Do you like things that are awesome? I sure do. And what's better than having one thing that's awesome? That's right, pure black tar heroin! Oh, wait, I mean two things that are awesome. Stuck together!
Do you like things that are awesome? I sure do. And what's better than having one thing that's awesome? That's right, pure black tar heroin! Oh, wait, I mean two things that are awesome. Stuck together!Our world is filled with many wonderful combinations: David Bowie plus Queen gave us "Under Pressure"; pizza plus bagels gave us the pizza bagel; and Jack O'Brien plus a huge bag of X gave us a Cracked office party that we're still not allowed to blog about.
Ah, memories ...
But what about all the unsuccessful combos? Times when two great things are combined, and despite all expectations, the result sucks far harder than either of those things separately. And to be clear, I don't mean things like drinking and driving or government and religion. I'm talking about great things, thrown into the mixer of awesome, whirled together with high expectations, but producing only a viscous sludge of failure.
Chris Cornell Plus Rage Against the Machine = Audioslave and Sadness
I fully believe Soundgarden's Chris Cornell is the most talented human being in the history of hard rock. The greatest lead singer rock has ever produced, surpassing Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey and Steven Tyler. Just as important, his songwriting prowess rivals Jimmy Page's, and he's penned a tremendously diverse and impressive catalog ranging from speed metal to blues, gospel and folk-influenced songs.Rage Against the Machine, although holding a smaller place in my heart, has an undeniable musical legacy. Tom Morello is an inventive and unique lead guitarist of tremendous power, and Rage's rhythm section reliably delivered a powerful hard rock stomp. So at that magic point in the early 21st century when Soundgarden was no longer a band and Rage's lead singer Zack de la Rocha left to pursue dreading his hair and being angry about Latino politics full time, it seemed a wonderful opportunity to make this thing happen. Hell, even superproducer Rick Rubin thought it would be a great idea. What if Rage suddenly had a lead singer with an actual vocal range who wanted to write about things besides that time Mexican soldiers raped his grandma? What if Cornell, who had experimented with a more mellow solo album, returned to just kicking ass?
Getty Zach getting irate about Sandinistas. (Educated guess.)
Well, after three albums, it's clear that what would happen is nothing special. At all. The union produced fairly mediocre hard rock that lacked any of Soundgarden's musicianship, groove and subtlety. Rage fans were also disappointed by the departure from the four on the floor, take no prisoners RATM stomp. And Zack de la Rocha fans missed seeing a dreaded Muppet strutting around stage ranting about Simon Bolivar or Che Guevara or, OK, I'm not really sure.
Board Games Plus Movies = Clue, Battleship, Cancer (Probably)
You know how in every Cracked list there's an entry that doesn't quite fit with the others? No. No you don't. That never happens. And it's not happening now. But I must admit this entry's kind of less specific than the rest because when it comes to the concept of combining movies (big fan) with board games (big fan), how can I pick just one abortion? They're all terrible. There's Clue and Battleship, and soon we'll have another Clue, plus Candyland, Monopoly and Ouija.I'm not sure how this keeps happening. These games have no story. They have no protagonist. They have no dialogue. There is nothing to actually adapt, just some vague name recognition. It's the stupidest idea for someone to sink money into ever since somebody decided to start a website based only on the name recognition of a magazine that no longer existed.
luckymojo.com "See, in the movie, Ouija is a plucky Midwestern girl who wants to make it in the big city!"
Nevertheless, I'd like to formally announce right here that I am currently pitching a movie based on Ants in the Pants
that follows Seanbaby's heroic exploits as he engages in a Muay Thai death match with his pubic lice.
My money's on the crabs.
***UPDATE: Wow, I had no idea so many people loved Clue
. Well, I love the cast, but for me it was always mediocre because each of those actors was in earlier movies I enjoyed more. Also, the movie itself is a lot like one of my favorite comedies of all time, Murder By Death
, except not as funny. I wasn't trolling you with this. I was trolling with the Zach de la Rocha jokes that apparently bothered no one.
Mick Jagger Plus David Bowie = "Dancing in the Streets" and ... Oh My.
Chris Cornell might be my rock-and-roll hero, but David Bowie is my God. I don't think there has been another artist who's had a greater impact on every aspect of how I live my life.
For example, here I am on the way to my prom.
There's far too much ink on Bowie's diversity and importance for me to waste everyone's time reiterating it here. But if you're reading this and think of Bowie as only the dude from Labyrinth
or Let's Dance, you're missing out on an awful lot. Download Hunky Dory
, Ziggy Stardust, Heroes and Scary Monsters. Four completely different, incredibly important and influential albums. But despite all that innovation and bravery, somewhere around 1983, David got a taste of American mainstream mass success and lost his damn mind. He wandered the halls of musical mediocrity for six years until Tin Machine saved his soul in '89. But before that happened, he teamed up with his old pal Mick Jagger.Mick Jagger's a rock-and-roll legend and lead singer of the Rolling Stones -- y'know, that band that contrarian douchebags like to say is the greatest band ever because they think it's cooler than giving the Beatles as the right answer. Anyway, Bowie and Jagger got together in 1985 to cover the classic Martha and the Vandellas song "Dancing in the Street." This was the result:
Years later, Bowie's ex-wife would claim that Mick and Dave had sex in the '70s, but I promise you that even if she filmed the two of them in the throes of a passionate 69, that footage would not be nearly as homoerotic as this video. And this is not the good kind of gay, either. This is not the glam rock Ziggy Stardust sexuality that embraces both genders and all intergalactic species or the Oscar Wilde uber-sophisticated kind of gay associated with wise and witty zingers. This is the swishy kind of gay that belongs to a beauty salon queen, booking appointments while bitching for a full 10 minutes about how the Starbucks barista didn't leave room for milk. Also, on a musical level, it sucks. We all agree on that, right? I don't need to, like, give reasons, do I?
Randy Newman Plus Steven Bochco = Cop Rock and WTF?
Back in the '80s Steven Bochco was king of the prime time drama after executive producing Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law
-- two of the biggest shows of the decade. But the '90s were a new and exciting time. There was a Democrat in the White House, and young Gladstone was finally sexually active. (Seems there was only a temporal association between a Republican presidency and me not getting any. Still, I just can't risk voting Romney in 2012.)
Getty "This country can't afford four more years of Gladstone having sex."
And in this time of change, Steven Bochco had a novel idea. What if I take all the success of a show like Hill Street Blues
and combine it with musical theater! After all, there was already precedent. The English show The Singing Detective (starring a psoriasis-afflicted replacement Dumbledore) had been wildly successful. So Steven got together with Randy Newman and Mike Post. Mike had written the classic show-opening music for Law & Order, NYPD Blue, The Rockford Files, L.A. Law, Quantum Leap, Magnum, P.I. and Hill Street Blues. Randy Newman is one of the greatest songwriters and movie composers of all time. I've previously discussed his satirical work, though he's probably best known for two fluffier pieces: Short People
and I Love L.A. Oh, he's also written just about every song you've ever heard in a Pixar movie and scored movies like The Natural and Avalon.Taking all these talents together produced the short-lived show Cop Rock
. Yeah, even the title sucks. Take a whiff:And some more?The only good thing to come out of Cop Rock was that I used it to create the perfect drinking game for keeping people like my buddy John Cheese on their path of sobriety. Here's how you play. Run a clip of Cop Rock
and take a drink each and every time you don't want to rip your ears off and choke yourself to death on them.
Sex Plus Food = Dirty, Sticky Sex -- In a Bad Way
Most people like sex. Most people also enjoy both whipped cream and chocolate syrup. And somewhere along the line people thought it would be kinky to combine the two. No, not raping a tub of Cool Whip. More like being oh so naughty by putting some whipped cream on each other's sassy bits and then ... eating it off! I know! Like not even with a spoon.Mixing food and sex is the saddest attempt to be edgy since Garth Brooks donned a wig and soul patch, pretending to be Chris Gaines.
I'm going to guess that, like whipped cream, Garth Brooks is also terrible in bed.
I know people keep doing this, but who is saying, "Hey, let's combine all the joy of oral sex with the thrill of dairy products stuck in my pubes!" And chocolate syrup? What possible reason could you have for that? You're just supposed to say you're gonna F the S out of someone; you're not supposed to make the bed look like you actually did. Also, you're not supposed to say you're gonna F the S out of someone, either. You're better than that, man. In summary, if the only way you can get your partner's mouth anywhere near your junk is to cover it with candy, then get ready for some truly awful sex. You might as well mutually masturbate while eating ice cream.Subscribe to the all-new HATE BY NUMBERS. Also follow Gladstone on Twitter and stay up to date on the latest regarding Notes from the Internet Apocalypse. And then there's his website and Tumblr too.
