Written by Evan Hoovler

When you’ve spent your life as a famous scientist, historians tend to forget your bad personality traits. It makes sense: If you’re out there curing the black plague, who really cares if you have a problem with skin fungus or hookers (or both)?

Despite this, the six scientists in this article were such abominable jerks that even their incredible contributions to humanity couldn’t eclipse their contributions to the world of douchebaggery.

1 .Thomas Edison

Why Do We Love Him So Much?

Working sleepless hours in his lab, Edison made a light bulb that could be produced for the masses. Finally, people were able to stay awake late enough to watch The Tonight Show. His numerous patents changed human life and inspired this really creepy memorial page.

But He Was Actually a Total Jerk Because …

He had a fondness for electrocuting animals.

Thomas Edison popularized and “sold” direct current for electric power. In what was probably the nerdiest battle in history, Edison got into it with George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla in what was dubbed the “War of Currents.” Judging solely by the name, one might think these men battled with strange devices that shot electricity at each other. But no, instead Edison toured the country using his competitor’s “alternating current” to electrocute animals. In a famous video that is in absolutely no way safe for work at all, Edison electrocuted an adorable elephant named “Topsy.”

Edison was propelled by furious rage coming from the fact that Tesla had once been Edison’s employee but left because Edison didn’t understand Tesla’s alternating current experiments. In fact, the reason Tesla left was because Edison had promised him $50,000 but reneged on the deal. To get him back, Tesla harnessed Niagara Falls to produce alternating current, proving he had the superior electricity. Alternating current is now standard in American homes today and is never involved in accidental elephant deaths.

In addition to all this dickery, Edison also had film technicians steal copies of the groundbreaking film Le Voyage dans la lune. Edison distributed the bootlegs for a tidy profit, while the revolutionary director was left bankrupt, with no way to return his significant investments. It takes a lot to look like a jerk by Hollywood standards, but Edison definitely fit the bill.

2. James D. Watson

Why Do We Love Him So Much?

Along with his LSD-induced partner, Watson discovered DNA. In terms of human self-understanding, they pretty much touched the monolith.

But He Was Actually a Total Jerk Because …

He refused to stop saying stuff that was vaguely racist, vaguely sexist and totally creepy.

Watson’s mouth had a veritable double helix of tongues, able to twist any scientific conference into an offensive sound bite. He first started raising eyebrows when he claimed that fetuses that test in the bottom 10 percent of intelligence should be aborted. Controversial, but it could easily be argued that he was making a statement for compassion and mercy, just in a really garbled way.

Unfortunately, that idea was soon put to bed when Watson started saying things that weren’t controversial, just flat-out weird. He made the statement that he had no problem with using genetic engineering to make all girls pretty. In his own sad, demented words, “Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad because you know you’re not going to hire them.” Always the epitome of compassion, that James D. Watson.

Watson’s foot-in-mouthery doesn’t stop there. In 2000, he gave a presentation at a conference where he linked skin color with sex drive. Showing blown-up slides of bikini-clad women, Watson claimed that melanin was linked directly to sex drive, and used it to explain why Latins make better lovers than Englishmen. The final straw came when he complained that the intelligence of Africans was lower than their non-African counterparts. Intense pressure forced him to resign his job, he no doubt spends his ample leisure time engineering an army of supermodels.

3. Antoine Lavoisier

Why Do We Love Him So Much?

One of the greatest minds of all time, Lavoisier discovered and named the element oxygen and made the metric system. So every time you suck in a deep breath because some American doesn’t understand what a kilogram is, think of Antoine Lavoisier.

But He Was Actually a Total Jerk Because …

He was a ruthless merchant who didn’t mind making a buck off of poor people.

As administrator of France’s premier pre-revolutionary aristocratic council, Lavoisier’s economic policies were sometimes contradictory. On the one hand, he introduced taxation reform with the aim of helping the peasants. On the other hand, he tried to build a freaking wall around the city to keep poor people from smuggling in food and clothes.

When the French revolution came, it was not the best of times for Lavoisier. He was accused of selling watered-down tobacco, which is just wrong. Speaking of just wrong, when he was 28, he married a 13-year-old (some sources say 14, which isn’t any better). In addition, he was literally accused of trying to cut off Paris’ air supply by building the aforementioned wall around the city. The irony of this ridiculously non-scientific conclusion probably would’ve made Lavoisier’s head explode, if it wasn’t lying in a bucket.

4. Aristotle

Why Do We Love Him So Much?

For thousands of years, Aristotle’s views on science were considered the foundation for human experimentation. Before Aristotle, the answer to almost any question was pretty much “The gods did it,” which made quiz shows unbearably easy.

But He Was Actually a Total Jerk Because …

He may have been more racist than Hitler.

Now, to just flat-out fingerpoint at an ancient person for being racist is silly. During Aristotle’s time, there weren’t even that many other races to speak of, and it was quite common to look at others as barbarians. That said, Aristotle had such a derogatory opinion of other creeds that it even freaked out his fellow racist peers. Rumor has it even Alexander, not known for his tolerance of other cultures, wrote Aristotle a letter asking him to back off. Aristotle did not back off; he was bent on telling the world that other races deserved to be enslaved and that interbreeding meant poisoning one’s blood.

Adding to the body of evidence that Aristotle was kind of an overprivileged dillhole was his hilarious views on women. Women at the time were regarded as inferior to men, but Aristotle went so far as to try to make a science of it, claiming:

? Women are colder than men

? Women are like infertile men

? Women remember things longer than men (score one for women)

Aristotle had a whole caste-esque ranking of how important people were, based solely on race, gender and nobility. In fact, he often scribed that lower-class men would never reach their full potential, and fought to refuse voting rights to manual laborers. Aristotle’s vision of hell would probably closely resemble a NASCAR race.

5. Hans Geiger

Why Do We Love Him So Much?

His invention, the Geiger counter, has saved countless lives by giving an advanced warning for radiation. Designed in 1925, it is still being used in many capacities today. Who knows how many lab technicians would’ve accidentally been transformed into irradiated supervillains if not for the Geiger counter?

But He Was Actually a Total Jerk Because …

He was an unrepentant Nazi.

Hans Geiger seemed all right before World War II. He even authored a paper urging the Nazis to leave scientists alone, and presented it to Hitler.

But World War II flipped Geiger like it was the Stanford prison experiment. Geiger turned in his Jewish scientist colleagues, some who had worked alongside him before the war.

Despite a professed dislike for the military, Geiger supported the Nazi effort like a baseball fan during a pennant run. He worked adamantly to build a nuclear bomb. Despite the onset of rheumatism, Geiger continued to work on the project until a lack of uranium forced its cessation. Now, if there only were a meter that could detect weirdos like him.

6. Benjamin Franklin

Why Do We Love Him So Much?

Ben “C-Note” Franklin practically embodies the American spirit of unbridled adventure. He flew a kite in a rainstorm, he co-authored the Constitution, and he loved beer. He freed the colonists, freed his slaves and freed his mind with a little hemp now and then. What’s not to love about Benjamin Franklin?

But He Was Actually a Total Jerk Because …

He was an insufferable, petty whore of a man whom his peers loathed. Also, he may or may not have let people saw up dead children in his home.

Ben Franklin was not a guy you wanted to get in an argument with. He established a lengthy pattern of going to extreme lengths to win petty squabbles. Once Franklin tried to get the entire government switched from proprietary to royal, just to grab some land from William Penn. His antics annoyed fellow legislators to the point where he would get kicked out of assemblies. Franklin was one of those geniuses whose ideas were sometimes revolutionary and most of the time awful: He once tried to sell Noah Webster on the concept of replacing six letters in the alphabet. Ben Franklin certainly had tenacity, whether he was trying to liberate America or just annoy the crap out of people.

Ben Franklin was also a notorious lech, even for the colonial equivalent of a rock star. He had an illegitimate son, then disowned him for supporting the king of England. He wrote a lengthy letter to a friend giving detailed advice on how to choose a mistress (hint: Franklin seems to be into cougars). In a famous rumor, Franklin allegedly tried desperately to win the sexual affections of a married woman 40 years younger than he.

John Adams stated that Benjamin Franklin was “slippery and opportunistic.” Frankly, this can be said about all of the scientists on this list. It makes one wonder if “angry, abusive scientist” will become a regular TV show character.

Bonus: Chatroulette Love Song

This image has largely disappeared from the web. It is the most tragic picture I have seen from Japan. Yes, I cried.

Seeing one of the pictures from the Japan quake reminded me of a picture I saw from the bombing of Nagasaki during WWII.

Cat Survives Tsunami On A Wall

Written by Tom Price

This is your prep list for the How To Survive The Apocalypse..for just 72 hours. Our goal is just to get you to First Base—a grab and go kit that will take care of you for the first three days. Why do all earthquake prep kits say to plan for that amount of time? Think about it like this: even without an earthquake, if RIGHT NOW the National Guard was ordered to assemble materials and deliver food/medicine/water/health care to the City of San Francisco, it would take them AT LEAST three days to get that together. It just takes time to pull out the stuff, load the trucks, decide where to go, get set up, etc etc. And in an earthquake of any size, likely SFO, OAK, and the Bay Bridge will be out of operation. And the electrical grid. Oh, and fires—you get the idea. But after three days things will start to sort themselves out.

So, don’t be surprised if it’s not the end all be all; it’s not supposed to be. But it will be a strong foundation. And has been learned from countless disasters, planned and unplanned ( ie: Hurricane Katrina, Burning Man), those people who have done even the tiniest bit of preparation are SO much better prepared mentally to deal with what’s happening. Once you have even a basic kit together, you’ll find yourself adding to it, and mentally patting it ( like checking for your wallet ) anytime you get a twinge of anxiety. Trust me, it’s a good feeling to have. In three days, you’ll be able to stay warm, dry, clean, and focused, and help build the communities of people taking care of each other, which are so key to survival. Because really, it’s going to be people who just step up, not the people who are “supposed” to be in charge, who’re really going to make the difference.

As an aside, you may enjoy reading Rebecca Solnit’s phenomenal new book, “A Paradise Made In Hell: the extraordinary communities that arise in disasters.”

HOW TO USE THIS DOCUMENT:

Again, let’s focus: you can save your ass for just $20, and the stuff already in your house. Don’t believe me? Try this: Go through item by item, and put all this stuff in a pile. Then, put it in a backpack. Turns out, you already have almost everything you need squirreled away somewhere. For about $20, you’ll be able to get all the key items that you don’t already have. Put it together, keep it in the hall closet or someplace near your way out the door. Done. There, doesn’t that feel better?

MOST IMPORTANT THING:

A $3 backpack from Goodwill. Because once you have one of these, everything else just falls into it. Seriously, it’s like some kind of energetic law of nature—when the vessel arrives, so does the water.

SHELTER, TOOLS, SUPPLIES

Backpack (school size)

Space Blanket

Tarp

20’ String or Rope

Ski Hat

Flashlight—preferably wind up, or an LED one

Matches

Lighter

Metal pan to boil water/cook in

Plastic plate

Coffee mug

Spoon/fork

Pocket knife

Battery-operated or wind up radio

can opener

zip ties

duct tape

deck of cards

FOOD:

We’re aiming for 2,000 calories per person, per day, and it has to be in a form that will keep for a long time. Familiar foods are important, so use this as a rule of thumb, not something set in stone.

Can opener

Cans of tuna

Canned fruit

Cans of soup

Dehydrated meals

Macaroni and Cheese

Energy Bars

Energy Gels

Packets of Instant Coffee (6)

Emergen-c

Chewing gum

Packets of salt and pepper

Cans of Sterno—REI has them, as to all hardware stores

Three feet aluminum foil

Water:

This one is surprisingly easy. Put a single two liter bottle of water in your backpack—that’s it. Here’s a secret: every single house and apartment in SF comes with a built in 30-gallon supply of water, earthquake proofed. It’s called your hot water heater, and each has a little tap to get at that clean, filtered H20 right on the bottom. Each is also required to be anchored to the wall, so it’s unlikely to be damaged in a quake.

Here’s another secret tip—ever see a circle of bricks in SF in the street, and wonder what it’s for? They were put in after the 1906 quake and fire—they’re underground cisterns, full of water; enjoy.

COMMUNICATION:

FRS radio, with batteries. You’d be surprised how many have them—and how handy they’ll be when your iPhone doesn’t work. Make a plan with your friends NOW about what channel to use Whistle Sharpies—use to write on the outside of the place you live a note to friends/loved ones, saying WHEN you went and WHERE.

FIRST AID/SANITATION

Here are general basics to get you started. Split up loose items into ziplock baggies. Include any medicines you use, and a few spare pair of contact lenses.

Band Aids-all sizes.

Adhesive Tape, a couple feet

Gauze Pads

Triangular Bandage, Non-Sterile

Antacid, Calcium Carbonate

Ibuprofen (200 mg), Pkg./2

Acetaminophen (500 mg), Pkg./2

Antihistamine (Diphenhydramine 25 mg)

Aspirin (325 mg), Pkg./2

Cold Medicine Pkg./2

After Bite® Sting and Itch Relief Wipe

Anti-diarrhea medication

Laxative

Iodine

Germicidal hand wipes or waterless alcohol-based hand sanitizer.

Hydrocortizone Ointment

CPR Barrier, Shield

Surgical Gloves

Magnifier

Tweezer

Safety Pins, #2

Thermometer

1 tube of superglue—superglue was designed as a first aid tool; just dump it in any small cut, smoosh closed,

and done.

Sanitation:

Toilet paper roll

toothbrush/toothpaste

Plastic garbage bags, ties (for personal sanitation uses)

Trowel

Household chlorine bleach

Soap, Shampoo (you know all those samples you keep picking up and bringing home from hotels? Now is the

time to clear out your stash).

Bandana

CLOTHING AND BEDDING:

Grab your sleeping bag and pad from your camping gear—when you go camping, get it FROM your disaster kit, not the other way around.

Next, go find that lame tshirt you don’t like wearing, and a thin jacket, and a pair of undies, and some socks, and put it in there. Shazam: you now have a clean change of clothes. Do the same for your partner/kids.

Advanced Class

Now that you have all that sorted, here’s a few extra items to consider. We keep a 5 gallon can of fuel stashed outside our house—that’s enough to give us 100 miles of range. Also, since we’re burners, we have a 1000W Honda Wisperwatt generator outside—cause what good is a disaster without a string of Christmas lights and some beats? We also put out a chainsaw, because you don’t want to go through a 2×4 with a hand tool. And we

also have a full disaster kit in the trunk of our car, because just looking at the odds, we’re equally likely to be away from home as at home.

But all that comes later. First things first—go to Goodwill on your way home. Get a big packpack, and start packing.

See you at the afterparty!

source: TheirToys.com

Written by brainz.org

Dumb laws: not the merely annoying or restrictive, but the truly stupid, have long been fodder for late-night comedians, bored people on the Internet and compulsive trivia-seekers. Most are apocryphal or no longer on the books; some, though, do persist, producing great snickering sounds from those needing distraction. Here’s a look at 15 of the verifiable ones from across this great land, on all levels: state, city and county.

1. West Virginia: Roadkill may be taken home for supper.

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Yes, it’s true. If you’re having trouble scraping up enough food to keep your family warm and healthy — and, in these hard times, who isn’t? — you’re legally permitted to scrape up any unfortunate animals from the road to turn into a tasty stew, fricassee or whatever you like. The law’s intentions are solid: the Department of Transportation can’t afford to regularly clean every single one, so this kind of ad hoc road maintenance not only helps keep the roads clean, but lowers the cost of maintenance as well.

2. Pinal County, Arizona: No outdoor dancing

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Libertarian and anti-government cranks everywhere got a new hobbyhorse to ride over the San Tan Flat, an all-purpose restaurant with a large outdoor area in Pinal County, Arizona. For obscure reasons of their own, county officials decided to harp on a law from 1962 prohibiting outdoor dance halls, bowling alleys, penny arcades and so forth. With outdoor dancing very much part of the restaurant’s appeal, the owners were none too amused at being fined $700 every day for the silly violation. After national attention — Drew Carey did a segment about the problem for libertarian website Reason and George Will got a column out of it — the restaurant won in court. The law’s still on the books, ready to ruin any small business owner’s life whenever Pinal County feels like it.

3. Washington: Report your crimes ahead of time.

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A strangely despairing law on the Washington books instructs prospective criminals to have the basic courtesy to, when they arrive at city limits, “telephone the chief of police" and inform him or her of what’s about to happen. The idea was to cut down on a spiraling crime rate. Needless to say, no potential criminal was ever dumb enough to actually do it.

4. Utah: No hunting whales

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Not that there are any whales to hunt in Utah to begin with… It’s not clear why this law exists. It did, however, provide the capstone for one Richard Smith of Cornwall, who resolved to set out across America in July 2005 to systematically break as many arcane and downright silly laws as he could. In Utah, he planned to rent a boat and attempt, at least, to hunt a whale. Sadly, unlike, say the expeditions of Sir Richard Burton or Sir Edmund Hilary, history doesn’t record what became of this intrepid Brit.

5. Austin, Texas: You may not carry wire cutters in your back pocket.

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Austin, Texas is a city with a large university population and plenty of computer money floating around, with a lively downtown area. It’s the 15th-biggest city in America. Despite that, it has a lawdating back to the frontier days, when fence cutting and cattle stealing was a big deal. For that reason, don’t carry wire cutters in your pocket, though admittedly the situation is unlikely to come up; it’s a real city, not a rural area. The law is unlikely to cause any real hindrance.

6. Tennessee: You may not bring a skunk with you into the state.

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This one sounds stupid, but it actually makes sense. Rabies are a problem in Tennessee, and skunks are big carriers of rabies, so it’s not a terribly random law (aside from the vexing question of what kind of person wants to adopt a skunk in the first place; zoos and scientists are, of course, exempt). Mostly the law attracts attention because skunks are funny. Fair enough.

7. North Carolina: No costume meetings

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There is, of course, a perfectly good reason that North Carolina has stipulated that "no person or persons at least 16 years of age shall while wearing a mask, hood or device whereby the person, face or voice is disguised so as to conceal the identity of the wearer, hold any manner of meeting." The image raises to mind the law’s intended purpose: to prevent the KKK from gathering together and doing their nefarious thing. The problem here is that the law’s language doesn’t explicitly say the KKK is prohibited from gathering, which all things considered would seem to be the simplest way to go about it; instead, it inadvertently bans Halloween parties. Which is silly.

8. New Jersey: You may not pump your own gas

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Life is hard in New Jersey, the nation’s butt of all jokes about filthy chemical waste and government corruption. One bright spot, perhaps: since 1949, it’s been impossible to pump your own gas in New Jersey. Instead, someone will come and pump it for you. The only other state with this law is Oregon. Five years ago, then governor John Corzine experimented with letting people pump their own gas on the New Jersey Turnpike, but no dice: the good people of New Jersey do not want to get out of their car or get gas on their clothing, even if it’ll save them five cents a gallon. Because after all, finding gainful employment is hard, and creating an essentially subsidized job position is a big help if you can’t actually get out of the garden state.

9. New Orleans: No cursing the fireman while he’s working.

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It’s unclear what kind of terrible person would actually curse at a fireman risking life and limb while the fireman’s actually working. Apparently, though, this happens, so in New Orleans it’s illegal to curse at a fireman while they’re in the pursuit of their official duties. Off-duty, however, you are free to be totally rude to someone who’s only trying to help, if that’s your kind of thing.

10. Kennesaw, Georgia: You must own a gun

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Since 1982, all heads of household in this small Southern town have been required to own a gun, though there’s no apparent penalty for not complying. The law was passed in response to a gun ban in Morton Grove, Illinois; the citizens here (whose population swelled exponentially since the law’s passage, from 5,000 to 30,000) take the usual kind of Southern pride in asserting their God-given Second Amendment rights in the most uselessly symbolic fashion possible, making sure the always shaky rights of white family men aren’t suppressed. Still, crime hasn’t risen, so no harm done.

11. Seaside, Florida: Every house must have a white picket fence and two-story porch.

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Still, if you want to see legislated creepy conformity at its most innocuous yet annoying, Seaside, Florida has Kennesaw beat. Seaside is a planned community, and if you truly desire to live among people with similar priorities then this is the place to be. Here, every house has to have a white picket fence and two-story porch, and if that gives you the suburban creeps you probably don’t belong in Seaside.

12. Southington, Connecticut: The sale of Silly String is banned.

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In 1996, the good citizens of this small Connecticut town underwent a minor furor when a festival was disrupted by pranksters who silly stringed motorcycle police, marching band members and cheerleaders. Most people would respond to this by just chasing down and beating the ever-living crap out of the perpetrators (or just responding in kind), but Southington spazzed, passing legislation to ban the sale of Silly String in the community and thereby dealing a permanent death-blow to graduation ceremonies everywhere.

13. Boulder, Colorado: No couches on the porch.

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Sometimes stupid laws are the only logical response to stupid people, as with the fun-lovingcollege students of Boulder. The University of Colorado at Boulder is, er, “renowned" as a party school, and its dedicated academic undergraduates enjoy unwinding after major events (such as a college football victory, whose earthshaking importance is understood by most Americans) by burning couches. To discourage such unruly and potentially dangerous pyromaniac moments, no couches are allowed on the porches of Boulder… A sad discouragement for transplanted Southerners who enjoy porch life.

14. Los Angeles, California: No toad licking

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It’s unclear what’s dumber: the ever-inefficient war on drugs, or the kind of person who really wants to lick toad secretions in search of the ultimate high. Yes, if you want to actually take a crap shooton the cane toad and see what happens, that option is sadly legally prohibited in Los Angeles. Stupid people, as ever, lead to stupid laws, and in any case the toads are a nuisance: the poison they excrete can get you high, but it can also kill your dog if you’re not paying close attention.

15. Tennessee: Atheists and preachers may not serve in public office.

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Technically, this law exists: both ends of the religious spectrum are prohibited from serving in public office in Tennessee, which presumably means only mild-mannered believers are allowed to run for office. The law’s doubly dumb: not only does it make no sense, it’s also unconstitutional, meaning it’s unenforceable, meaning it’s pointless. But hey! Symbolic gestures for everybody!

Bonus: Human Patch v1.1

Written by Cowboy

Sick of the crap that kids are expected to watch on television now? Feeling nostalgic for the good ol’ days of Nickelodeon, the golden age when cartoons were still hand-drawn, and your favorite characters were wearing spandex, over-sized T-shirts, and mullets? Well, dig out your Walkmans and Gak, because here are the 15 best shows that Nickelodeon brought to the 90?s.

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

“One thing gathers us together: the dark.”

Who didn’t want to be a member of the Midnight Society? The arc of this show revolved around a group of stereotypical 90?s kids that met one night a week at a secret location in the woods, to share PG-rated scary stories.

The stories were usually adaptations of fairy tales, urban legends, and scary stories that were in the public domain. Seen now, most of the tales aren’t so scary, and they probably weren’t at the time either. But Are You Afraid of the Dark was still the highlight of each SNICK lineup. Even with the cheese factor, they’re still worth watching as an adult.

Salute Your Shorts

Donkey Lips. Budnik. Sponge. Ug. Summer camp was never nearly as interesting as Camp Anawanna was, and nobody ever had such awesome nicknames. Salute Your Shorts is to this day the only American television show to include the word “fart” in its opening theme, which automatically elevates it to “freaking awesome” status to most 9-year-olds. Despite the terrible child actors, Salute Your Shorts actually manages to retain a portion of its humor for grown-ups, so long as they aren’t looking for anything highbrow.

Ren & Stimpy

Ren and Stimpy. The very words conjure up memories of anthropomorphic farts, nose goblins, and terrifying Star Trek spoofs. Is there anyone between the ages of 18-35 who can’t recite “The Log Song” or “Happy Happy Joy Joy?” Love it or hate it, Ren and Stimpy had a serious impact on American television and animation.

Starring Ren Höek, a psychotic chihuahua, and Stimpson “Stimpy” J. Cat, the show was a parade of gross-out humor tinged with the bizarre. The show quickly became a target for censorship, due to the extreme violence and out-and-out nastiness. Nickelodeon fired the creator and original director, John Kricfalusi, after two seasons.

Kricfalusi later teamed up with Spike TV to reboot the series for an adult audience, but production halted after three episodes. Everyone was unsettled by the new series, audiences and critics alike.  When Spike TV – the network that airs 1001 Ways to Die – says your show is too crazy, your show is seriously crazy.

Rocko’s Modern Life

Rocko’s Modern Life rode in on the same wave of bizarre gross-out humor that Ren & Stimpy did. Starring a pant-less wallaby named Rocko, his dog Spunky, and a supporting cast of various kinds of animals, it was the kind of show that wrung the potty humor from every possible situation. We’re not particularly squeamish, but watching a frog shave its tongue kind of loses its appeal after puberty. It doesn’t have the edginess of Ren and Stimpy, or the snappy dialogue of Angry Beavers, but It’s gross and weird and… why is there a moose in that refrigerator?

Okay, Rocko’s Modern Life is worth watching just for the sheer WTF factor.

Wild and Crazy Kids

Wild and Crazy Kids functioned on two guiding principles: 1.) Kids want to watch other kids doing things they dream of doing, and 2.) Pies to the face are always, always funny. It was a winning formula. It’s still a winning formula, with the added bonus of being able to make fun of the terrible shirts that Omar Gooding and Donnie Jeffcoat wore.

Double Dare

Now that we think about, Nickelodeon implemented their Pie = Awesome and Wacky Stunts = Ratings formula elsewhere. Double Dare, hosted by Marc Summers, was one of the longer running Nickelodeon shows, beginning in 1986 and sticking around until 1993, and was even revamped as in January of 2000. Besides the requisite pies-in-the-face, contestants regularly got soaked with water, milk, and Nickelodeon’s trademarked slime, and — best of all — go through an obstacle course.

The show put Nickelodeon – still a fledgling network at that point – on the map.

Legends of the Hidden Temple

Legends of the Hidden Temple was another of Nickelodeon’s game shows. Competing teams of kids took orders from a giant, animatronic head named Olmec, answered questions about half-bogus legend, and then ran through an obstacle course.

(Seriously, why are there no more obstacle courses on television anymore? Why are we only stuck with shows like Survivor for nine million seasons?)

The show was part Indiana Jones and part American Gladiator, with all the historical inaccuracies of the first mixed with the hilarious physical challenges of the second. A seriously winning combination.

Angry Beavers

Though not as creepy as Rocko’s Modern Life or straight-up weird as Ren and Stimpy, Angry Beavers was memorable for having the best dialogue in a kid’s show ever. Much of it, of course, is a hell of a lot funnier if you’re an adult. Here are some examples from theAngry Beavers IMDB page.

• “Urethra! I found something!”
• “Where in the name of deus ex machina did that T-Rex come from?”
• “Desperate times call for desperate desperateness.”
• “Die, spooty thing, die!”
• “What in the name of Aunt Eileen’s cabbageless coleslaw is going on?”

Comedy gold..

Aaah! Real Monsters!

 Aaah! Real Monsters! was like Freaks and Geeks crossed with Monsters Inc. Its three protagonists, Ickis, Oblina, and Krumm, were adolescent monsters and were forced to deal with all the normal pains of growing up (peer pressure, school, parents), but with the added bonuses of living under a dump, scaring humans every day, and having a teacher who looked like Dr. Frankenfurter.

If that isn’t enough to convince you of the show’s awesomeness, the animation has a lot of similarities to Yellow Submarine, which is a breath of fresh air if you’re sick of all dubbed anime and crap CGI cartoons.

Pete and Pete

Pete and Pete originally aired as a series of Nickelodeon shorts. Due to their popularity, they were eventually produced into full-fledged series that lasted for three seasons.

Pete and Pete was a prototype of the hipster movement. Don’t believe us? Look at the glasses, the flannel hats, the irony and whimsy.  Look at little Pete’s tattoo, Petunia. Artie (the strongest man in the world) looks like he just rode his fixed-gear bike from a local cafe/bookstore in Portland.

All that aside, Pete and Pete is a sweet ode to suburban ridiculousness. It manages to satirize silly middle-class values without ever getting too cynical or saccharine. Pretty rare for a kid’s show.

Secret World of Alex Mack

Anyone remember Alex Mack, superhero, mutant, and 90?s fashionista? With a premise that was lifted pretty much entirely from any superhero comic, plus standard kids’ show plots, Alex Mack is like the offspring of Daredevil and Degrassi. After accidentally getting drenched in a secret chemical goo, Alexandra Mack has the ability to shoot electricity out of her fingertips, morph into a silver puddle, and move things with her minds. With these awesome powers she… experiences teenage drama. Well, points for trying, Nickelodeon.

On the other hand, it is fun watching Alex Mack develop a serious hat fetish is kind of fun.

Clarissa Explains It All

There’s probably not a single woman under 30 who didn’t want to be Clarissa Darling when she was growing up. She had it all: wit, a superfly best friend, and a sweet computer (for 1992). She was the original geek girl hipster, and she had the best wardrobe ever.

Clarissa Explains It All is still worth watching, mostly for the ridiculous computer simulations that Clarissa designs in each episode, most of them focusing on how to torture her Young Republican brother Ferguson. How much do you want to bet that Clarissa got rich in the dotcom boom, moved to Seattle, and lives in a commune with Sam?

Doug

(No actual video available, because Disney has Doug locked down tight.)

Doug was one of Nickelodeon’s first Nicktoons, premiering at the same time as Rugratsand Ren and Stimpy. The main character was Doug Funnie, who detailed his days in the town of Bluffington in his diary. Like many of Nickelodeon’s programming, many of the plots dealt with humdrum issues like peer pressure and crushes on girls, but it spiced things up with forays into Doug’s imagination: who could forget Quail Man, or (WA-NA-NA!) Jack Bandit?

Doug was bought by Disney in 1996. The company gave Doug a makeover and produced three more seasons and a full-length movie before shutting the franchise down. Since then,Doug has run afoul of Youtube users who enjoy ruining others’ childhoods. Awesome.

Roundhouse

Before there was All That, there was Roundhouse. And it was awesome.

Performed before a live audience, and using minimal props and sets, Roundhouse was a fast-paced sketch show, making use of its multi-racial cast’s dancing and singing talents as well as their comedic ability. It was like In Living Color for kids. (Not that we didn’t watchIn Living Color as kids, but still.)

Awesome! But also, ew.

All That

The most successful of all of Nickelodeon’s live-action shows, All That ran for ten seasons, from 1995-2005. It gave birth to 5 spinoff shows, and started the careers of Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell.  Some of their best sketches included:

Bonus?Is This Real Life?

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