help teach Nazi Youth a host of valuable lessons. OK, really just one lesson. Seriously, this is the written equivalent of Joe Camel, assuming he’s beating a gypsy with a bag full of candy-coated plutonium Tootsie-Pops.

What Were They Thinking?

Well, to quote directly from the source, probably something along the lines of “Just like the bacterium, the Jews bring plague and decline to the peoples they infect by race mixing and infecting Gentile peoples with Jewish thinking. They maintain, for example, that all humans are equal. But that is not true. It is a terrible lie! … said the happy flower to the sad old snail.”

What Kids Who Read It Think:

“Heil Hitler!”

The Screwed Up-edness:

At first, this book seems like a fun read. After all, drawings of horses smoking cigarettes and struggling to drink booze with their gigantic hooves are inherently hilarious. Unfortunately, the author couldn’t just leave it at that. No, she had to make the three main characters black horses names Latawnya, Latoya and Daisy, and the villainous drug pushers four white horses. And voila! In one simple move, she’s turned what could have been an excellent desk calendar into an idiotic oversimplification of race relations. Tack on a horse overdosing near the end and you’ve got yourself one of the worst books ever made, children’s or otherwise.

What Were They Thinking?

“No one will listen to my theories about the White Man pushing drugs on our brothers and sisters! Perhaps if I thinly veil them and target kids…”

What Kids Who Read It Think:

“Horses are silly. Why… why isn’t Daisy getting up, Mommy? Mommy?!”

The Screwed Up-edness:

This one’s almost cheating, since it was written more than 100-years ago and was probably meant as a satire of the Grimm fairy tales. Nevertheless, its misleading title, saccharine-sweet rhymes and 2002 re-release with new artwork by renowned illustrator Edward Gorey leave little doubt that somewhere, a young child is reading poems about “Jim, Who ran away from his Nurse and was eaten by a Lion” and “Matilda, Who told lies and was Burned to Death.”

What Were They Thinking?

Since Gorey also wrote and illustrated The Gashlycrumb Tinies, a children’s picture book of children dying in various horrific (and alphabetized) ways, I’ve got to assume he probably knew exactly what he was doing.

What Kids Who Read It Think:

“You know, I haven’t shit myself in a few years, but I’m thinking of taking it up again.”

The Screwed Up-edness:

Take every author on this list, put them in a room together, fill that room with a gas that makes people retarded, and promise to kill their families if they don’t write the worst children’s book of all time, and I guarantee they will produce Alfie’s Home. It’s not JUST that the book tells the story of a child getting molested by his uncle while his angry parents ignore him. It’s not JUST that the word “faggot” is emblazoned on page nine. It’s not JUST that the rudimentary artwork makes the picture of the “proper manifestation of a father’s love” look like Alfie’s getting molested all over again.

It’s all those things, but it’s mostly the fact that after 16 pages of the most fucked up childhood this side of Michael Jackson’s, Alfie has a single meeting with a counselor, and everything’s immediately fine. His uncle apologizes, his parents make up, he realizes he isn’t gay after all (Oh thank Christ!), rainbows shoot out of his ass, the whole bit. It’s like if Requiem For a Dream ended with a big tea party/dance number.

What Were They Thinking?

Not much.

What Kids Who Read It Think:

“Wow, this is shit. I’m going to go watch Pokémon.”

You can also follow him on Twitter! And this is likely the last time he’ll remind you, so get on that shit.

Here on the Cracked Blog, it’s often in our interest to mock celebrities. We call it “our beat,” because usually reading articles about celebrities makes you want to beat them. But frankly, it can get stale. It’s pretty easy to do–most celebrities are terrible people or incredibly screwed up–and after a while you just start feeling sad for them. That, and you realize you’re spending many hundreds of hours of your life writing about people you wouldn’t cross the street to spit on.

But occasionally, that old magic comes back. Some video or news item reminds you why you started doing this in the first place. Billy Bob Thornton’s interview on the CBC radio show Q was such an event for me. In fact, the YouTube video of the interview officially moved him from my list of celebrities who I wouldn’t mind seeing eaten by sharks to my list of celebrities I am actively trying to get sharks to eat.

In honor of such a grand occasion, I sent away for (and promptly received) the DVD copy of said interview. Imagine my surprise when I found out the DVD version came with a never-before-seen subtext caption track! It’s hard to explain exactly what that is in words, so why don’t you just go ahead and watch it for yourselves. And thank you Billy Bob, for inspiring genuine hate in this jaded old blogger’s heart.

You can also follow him on Twitter! But do it now, before he gets too self-conscious about promoting it at the end of his posts.

One of the more ego-stroking results of the little Lunch Hour Sketches DOB and I have been posting is the number of comments pointing out how tall, lean and indie-chic I am, and how video evidence suggests that I’d be a much better lover than say, a Rivers Cuomo or Daniel O’Brien.

I’m paraphrasing a bit, but you get the point.

At first, I balanced these comments out with the ones saying “wow, Mike looks better than I thought, considering that on Cracked TV he looks like a fat, fatty fat chubby fat guy with my ass for a toupee.”

But, over time, the part of my brain responsible for blocking out negative Internet comments to keep me from sobbing in the fetal position all day convinced me that people probably masturbate furiously whenever I’m on camera now.

And I’ve got to say, I’m OK with that, as long as you laugh at the same time and use protection (who knows where your hands have been?).

You may be wondering exactly how I shook those last 30 or 40 pounds. The answer is simple friends: brown fat. Not running, not eating right, not one of those fashionable Hollywood bulimias—brown fat.

What is brown fat? According to a number of recent studies, it’s a kind of fat whose only purpose is to burn away other kinds of fat by producing heat. Brown fat cells aren’t hooked up to anything in particular, but they process tissue into ATP and then just let it rip.

Originally, this was a way for cavebabies to survive harsh nature and mothers who probably left them in snowbanks for hours at a time without really thinking it was a thing.

Nowadays, it turns out, humans have more brown fat than ever. And scientists theorize that the reason is that our bodies are slowly evolving to combat the current greatest threat to our species: obesity. That’s right folks: WE’RE SUCH FATASSES THAT OUR BODIES ARE EVOLVING TO COMPENSATE FOR IT.

Researchers are calling it “akin to developing a new organ.” Really, it’s to be expected. When we needed to see farther to scan the horizon for predators, we learned to stand upright. When we wanted to stop living in huts made of piled elephant shit, we learned to use tools. And now that our hearts are clogged with chunky turkey gravy, we’re literally growing organic exhaust pipes just to vent some of the excess.

Actually I guess we aren’t “literally” doing that; that would be kind of gross.

Naturally, as a well-respected fatty and known scientist in the field of… that one about how the human body works, I was shipped several crates of the stuff to test for myself. I don’t know who they harvested it from, and I didn’t ask (but my guess would be Oprah).

All I know is, the stuff is incredible. Roll in it, smear it on problem areas, eat it, shoot it, snort it… any way you get this stuff in you, it does the trick.

I haven’t tried it as a sexual lubricant yet (still looking for a lucky lady to assist me in that little experiment), but I imagine my genitals would emerge looking sleeker and more well-defined than ever.

So I’m all for it. Who cares if simple lifestyle changes could have accomplished the same task? The lesson here is that no matter what bad things we do to our bodies, evolution will invent an organ to deal with it.

Go ahead public: smoke that cigarette, eat that burger and leap from that building. I’m sure your body will develop a third lung, pocket of brown fat or pair of giant hairy bat wings before any horrible consequences befall you.

In fact, assuming that the  abstract God-being that is Natural Selection will be just as receptive to my opinions as the rest of the world is, I’d like to suggest a few new organs I wouldn’t mind finding in the old meat-fridge (that’s what I call my body).

The Sobriety Gland: A relative of the adrenal gland, the sobriety gland (nestled just behind the left ear) releases a rush of chemicals that immediately cleanses all alcohol from the bloodstream. Its powerful endocrinal cocktail is triggered whenever an authority figure or oncoming car is perceived. If such a gland is biologically infeasible, explosive punches may be substituted.

The Nozzles of Langehans: These follicle-sized nozzles in the male armpit release a visible cloud of pheromones that instantly attract women to the sprayer. Now even loser Internet comedians can walk into a trendy bar, let a cloud rip and be home in time to snuggle up in front of the newest Lost. Naturally, the nozzles are also paired with a small gristle-like valve called simply “the body’s pharmacist” which prevents the contraction of any STDs and causes ejaculate to be lemon-scented.

The Organ Organ: I’ve just really always wanted to play the organ, and it’d be nice if they were more portable.

The Pizza Secreter: More or less self-explanatory, although I should point out that while it can do both thick and thin crust, the thin crust pizzas are secreted from a part of the body that renders them less than appetizing. And don’t even get me STARTED on where the chicken wings come from! (It’s the butt. The chicken wings come out your butt.)

The Twittersphere: A small, underdeveloped portion of the cerebral cortex that formulates thoughts only in segments of up to 140 characters, and compels the owner to plug their own Twitter feed at the end of any written communication, like a total tool.

If you’d like to keep up with Michael on Twitter, start following him @SWAIM-CORP! Hurry, before it gets bought out by DOB_INC and the tweet prices skyrocket!

As a Cracked columnist, I often receive messages asking for help getting started with writing. A lot of folks ask me “what kind of people write for Cracked? Is this really a good way to start my writing career? Aren’t all the Cracked writers just basement-dwelling freaks who watch too much SciFi Channel?”

Well, to them I answer thusly: First, screw you; you sound like a dick. Second, if William Shakespeare were alive today, he would write for one site and one site only: Cracked.com.

OK, he might occasionally put something up on McSweeny’s, but just the real pretentious stuff. There’s no question that our hallowed halls would be the preferred stomping grounds of The Great Bard, and here’s why.

Shakespeare’s plays and poems are full of commentaries on what was going on in England at the time. When the Puritans started publicly complaining about his plays featuring love between men and young boys (who played the female roles) and arousing the audience to “retreat to secret conclaves and there play the Sodomite, or worse,” Shakespeare responded by writing Measure for Measure, a play about a Puritanical Duke who tries to outlaw all sexual misconduct to stifle his own sick urges towards a nun. Kind of a “he who smelt it dealt it” response, but effective nonetheless.

And not unfounded, especially when you consider the words of a Puritan of the time decrying pedophiles while at the same time giving a perfect impression of one:

“These pretty upstart youths profane the Lord’s day by the lascivious writhing of their tender limbs and gorgeous decking of their apparel…”

Which, for the Elizabethan-challenged, roughly translates to:

“How dare these sexy children be so damned sexy, wiggling like that, it’s…it’s…I mean come on!”

Shakespeare also openly mocked celebrities of the day, and even included them as characters in his plays. For example, the Bishop of Westchester, featured in King Henry VI, Part I, is satirized for hypocritically making a fortune in prostitution while simultaneously seeking cures for his rampant and numerous venereal diseases.

Well, not only was that a real guy, he was also the guy who licensed Shakespeare’s theater, AKA Will’s boss. Meaning the play’s subtext basically reads “My boss has herpes. Ha! What a dick.”

So the next time you read a Dan O’Brien column about him taking a dump on Jack’s daughter, recognize it for what it is: an august and thoughtful homage to The Bard.

Further Reading:

Shakespeare’s Satire, by Oscar James Campbell

Shakespeare worked primarily in two playhouses: The Rose and The Globe. The Rose was literally a brothel with a theater attached, and both places were situated in a nasty part of London called Bankside, Southwark. Southwark was known for two things: being south of Wark, and whorehouses.

And we’re not talking about respectable whorehouses here, either; these were places with names like “Ye Olde Fuck Shack” and “Baldric’s Palace of XXX Arse Drilling,” where you could buy a quickie with a man, woman or child for less than the cost of the mercury treatment you’d use to try and rid yourself of the ensuing syphilis.

There was even a whorehouse called “The Cardinal’s Hat” (as in “what the head of a penis looks like”) a mere block away from the Globe, where theatergoers could unwind during intermission by discussing the racy double entendre in the Second Act with the object of their boning. Excepting of course when their mouths were full.

As for the “Bankside” part of the Globe’s address, it referred to the bank of the Thames River. In those days, the Thames did double duty as London’s water supply and main sewer line.

Yes, the first-ever performance of King Lear was held in a room surrounded by diseased people fucking and the miasmic stench of human shit.

Surrounded by the unregulated and unsanitized offal of humanity? Mere moments away from thousands of depraved sex acts? Hmm, what does that remind me of? Oh yeah, THE INTERNET.

Further Reading:

Elizabeth’s London, by Liza Picard

Although he freely altered plot specifics and character traits, nearly every single Shakespeare play is essentially a remake of a poem, book or play Will took a fancy to. Othello? Cinthio’s Hecatommithi. The Merchant of Venice? Giovanni Fiorentino’s Il Pecorone meets Richard Robinson’s Gesta Romanarum. Richard III? Basically just Richard II with a wacky ethnic sidekick. Hamlet? The Lion King.

Sometimes he didn’t even bother changing the title. Romeo and Juliet is based on an epic poem called “The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Iuliet.” Shakespeare basically just cleaned up some typos and put it on stage.

Talk about ahead of his time; the guy was doing in 17th century England what Hollywood only caught on to in the last few decades. If Shakespeare had a movie coming out this summer, there’s a good chance it would either be Romeo and Juliet II: Love Harder, or Tron 2.0.

And as a writer whose entire output (somewhere in the hundreds of articles and posts at this point) lurks within the pages of Wikipedia, that hits a little close to home.

Take the Snopses, Wikipedias and IMDBs out of Cracked, and there wouldn’t be a whole hell of a lot left (except of course my videos. Mwahaha!).

But all of this isn’t to suggest that Shakespeare (and by extension, Cracked authors) wasn’t balla. The man was, if nothing else, balla as all hell. It’s just that specifics of plot weren’t his primary focus, and they often took a backseat to his astoundingly clever jokes, wordplay and explorations of theme and language. In other words, “it’s not what you’ve got, it’s how you use it”; a phrase many a Cracked writer has used on a skeptical lady friend, let me tell you.

Where I Stole This:

The Sources of Shakespeare’s Plays, by Kenneth Muir

Today, most college graduates have a vocabulary of between 3,000 and 4,000 words. Judging from his plays and poems, Shakespeare’s was around 29,000. Of course, historians still debate about whether he in fact wrote all the plays credited to him, so the total might be somewhat inflated. But really, does it make that much of a difference? Cut 29,000 in half, then cut that in half, and he’s still way out of your league. The man ate dictionaries and shit thesauri (a word he probably invented).

How’d he do it? Well, first off, he didn’t do much else; he was one of the most prolific authors of his era. And secondly, it’s hard to know more words than a guy who freely makes them up whenever he wants.

As I’ve mentioned before, ol’ Shakey coined so many household words and phrases, you basically can’t talk without ripping him off. In fact, he invented the phrase “household words,” so I think I owe him a farthing or something.

Wait a minute. Who else makes up words with abandon? What other orgasmtastic group of blogsmiths dares to so refunkify the English lizzanguage? Why, could it be—Ye Gods, look out! There’s a Chompapottamus headed straight for you!

Further Reading:

Shakespeare’s Words, by David and Ben Crystal

The one thing all Cracked authors must have in common is a deep and abiding love of a good dick joke. In fact, the only component of the hiring interview is an Editor calling you in the middle of the night and saying “floppy penises” when you pick up. If you giggle, you’ve got the job.

And there’s absolutely no question that Shakespeare loved the dick joke. Although they often fly over the heads of modern audiences, every single thing Shakespeare ever wrote is like 30 percent puns on the word “balls.” I’m serious. The guy wrote about dicks, vaginas, boning, butt sex, gays, lesbians, cunilingus, pubes and sperm so much I wouldn’t be surprised if the quill he wrote with had a pair of rubber novelty testicles hanging off it.

A single example will suffice. People who get off on the fact that the foundation of western literature was a pervy old man love to cite this part of Hamlet, and while it is particularly awesome in its skeeviness, it’s by no means an anomaly. It goes like this:

Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

Ophelia: No, my lord.

Hamlet: I mean my head upon your lap?

Ophelia: Ay, my lord.

Hamlet: Do you think I meant country matters?

Ophelia: I think nothing my lord.

Hamlet: That’s a fair thought to lie between maid’s legs.

Ophelia: What is, my lord?

Hamlet: No thing.

Ophelia: You are merry, my lord.

On first look, it seems like a simple and pretty boring misunderstanding about whether Ophelia will let Hamlet lay his head in her lap while they watch a play. But take into account the fact that in Elizabethan England, “nothing” was slang for vagina (because it’s shaped like an “O”), “thing” was slang for dick, “head” meant tip of the penis, “merry” meant sexually aroused and “country matters” was taken to mean “matters pertaining to the cunt,” and you get this much more interesting exchange:

Hamlet: Hey, can I stick my wangle in your pooter?

Ophelia: Seriously? Your mom’s like, right over there.

Hamlet: What if I just put the tip in?

Ophelia: Very well, my lord.

Hamlet: You get it? I’m talking about your cunt.

Ophelia: Yeah, I kind of picked up on that. I’m too am thinking about vaginas.

Hamlet: That’s a good thing to do between a lady’s legs. Fuck vaginas, I mean.

Ophelia: What is, my lord?

Hamlet: Vagina penis.

Ophelia: Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem horny, my lord.

I don’t care how many black dinguses Lisa Lampanelli crams into her capacious vagina, she’s not getting any filthier than that. Add to all this the fact that, in his time, William Shakespeare’s name can be taken to mean “Penis Masturbation” and you’ve got yourself the reigning champion of genital references.

Further Reading:

Filthy Shakespeare, by Pauline Kiernan

Shakespeare wasn’t always treated with the respect, reverence and enthusiasm high school English students lavish on him today (yes, I live in a fantasy world). In his time, a large segment of England’s population considered theater in general to be repugnant, and a “gateway drug” to all manner of other vices, from atypical sexuality to questioning the leaders who condemn you to live in shit and tax half your income.

Pamphlets were released calling for the destruction of the Globe, with titles like “Theatre Is Sin” and “Free Sex! Now That I’ve Got Your Attention, Theatre Is Sin.” Some even accused Shakespeare himself of fraternizing with the young boys who served as actors in the shows. These pamphlets are widely considered to be the world’s first “yur a fag” comment, something Cracked writers are intimately familiar with.

In fact, plays were so looked down upon as a form of literature that Shakespeare’s weren’t published in an official volume until long after his death. Until then, all you could get were pirated copies written down by fans during the show and sold in booths at the flea market. It was kind of like the BitTorrent of the 1600’s.

So, called gay, offensive and a waste of time by the general public, reproduced illegally, altered, censored and only recognized as unmitigated genius long after the fact. Sounds like Cracked to me.

Further Reading:

Coincidentally enough, today’s front page article. Wow, what a perfect cross-promotional tie-in! What are the odds?