Math ruins everything. Take Batman, for example. Watching Christian Bale angrily demand the location of the drugs, Rachel, and the trigger is great, but if the police ever actually caught him, he'd be screwed to the tune of 1,003 years behind bars, plus 29 life sentences for his contributions to society. At this rate, the Gotham PD will probably just launch Ben Affleck's Batman at the moon if they ever manage to cuff him.
And it's not just Batman. There are countless facets of pop culture that have their joy forcefully ripped from them whenever they face the harsh light of arithmetic. And on that note, let's dive into some of them!
6
Jack Bauer Killed 309 People In Nine-ish Days
Jack Bauer is a man who doesn't take any shit from anybody. He's a shoot-first, ask-questions-while-simultaneously-ripping-off-fingernails kind of guy. And despite some morally dubious decisions, he's always had America's best interests at heart. So what if Bauer has to pop a couple terrorists or electrocute a few extremists' genitals? He does it for the USA. Got a problem, LIBERALS?
But just how lethal is Bauer? We'd probably estimate "More than the average shark, but less than the average Sharknado," but that's hardly scientific. Thankfully, a few obsessive fans watched the entirety of 24 while wildly scribbling each kill into their murder journals until we assume those journals were worn to dust.
Over the course of eight days, plus the two hours of 24: Redemption and the half-day of Live Another Day, Jack Bauer kills 309 people. 309. That rounds out to 1.5 guys an hour, for a whopping 36 guys a day. It's not evenly spread, either; Bauer started the first day only killing ten guys, but really took the gloves off during Day Six, with 52 individual murders. By contrast, the Korean War killed about 31 Americans soldiers a day. On some days, that was Bauer's quota before he let himself take lunch.
What's even more impressive is how over 70 percent of Bauer's kills involve a gun, and typically a handgun at that. American soldiers, trained to use highly accurate automatic rifles, tend to fire 250,000 rounds for every dead insurgent. But Jack runs around with a pistol popping off heads with little remorse and even less wasted ammo. Am I saying that the next 24 series should involve an attempt to clone Jack Bauer for the creation of an army of bullet-saving investments? Maybe. Am I saying that Fox should check out the piece of fanfiction sitting on my desk right now? I'll leave that one up to you.
And to think he killed all those men without taking a shit even once. Hopefully, some super fan will measure exactly how many pounds Bauer's shame-riddled end-of-day dumps must weigh. For science, of course.
5
Charlie Brown Sucks At Baseball -- No, Seriously, He's REALLY Bad
While obviously not blessed with the most athletic of figures (how big is that goddamn head?), Charlie Brown makes up for his shortcomings with a positive attitude. Sadly, optimism doesn't mean shit if you have the motor skills of a drunken toddler. For example, as far as anybody can tell, he's never managed to successfully kick a football.
And it's not just football that Charlie Brown sucks at; he's also a godawful baseball player. In the original Peanuts comics from the 1950s and '60s, Charlie's team loses more baseball games than, like, a really bad baseball team, probably. Baseball still happens, right? Charlie's team squeaks out a few wins, though, so how bad could he be? After all, who's really keeping track?