Post by lugnut on Jan 5, 2012 11:38:17 GMT -5
(Dunno if these stolen images will work or not...and if not, then I've wasted your and my time)
13. Viva Ned Flanders = The Hangover
The Joke:
Ned Flanders decides he hasn't really lived so he turns to Homer who takes him to Vegas. As you can see in the image above, it pretty much plays out exactly like The Hangover.
What Actually Happened:
The movie The Hangover comes out, the film is about a couple of guys that go to Vegas for a bachelor party...and well...just take a look:
12. Ice To See You
The Joke:
In the episode, "Last Exit To Springfield", Bart and Homer watch a McBain movie, in it McBain busts out of an ice sculpture and utters this cringe worthy line before wasting the bad guys: "Ice To See You".
What Actually Happened:
In 1997 the worst Batman movie was released and in it was a villian called Mr. Freeze played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In the late 80s early 90s, the character McBain was, of course, based on the action hero success and ubiquitous popularity of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The fact that the real Arnold went on to not only make a movie more ridiculous than the cartoon McBain action saga, but a movie that actually contained worse and somehow cheesier lines than some written to be intentionally funny by comedy writers is insane.
11. The Leftorium
The Joke:
In the episode "When Flanders Failed", Homer makes a wish for Flanders's new left-handed store to go out of business.
The ridiculousness in this bit lied in the idea of an entire store existing just for the left-handed. Surely, nobody needed to be coddled this much, let alone a whole section of the population.
The wish comes true and gets Flanders into financial hardship.
Ned is forced to sell his possessions, and Homer happily buys most of it. When he finds out that Ned's house is going to be repossessed, Homer feels guilty and decides to get the store back in business by telling all the left-handed citizens about it.
What Actually Happened:
In 2009 Lefty's opened its doors in San Francisco. Now they have stores at Pier 39 in San Francisco, and The Marketplace at Downtown Disney at Walt Disney World Resorts in Florida, as well as hundreds of left-handed items on their website.
The store features left-handed scissors, left-handed pens, and left-handed notebooks, left-handed office and school supplies, left-handed childrens writing guides and shoe tying instruction cards, even left-handed kitchen tools and equipment. And then there are left-handed sayings and toys, which they print on T-shirts, left-handed mugs, left-handed portfolios, and lots of other items.
For all other needs, Anything Left Handed is the store for you. They even took the homage to The Simpsons one step further by having their website as Leftorium.com.
What a bunch of great leftorinos.
10. The Land of Chocolate
The Joke:
The Land of Chocolate is a land imagined by Homer when German businessman bought the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and, during an interview, told Homer they came from "the Land of Chocolate", meaning Germany.
In Homer's head this land was made entirely of chocolate, including houses, streetlights, paths and rivers. Even chocolate rabbits and dogs. And in a part called "Fudgetown" they even had chocolate fudge rains.
What Actually Happened:
Well, China has done it again. For the second year in a row, a theme park made entirely from chocolate will open its doors in Shanghai, according to CNNGo.
The park used 80 tons of Belgian chocolate to create sculptures such as the terracotta warriors and The Great Wall.
The exhibit drew roughly a half a million visitors, according to CNNGo.
This year, the park is moving to Shanghai's Himalayas Art Museum, and will feature 200 pieces of chocolate art. Chocolatiers will also be on hand to make everything from truffle chocolate to wine chocolate; visitors will also be able to create their own chocolate.
I think if I were to actually visit this theme park I would act exactly as homer did in his dream. No word yet on the edible, sentient chocolate animals.
9. Itchy and Scratchy's Bloody Billboard
The Joke:
When The Itchy and Scratchy Movie came out in The Simpsons they advertised with a billboard that sprayed blood when Itchy hit Scratchy over the head with a sledgehammer, meant to poke fun at the overtness of not only violence in emerging popular media, but in even its advertising.
What Actually Happened:
New Zealand was super excited about the TV premier of Kill Bill so they borrowed the idea from The Simpsons in a way that actually may have escaped the creators of the controversial Kill Bill billboard.
In an homage to Kill Bill's gore the billboard sprayed across the wall, street and cars. Just like the advertising for The Itchy and Scratchy Movie.
8. It Tastes Like Grandma!
The Joke:
Inspired by a Zorro movie, Homer begins slapping people with a glove and challenging them to duels.
When a real Southern gentleman accepts Homer's request for a duel, the Simpsons run off to the old farm Homer lived on with his parents and breed a dangerously addictive but successful tobacco/tomato hybrid called "tomacco"
What Actually Happened:
Homer’s “tomacco” plant became a reality when Rob Baur, a senior operations analyst at an Oregon sewage treatment plant, created it in his house.
He grafted together a tobacco root with a tomato plant to create a real-life tomacco, without even enlisting the aid of radioactive material.
To date, no nearby farm animals have gone berserk and articulated their tomacco desire through speech yet. YET.
8. The Good Morning Burger
The Joke:
The Good Morning Burger was eighteen ounces of sizzling ground beef soaked in rich creamery butter, topped off with bacon, ham and a fried egg.
This was before all fast food restaurants started carrying a regular menu of heart-attacks every morning before 10:30AM, so it really worked as a satire of how horrible fast food is for you.
Before the "Baconator", a Sourdough Jack or even a triple cheeseburger were as bad as things got.
The Good Morning Burger seemed so ridiculous and far off that it could never really happen.
Until...
What Actually Happened:
This take on the Good Morning Burger is quite similar: hash browns, topped with a hamburger, topped with a fried egg. There are hash browns under a burger that's under a fried egg.
Another good example of how far things have gotten in fast food are, of course, the KFC Double Down and their "failure bowls" (as comedian Patton Oswalt calls them)
6. I Was Elected to Lead Not to Read
The Joke:
This was a dig at Governor Schwarzenegger from The Simpsons Movie, saying he was too dumb to be a Government official.
The line "I was elected to lead, not read" was such a ridiculous statement because an elected official's entire job is reading long, difficult legislation, making sense of it then deliberating.
What Actually Happened:
In the 2012 GOP race there was a man by the name of Herman Cain, and he ran on the slogan "We need a leader, not a reader."
So yeah, that almost happened.
What does that slogan even mean? You need to read and be at least somewhat of an intellectual to run a country, that's why that joke in The Simpsons is so fun and why in the real world it's just so tragic.
5. Stolen Sugar Truck
The Joke:
Lisa begins to feel threatened by Allison, a new student, because she is smarter, younger and a better saxophone player than she is.
Their rivalry reaches a climax at the school's diorama contest where Lisa plans to sabotage Allison's entry. The episode's subplot sees Homer steal a large pile of sugar from a crashed truck, and begin selling it door-to-door. He keeps it in the back yard and it eventually melts due to rain.
What Actually Happened:
Someone actually stole a freaking sugar truck.
In 2009 two kids were arrested by police in India for stealing a sugar truck from a person actually in charge of delivering the sugar. The kids were actually in charge of cleaning the truck and took it while it was parked at the cleaner/boss's house.
No word on whether or not they planned to sell it door to door.
4. Flaming Moe
The Joke:
Homer tells the local tavern owner Moe about a secret cocktail that includes cough medicine and fire that he calls a "Flaming Homer".
Moe steals the recipe and renames the drink the "Flaming Moe" and begins selling it at his tavern, betraying homer in the process. The drink is a success and Moe becomes famous, even Aerosmith drops by to perform at his place!
What Actually Happened:
A man who owns a bar in Prospect Heights bar called The Way Station (containing a replica of the giant blue TARDIS -- the time-and-space traveling machine from the BBC's Doctor Who television series) custom steampunk devices, Victorian décor and great cocktails.
Owner/bartender Andy Heidel said somebody mentioned a Flaming Moe and he just happened to have a bottle of Robitussin behind the bar. Not sure why you would have cough medicine behind a bar, but whatever. So he mixed Pernod, Jagermeister, Robitussin, and a Bacardi 151 floater then set it on fire.
Thus, we got the real Flaming Moe.
3. Scotchtoberfest
The Joke:
Principal Skinner tries to set Bart up to get in trouble, so he concocts something called "Scotchtoberfest" which allows him to control an entire event where he knows Bart won't be able to resist pranking Groundskeeper Willie. Skinner attempts to catch Bart in act.
What Actually Happened:
Vintage Wine & Spirits Co. A wine, beer, spirits, cigar and wine accessory specialty shop located in West Des Moines, Iowa created a real Scotchtoberfest held every Saturday in October.
2. My Retirement Grease!
The Joke:
In the episode "Lard Of The Dance" Homer discovers he can make money by stealing and reselling grease found in the back of Springfield Elementary's kitchen. They even build a contraption so that they can steal the maximum amount of grease in their car, like so...
They eventually give up after a few encounters with Groundskeeper Willie and the Springfield Grease Company. Bart and Homer barely escape an angry, greased up Willie while trying to make it home-free with their glorious, profit-garnering grease in tow.
What Actually Happened:
In November of 2011 The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that thieves had stolen at least $2,000 worth of grease from the privately-owned restaurant The St. Louis Wing Co. since April.
"It's a big deal. There's a huge underground out there for this stuff," owner Bobby Thessler said. "Others have said that this is like the new copper... These thieves are getting more sophisticated...".
When he called the police on these thieves, they spotted three teenagers taking grease from the back of Tessler's restaurant, as well as others on that same block.
The man uses about 60 to 70 pounds of grease every week, so saving money by selling it has always been a way to help break even. A rendering company would have paid the owner of the company multiple thousands of dollars for used cooking grease.
1. There's Very Little Meat in These Gym Mats
The Joke:
Lunch Lady Doris is seen throwing gym mats into a meat grinder in order to prepare the school lunch for the day.
Anyone who's ever had a public school lunch knows how completely inedible they can be, and some of the wet, warm, questionable objects on your styrofoam, sectioned-off tray do seem like they have hazardous chemicals as their base...but gym mats?
That's unheard of, that would never happen, right?
What Actually Happened:
So it turns out that the bread used in the McDonald's McRib actually contains an ingredient (banned in some parts of Europe) that is used to keep gym mats sponge-y.
Time Magazine's Healthland blog ran a story about the McRib and its ingredients. It identified Azodicarbonamide as one ingredient found in the sandwich's bun and apparently it is most commonly used in the manufacturing of foam gym mats and the soles of shoes.
The blog also noted that the 70 ingredients of the McRib, including Azodicarbonamide, exist in very small quantities and will almost certainly leave anyone eating a McRib unharmed. Still, Azodicarbonamide is a substance banned in Europe and strictly regulated by the FDA.
Looks like the Doris joke really wasn't that far off.
13. Viva Ned Flanders = The Hangover
The Joke:
Ned Flanders decides he hasn't really lived so he turns to Homer who takes him to Vegas. As you can see in the image above, it pretty much plays out exactly like The Hangover.
What Actually Happened:
The movie The Hangover comes out, the film is about a couple of guys that go to Vegas for a bachelor party...and well...just take a look:
12. Ice To See You
The Joke:
In the episode, "Last Exit To Springfield", Bart and Homer watch a McBain movie, in it McBain busts out of an ice sculpture and utters this cringe worthy line before wasting the bad guys: "Ice To See You".
What Actually Happened:
In 1997 the worst Batman movie was released and in it was a villian called Mr. Freeze played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In the late 80s early 90s, the character McBain was, of course, based on the action hero success and ubiquitous popularity of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The fact that the real Arnold went on to not only make a movie more ridiculous than the cartoon McBain action saga, but a movie that actually contained worse and somehow cheesier lines than some written to be intentionally funny by comedy writers is insane.
11. The Leftorium
The Joke:
In the episode "When Flanders Failed", Homer makes a wish for Flanders's new left-handed store to go out of business.
The ridiculousness in this bit lied in the idea of an entire store existing just for the left-handed. Surely, nobody needed to be coddled this much, let alone a whole section of the population.
The wish comes true and gets Flanders into financial hardship.
Ned is forced to sell his possessions, and Homer happily buys most of it. When he finds out that Ned's house is going to be repossessed, Homer feels guilty and decides to get the store back in business by telling all the left-handed citizens about it.
What Actually Happened:
In 2009 Lefty's opened its doors in San Francisco. Now they have stores at Pier 39 in San Francisco, and The Marketplace at Downtown Disney at Walt Disney World Resorts in Florida, as well as hundreds of left-handed items on their website.
The store features left-handed scissors, left-handed pens, and left-handed notebooks, left-handed office and school supplies, left-handed childrens writing guides and shoe tying instruction cards, even left-handed kitchen tools and equipment. And then there are left-handed sayings and toys, which they print on T-shirts, left-handed mugs, left-handed portfolios, and lots of other items.
For all other needs, Anything Left Handed is the store for you. They even took the homage to The Simpsons one step further by having their website as Leftorium.com.
What a bunch of great leftorinos.
10. The Land of Chocolate
The Joke:
The Land of Chocolate is a land imagined by Homer when German businessman bought the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and, during an interview, told Homer they came from "the Land of Chocolate", meaning Germany.
In Homer's head this land was made entirely of chocolate, including houses, streetlights, paths and rivers. Even chocolate rabbits and dogs. And in a part called "Fudgetown" they even had chocolate fudge rains.
What Actually Happened:
Well, China has done it again. For the second year in a row, a theme park made entirely from chocolate will open its doors in Shanghai, according to CNNGo.
The park used 80 tons of Belgian chocolate to create sculptures such as the terracotta warriors and The Great Wall.
The exhibit drew roughly a half a million visitors, according to CNNGo.
This year, the park is moving to Shanghai's Himalayas Art Museum, and will feature 200 pieces of chocolate art. Chocolatiers will also be on hand to make everything from truffle chocolate to wine chocolate; visitors will also be able to create their own chocolate.
I think if I were to actually visit this theme park I would act exactly as homer did in his dream. No word yet on the edible, sentient chocolate animals.
9. Itchy and Scratchy's Bloody Billboard
The Joke:
When The Itchy and Scratchy Movie came out in The Simpsons they advertised with a billboard that sprayed blood when Itchy hit Scratchy over the head with a sledgehammer, meant to poke fun at the overtness of not only violence in emerging popular media, but in even its advertising.
What Actually Happened:
New Zealand was super excited about the TV premier of Kill Bill so they borrowed the idea from The Simpsons in a way that actually may have escaped the creators of the controversial Kill Bill billboard.
In an homage to Kill Bill's gore the billboard sprayed across the wall, street and cars. Just like the advertising for The Itchy and Scratchy Movie.
8. It Tastes Like Grandma!
The Joke:
Inspired by a Zorro movie, Homer begins slapping people with a glove and challenging them to duels.
When a real Southern gentleman accepts Homer's request for a duel, the Simpsons run off to the old farm Homer lived on with his parents and breed a dangerously addictive but successful tobacco/tomato hybrid called "tomacco"
What Actually Happened:
Homer’s “tomacco” plant became a reality when Rob Baur, a senior operations analyst at an Oregon sewage treatment plant, created it in his house.
He grafted together a tobacco root with a tomato plant to create a real-life tomacco, without even enlisting the aid of radioactive material.
To date, no nearby farm animals have gone berserk and articulated their tomacco desire through speech yet. YET.
8. The Good Morning Burger
The Joke:
The Good Morning Burger was eighteen ounces of sizzling ground beef soaked in rich creamery butter, topped off with bacon, ham and a fried egg.
This was before all fast food restaurants started carrying a regular menu of heart-attacks every morning before 10:30AM, so it really worked as a satire of how horrible fast food is for you.
Before the "Baconator", a Sourdough Jack or even a triple cheeseburger were as bad as things got.
The Good Morning Burger seemed so ridiculous and far off that it could never really happen.
Until...
What Actually Happened:
This take on the Good Morning Burger is quite similar: hash browns, topped with a hamburger, topped with a fried egg. There are hash browns under a burger that's under a fried egg.
Another good example of how far things have gotten in fast food are, of course, the KFC Double Down and their "failure bowls" (as comedian Patton Oswalt calls them)
6. I Was Elected to Lead Not to Read
The Joke:
This was a dig at Governor Schwarzenegger from The Simpsons Movie, saying he was too dumb to be a Government official.
The line "I was elected to lead, not read" was such a ridiculous statement because an elected official's entire job is reading long, difficult legislation, making sense of it then deliberating.
What Actually Happened:
In the 2012 GOP race there was a man by the name of Herman Cain, and he ran on the slogan "We need a leader, not a reader."
So yeah, that almost happened.
What does that slogan even mean? You need to read and be at least somewhat of an intellectual to run a country, that's why that joke in The Simpsons is so fun and why in the real world it's just so tragic.
5. Stolen Sugar Truck
The Joke:
Lisa begins to feel threatened by Allison, a new student, because she is smarter, younger and a better saxophone player than she is.
Their rivalry reaches a climax at the school's diorama contest where Lisa plans to sabotage Allison's entry. The episode's subplot sees Homer steal a large pile of sugar from a crashed truck, and begin selling it door-to-door. He keeps it in the back yard and it eventually melts due to rain.
What Actually Happened:
Someone actually stole a freaking sugar truck.
In 2009 two kids were arrested by police in India for stealing a sugar truck from a person actually in charge of delivering the sugar. The kids were actually in charge of cleaning the truck and took it while it was parked at the cleaner/boss's house.
No word on whether or not they planned to sell it door to door.
4. Flaming Moe
The Joke:
Homer tells the local tavern owner Moe about a secret cocktail that includes cough medicine and fire that he calls a "Flaming Homer".
Moe steals the recipe and renames the drink the "Flaming Moe" and begins selling it at his tavern, betraying homer in the process. The drink is a success and Moe becomes famous, even Aerosmith drops by to perform at his place!
What Actually Happened:
A man who owns a bar in Prospect Heights bar called The Way Station (containing a replica of the giant blue TARDIS -- the time-and-space traveling machine from the BBC's Doctor Who television series) custom steampunk devices, Victorian décor and great cocktails.
Owner/bartender Andy Heidel said somebody mentioned a Flaming Moe and he just happened to have a bottle of Robitussin behind the bar. Not sure why you would have cough medicine behind a bar, but whatever. So he mixed Pernod, Jagermeister, Robitussin, and a Bacardi 151 floater then set it on fire.
Thus, we got the real Flaming Moe.
3. Scotchtoberfest
The Joke:
Principal Skinner tries to set Bart up to get in trouble, so he concocts something called "Scotchtoberfest" which allows him to control an entire event where he knows Bart won't be able to resist pranking Groundskeeper Willie. Skinner attempts to catch Bart in act.
What Actually Happened:
Vintage Wine & Spirits Co. A wine, beer, spirits, cigar and wine accessory specialty shop located in West Des Moines, Iowa created a real Scotchtoberfest held every Saturday in October.
2. My Retirement Grease!
The Joke:
In the episode "Lard Of The Dance" Homer discovers he can make money by stealing and reselling grease found in the back of Springfield Elementary's kitchen. They even build a contraption so that they can steal the maximum amount of grease in their car, like so...
They eventually give up after a few encounters with Groundskeeper Willie and the Springfield Grease Company. Bart and Homer barely escape an angry, greased up Willie while trying to make it home-free with their glorious, profit-garnering grease in tow.
What Actually Happened:
In November of 2011 The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that thieves had stolen at least $2,000 worth of grease from the privately-owned restaurant The St. Louis Wing Co. since April.
"It's a big deal. There's a huge underground out there for this stuff," owner Bobby Thessler said. "Others have said that this is like the new copper... These thieves are getting more sophisticated...".
When he called the police on these thieves, they spotted three teenagers taking grease from the back of Tessler's restaurant, as well as others on that same block.
The man uses about 60 to 70 pounds of grease every week, so saving money by selling it has always been a way to help break even. A rendering company would have paid the owner of the company multiple thousands of dollars for used cooking grease.
1. There's Very Little Meat in These Gym Mats
The Joke:
Lunch Lady Doris is seen throwing gym mats into a meat grinder in order to prepare the school lunch for the day.
Anyone who's ever had a public school lunch knows how completely inedible they can be, and some of the wet, warm, questionable objects on your styrofoam, sectioned-off tray do seem like they have hazardous chemicals as their base...but gym mats?
That's unheard of, that would never happen, right?
What Actually Happened:
So it turns out that the bread used in the McDonald's McRib actually contains an ingredient (banned in some parts of Europe) that is used to keep gym mats sponge-y.
Time Magazine's Healthland blog ran a story about the McRib and its ingredients. It identified Azodicarbonamide as one ingredient found in the sandwich's bun and apparently it is most commonly used in the manufacturing of foam gym mats and the soles of shoes.
The blog also noted that the 70 ingredients of the McRib, including Azodicarbonamide, exist in very small quantities and will almost certainly leave anyone eating a McRib unharmed. Still, Azodicarbonamide is a substance banned in Europe and strictly regulated by the FDA.
Looks like the Doris joke really wasn't that far off.
