A good friend and I were recently discussing what would make for the most exploitative reality television program. We cycled through recovering drug addicts, quadriplegic veterans, and the corpses of stillborn children, and yet despite our best efforts, Oprah has outclassed us in every way imaginable.

How foolish we were, thinking that the way to make the show offensive was to pit undeserving and underprivileged classes of human against one another. As Oprah’s new reality show “The Big Give” proves, what it really takes to exploit these people is to pit people trying to help them against one another.

See, in our version, at least the dead fetus has a chance of winning fabulous prizes through his or her own merit. In Oprah’s show, teams of “Givers” compete against one another to bring in money for people in need. That means that if you’re a quadriplegic veteran, you get to watch helplessly while a team of morons infight, bicker, connive, and generally treat your welfare as a game. Which, if you’re an Iraq War veteran, you’re probably used to by now.

Plus, by turning the whole thing into a television show, she encourages corporations to line up “spontaneous chartable donations” ahead of time, so as to get themselves prominently featured on the show as “Big Givers.” Paying large sums of money to get your brand on a television show? Why, it’s hardly even charity at all! Huzzah!

But perhaps the worst of it all is that if this thing works like all the other reality TV shows I’ve seen, the viewers at home are going to pick favorite teams to root for each episode. It brings it one step closer to a sporting event, which is infinitely more bearable. Except that in this case, it means that millions of people will be sitting in their living rooms willing your team to fail to provide for you.

Oprah, if I wore a hat, it would be off. Your ability to cheapen the act of helping the less fortunate really makes me feel better about the very little I do to improve the world. If you see Bono, tell him thanks too.

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When not blogging for Cracked, Michael makes reality TV as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

I can’t tell you how often I get into a heated argument with someone about the economics of Pedophilia. Although I can tell you how many establishments those arguments have caused me to be banned from: six. Seven if you count museums as establishments. But can you blame me? It’s a woefully underreported area, and one that craves an answer.

Enter Michael Jackson, grabbing his crotch. And by “his” I mean Macaulay Culkin’s.

Following a series of financially draining legal battles and career hits, the perennial post-op has put his famed Neverland Ranch up for auction. You know, that place with the amusement park rides and cotton candy, just like a ranch. Perhaps the lucky buyer will bring some cattle in and legitimize the joint, who knows? All we know for sure is that things have been looking down for MJ ever since newspapers started running headlines like “Wacko Jacko Fondles Sacko.” Pedophilia, one could infer, is a financial killer.

But how mistaken you’d be, my shortsighted friend! For in the right circumstances, can it not also be a money-making proposition? Take the inspiring story of Louis Conradt, the late former prosecutor who is best known for his guest appearance on NBC’s To Catch a Predator. After he shot himself in shame and humiliation, his family sued NBC for 100 million dollars in damages. And it’s starting to look like they might just get it.

So, let’s recap. Pedophilia = financial ruin. But, pedophilia + suicide = big bucks! The question becomes: is suicide the only variable one can combine with child molestation to create financial opportunities? Perhaps adding a public apology or religious conversion into the mix would generate some capitol. Maybe adding a murder would push the whole thing back around to positive. What about molesting an old person to cancel out the pedophilia?

It’s clearly a complex issue, and one that I trust is currently being pondered by the finest minds in modern Pedonomics.

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When not blogging for Cracked, Michael entraps child molesters as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

In a move straight out of Science Fiction, environmentalist scientists in the Norwegian government have built an immense underground “Doomsday Vault” inside a frozen mountain on a remote island as a bulwark against the inevitable nuclear apocalypse.

But rather than hunkering down in said vault with porno mags, cans of beans, and the complete Lost on DVD, the Norwegians are doing something even crazier: filling it with seeds. And trust me, it’s way less arousing than it sounds.

Scientists have collected, frozen, and entombed more than 2 billion seeds from millions of plant species, hoping that in the case of a War Games scenario, the vault can be opened and provide humanity with instant food. Well, “instant” give or take a few seasons of cultivating fallow, irradiated soil with no tools while trying to fend off hordes of shambling mutants.

It’s kind of like the Veggie Tales version of Noah’s Ark, except with more seeds and without being a laughable superstition. No, you know what it’s like? It’s like Titan A.E. What? No one saw Titan A.E.? Okay, moving on.

This is a failure. Not in planning or engineering, but in imagination. You’ve got the world’s biggest time capsule, and you’re going to fill it with seeds? Seeds? Come off it Norway. I can think of ten things off the top of my head that would better occupy a Doomsday Vault. And here they are.

10. Umberto Billo

Who, you ask, is Umberto Billo? He’s an ex-porter at a Venetian hotel who was recently fired for being “too exhausted to carry customers’ luggage.” Why the exhaustion? Because he was busy bedding 8,000 women over the course of three years. If there was ever a man fit to repopulate the Earth, it’s this guy. Just throw him, Gene Simmons, and Wilt Chamberlain’s corpse in there and bring on the nukes.

9. Another, smaller Doomsday Vault

I’m not saying it’d be particularly useful, but it sure is meta, and Jesus what a mind-fuck. I mean, what’s inside that vault? Another, even tinier vault? Dare we find out?

8. A G.E.C.K.

In the Fallout games there’s a thing called the Garden of Eden Creation Kit, which does exactly what the name promises. Don’t you think maybe instead of focusing our scientists’ efforts on harvesting seeds, we should be investing some time in perfecting this fairly straightforward instant Eden technology? I mean, the design’s already there, they just need to build the thing! Now I’m not an idiot; I know the difference between fantasy and reality. I’m just saying, let’s ask Batman about it. That guy has the hook up.

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The whole of the world’s news media (Starpulse, TMZ, the lady who does my manicures) is abuzz about LiLo’s nude shots in NY Magazine. Well, I suppose it was “Just My Luck” that I happen to know Brent Stern, the photographer who snapped the pics, and he helped me “Get a Clue” about what the experience was like. Sounds like it was quite a “Freaky Friday,” although it occured on a Tuesday. I guess you could say “I Know Who Killed Me!”

So what was it like to re-shoot something you already shot of someone imitating a dead woman they look nothing like? I think I’ll let the man speak for himself. Without further ado, Brent Stern’s behind-the-lens info on the shoot!

“This was our first shot of the day, and classic Marilyn. Nearly perfect, in fact, down to the “tattoo” on Lindsay’s right buttock. Ironically, we had forgotten about the tattoo in Marilyn’s photo; Lindsay just happened to sit in some gunk right before the shot.”

“This pink cloth is supposed to represent the virginal state of the model, a chiffon hymen if you will. True to Marilyn’s original poses, Lindsay had just finished giving oral sex to JFK. Only Lindsay’s JFK was Jerry Frances King, our lighting technician. Way to go, Jer.”

“Naturally, once we got a closer look, we realized a blue polka dot pattern would more accurately represent Ms. Lohan’s disease-ravaged vaginal interior.”

(more…)

My finacee and I have a big glass jar where we save our change, and every couple of months when the jar is full, we jaunt down to the local Coinstar and marvel at our newfound twelve dollar fortune. It’s not exactly free money, but it feels like free money, and the frozen yogurt we invariable purchase with it tastes all the sweeter.

Well, you can call me petty, but finding out that someone just exchanged their collection of 301 pennies for 10.7 million dollars has officially ruined that ritual for me. I loathe my change jar now.

I grimace at it whenever I walk in as if to say “oh, it’s you.” I resent its laziness and wonder aloud to people whether it’s even worth the trip to cash in. “What can you buy with twelve dollars in today’s economy anyway?” I ask pointedly, glancing down at the jar. Sometimes when I’m drunk I scream at it to “get a job” and knock it to the ground, scattering near-worthless nickels everywhere.

Admittedly, the guy’s penny collection included one that was only minted for two weeks in 1793 because Congress thought Lady Liberty looked frightened, but does that really warrant the exchange of millions of dollars? What service has been rendered here?

The only thing that makes it okay is that the guy was the owner of an aerospace-part manufacturing company. I don’t know exactly what that means, except that it means he was probably already rich, so the ten mil will be just as worthless to him as my shiftless, scheming change jar is to me.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be scrupulously examining my change trying to find a picture of George Washington looking pensive.

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When not blogging for Cracked, Michael makes economically unviable videos as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

Monkey & Dog Doing Situps

I stumbled across this clip on YouTube after halfheartedly watching The Moment of Truth on FOX. Have you guys seen that one? It’s that lie detector show where people answer increasingly horrible questions and ruin their lives for the chance to win FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS. Why can’t we take a hint from Japan and start airing good old-fashioned entertainment again? You know - like a show where a dog helps a monkey do sit-ups. If they put that on FOX I would watch it dutifully every single week. They could call it Animal Magnetism… only that kind of makes it sound like they would be having sex with each other, which is a totally different kind of TV show. How about Spot Me!? If they named the dog Spot that one would be a double whammy.

I could see a monkey doing sit-ups with a bulldog holding his legs down on American TV, but to flip it around and have the BULLDOG (not) doing the sit-ups? That’s so insane it could only come from the brilliant mind of a Japanese television writer. I’d make some sort of bold statement like “Japanese television writers must all smoke crack!” but I have a feeling that most of them probably come from respectable families and come up with their ideas in drug-free workplaces, so scratch that one.

Which just got me thinking… I know this clip is from Japan, but do you think when Chinese people have a really late business meeting and their bosses say “I need you all to stick around,” do you think they say “Can we order American?” Food for thought.

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One of the many onerous burdens placed upon the Cracked blogger is that of wading through countless vapid, hastily-written web articles dissecting the minutiae of celebrities’ lives to the point that one wonders if there wouldn’t be profit in the attainment and sale of Lindsay Lohan’s solid waste.

But of all the terrible places on the web dedicated to destroying the lives of our former idols for the sheer lulz of it, I’ve gotta hand it to the reporters at TMZ.com: at least they try to dress up their dreck by pretending they’re fast-talkin’ journalists from the forties. Aside from my daily ether rag, it’s the only thing that makes my job bearable.

Take this article about Britney Spears’ latest run-in with the law (something involving an industrial combine and that nice man with the big eyebrows from The OC, I believe).

In three paragraphs, the reporter manages to insert the phrases “will the judge be buyin’ what he’s sellin’,” “all things Britney,” “the whole magilla,” “take a hike,” and my personal favorite “smells like it.”

In light of this, I have a personal request for the reporters over at TMZ: as someone who relies on your “news” on a daily basis, it would really mean a lot to me if you’d go even further in dressing up these stories. Reporting on Britney as Jennifer Leigh in The Hudsucker Proxy is a good start, but the possibilities are truly endless.

Here, I’ll toss out some sample sentences from possible future TMZ stories, and I think you’ll get a better idea of what I’m talking about.

I was taking a belt of mystery liquor from my hip flask when another kind of poison, the dame kind, strolled into my office like a runaway freight train. It was Amy Winehouse, and she was higher than a kite on Sunday.

James Gandolfini enters from stage left, exasperated. Paparazzo 1 enters right and crosses down, oppressively friendly. A brief scuffle. Exuent.

Clemens could break down and cry
For wanting his trainer to lie
But McNamee claims
“When I couldn’t find veins,
I injected it straight in his eye.”

Paris Hilton. Stop. Showed vagina. Stop. Link. Stop.

Dearest friend,
I write to inform you of a most unusual happening that occurred whilst I was away in the country under doctors’ orders (they feel the dry climate will do wonders for my rubella). From what I’ve gathered during my evening jaunts to the local tavern, and, I must admit, by purchasing rounds of ale for the stablemen and smith’s apprentices who frequent it, Tom Sizemore was raped in prison.

I expect all future TMZ articles to be written in a format at least as colorful as those above. Please see that this is done.

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When not blogging for Cracked, Michael makes period videos as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

Caveat Emptor used to mean that if those rancid meat pies you bought at the equinox fair gave you dysentery and you died, it was your own damned fault for being a peasant during the Middle Ages. And it’s good to know corporations like Microsoft and Blue Cross Insurance are keeping that sentiment alive.

“Windows Vista capable PCs are junk.”

“I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine.”

“Even a piece of junk will qualify.”

Reasonable assessments of the bait-and-switch scheme Microsoft developed to boost their holiday sales: putting a “Windows Vista capable” sticker on low-end PCs and selling them to hapless technophobes.

The mildly surprising part is, those quotes aren’t from reviewers, but from top Microsoft executives discussing their shitty computers (many of which could only run very limited versions of Vista anyway) via internal emails.

This is an OS so crappy, “Windows Vista capable” has taken on an insulting quality, like telling someone they’re capable of wandering around with their pants around their ankles muttering to themselves and falling into piles of boxes. And some of these machines could barely do that.

The only thing that makes me not want to bring vigilante street justice down upon their heads is the fact that while they were wringing their hands and admitting “we really botched this,” Blue Cross was trying their damnedest to take coverage away from anyone who might need it at the moment and feeling no remorse whatsoever.

Blue Cross, it seems, has for years made it routine policy to send out letters to doctors with copies of a new patient’s application and the instruction to report “any condition not listed on the report that turns out to be pre-existing.” Which doesn’t sound quite as seedy as the literal translation “so hey, how can we fuck this guy?”

Because of course the reporting of even the most minor unreported condition (an unreported pregnancy qualifies, even if the patient wasn’t aware they were pregnant at the time they filled out the form) gave Blue Cross the legal grounds to wait until the person got deathly ill and then deny their coverage requests.

And getting doctors to rat on patients is a hell of a lot cheaper than taking the time to verify information, that’s for damn sure. Which is basically their defense, that they were “trying to keep costs at a minimum.” Which is like a guy who runs a drugstore replacing all the pills with tic-tacs to save on overhead.

Caveat Emptor!

The only thing that cheers me up is the fact that I now know the name of the president of the California Medical Association, and it’s Dick Frankenstein.

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When not blogging for Cracked, Michael makes consumer awareness videos as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

Pop quiz, hot shot: Cite something from the Jyllands-Posten newspaper. If you can, chances are you’re either Danish (in which case I’ll have cheese) or you cited that time they ran a cartoon depicting what Muhammed (PB&J) looked like. I don’t remember all the details, but I think Jesus pulled the football away at the last second.

Two years later, and the rascals are at it again. And I mean literally; they’re doing the exact same thing. The paper, along with other Danish papers, are reprinting the cartoons in response to the arrest of three men who plotted to kill the cartoonist. This, they claim, shows their “firm commitment to free speech.”

Which it does, in the same way I’m showing my commitment to free speech when I reply to my fiancee’s requests to stop swerving the car in time to Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity” by saying “you mean like THIS?” and pulling mightily to the right.

Come off it, Jyllands-Posten! I’m not a fan of terrorism or censorship, but there are probably plenty of perfectly nice Muslims out there who are genuinely offended by the cartoons. Do you have to go out of your way to show them that yes, indeed, you are allowed to desecrate their religion? And this from a guy who finds the below picture hilarious:

My point is, if you want to seem relevant, there are better ways to go about it than trotting out your greatest hits. Do something fresh and original to offend Muslims, like a deal where you get a free subscription if you renounce Allah. At least that way you seem more like Howard Stern trying to piss everyone off and less like Jim O’Connor from The Glass Menagerie reliving a fourth quarter forward pass.

Hell, if Jyllands-Posten is allowed to dust off their oldies, why shouldn’t other no-longer-relevant folks do the same? I look forward to Janet Jackson revealing her other boob, Jamie Lynn getting double pregnant, and Gladstone re-posting that thing where he shows pictures of murdered children and just laughs and laughs.

In fact, fuck it. HEY, ANYONE HEAR ABOUT THIS NEW ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT MOVIE? COMMENT PLZ!

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When not blogging for Cracked, Michael makes controversial videos depicting Muhammed as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

60 Minutes - Magic Mormon Underpants

60 Minutes is generally regarded as one of the most successful shows in the history of television. Reporting on major world events since the heady days of Vietnam and Watergate, the show has won numerous awards for groundbreaking journalism over the years. In 1983, they even managed to free a Texan named Lenell Geter who was wrongly convicted of armed robbery. It’s more than a television show; it’s an American institution.

YAAAAAWN! BORRRRR-ING!

Thank God they left that all behind at some point and decided to focus on something that matters: dumbing down their program in the pursuit of ratings. From the perspective of a Cracked blogger, this was a real blessing. You know what’s not really all that hilarious? The Vietnam War, Watergate and wrongful incarceration¹. You know what IS hilarious? The phrase “sacred undergarments.” Say what you will about credibility, dignity and journalistic integrity, but can any of those things really hold a candle to hearing a grown man say “sacred undergarments” repeatedly in a would-be serious tone?

Ordinarily this is the part where I’d go off about how Mormons are stupid and sacred undergarments are ridiculous, but as someone who gets into horrific boating accidents on a nearly constant basis, I’d really like to get my hands on a pair of those suckers. I can think of worse things than getting the occasional compliment in the locker room, too. I honestly can’t remember the last time someone turned to me and said, “Hey, Ross - neat undergarments!” That makes me sad.

Maybe those Mormons are on to something. They sure seem to smile a lot, don’t they?

¹ Despite being on the air for 40 years, for the sake of this blog post those are the only three things that 60 Minutes has ever reported on.