Category Archives: Miscellaneous America

Do you want to know about America’s craziest patents? How about our worst reality TV shows? Are you curious about competitive beard growing? Do you wonder what that weird boil looking thing on your back is? We can tell you about all of those things (except the last one) and much much more in our Miscellaneous America section.

The Pig War Had a Silly Name

Posted on May 20, 2011 | 3 comments

“Heh.  Pig War.”

~James Buchanan


Despite our general sense of hubbub and brick-a-bracking militarism, we at the AFFotD do recognize that wars have costs, and as much as you might want to say that, “Oh, the Battle of New Orleans was so badass” you have to measure that with some platitude like “Even though it was sad those people died and stuff.  We guess.”  However, it is a universal rule that two possible things can make it totally okay to glorify and make fun of a war.

1.        If it has a ridiculous name.  We don’t care how long the war went on, or how many casualties any side suffered, if you name your war “The War of Jenkin’s Ear” we are going to point out that this is both hilarious and awesome.

2.       The war is bloodless.  Because then, calling it a war seems sort of silly.  Did anyone die in the Red River Bridge War, between Oklahoma and Texas in 1931?  No!  Are we glad that no Americans lost their lives over a stupid bridge?   Yes, of course, America and such and such.  And are we going to make fun of your war, and probably say something like, “Oh come on we’ve seen domestic abuse cases with more action”?  Well, probably not, since that’s a bit of a sore subject for people  So just ignore that domestic abuse bit.  Cough.

So that’s why we have absolutely no problem making a bunch of domestic abuse jokes crassly worded jokes about one war in particular, because it miraculously manages to adhere to both of the above criteria, while also possessing a wealth of hilarious google images.  To some, it’s known as the Northwestern Boundary Dispute, to others the San Juan Boundary Dispute.  But that’s bullshit, Wikipedia knows what’s up, because they know that the actual name of this 1859 conflict between America and England is the only name worth giving it.

So today, we’re going to talk about… The Pig War.

We weren’t kidding about the google images thing

The Pig War gets a lot of credit from our staff, if for no other reason than its Wikipedia page has the actual sentence, “The pig was the only casualty of the war.”  That has to be the most delicious war we’ve ever heard of.  That would be like fighting a war against beer kegs using hatchets.  Only good things can come from the end of that battle.  Except for the slew of drunk dudes holding onto axes.  But we digress.

“I am…just so drunk right now.”

The war began because Irishmen don’t like fences.  Or something, we don’t know, there is a complex issue of land rights, and the national ownership of the San Juan islands, which were stood between Washington and the Vancouver Islands.  As a result, both Americans and citizens of the United Kingdom made their home there.  The conflict began when a pig owned by an Irishman, Charles “There is literally no other way I’d be in a history book” Griffin, would go into the lawn of the American, Lyman “I know right, Charles?  I can’t believe we’re actually somewhat remembered by obscure historians because of this shit.  Ha, I even have a Wikipedia page” Cutlar.  Cutlar, being pissed off that the Irishman’s pig kept eating his damn potatoes (ha, we know, ironic right?) shot the pig.

So not quite this

Griffin got pissed at the death of his pig, and Cutlar offered $10 dollars (which was folding money back in those days, big cash) over the death of the pig, to which Griffin said, “Screw that, I want one hundred dollars.”  To highlight the absurdity of this situation, we will show you the modern equivalent of this conversation.

Griffin:  Holy shit, you just wrecked my car!

Cutlar:  Listen, I’m sorry, that was my bad, here, I’ll give you $25,000 to make up for it.

Griffin:  Nonsense, I demand TWENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS!  IMMEDIATELY!  IN BRIEFCASES!

As the British threatened to arrest Cutlar, American settlers called upon for aid from the local military, while the British brought in their troops, and it essentially was 500 Americans facing 2000 British, each with explicit orders to not fire the first shot.

Piiiiiiiiiggggg Waaaaarrrrrrrrr

As we mentioned earlier, no actual battles came of this, because once word reached the higher up military folk for both nations, they said, “…Seriously?  Over a fucking pig?” and called off the troops.  There was a general calm peace for a while, where both England and America maintained camps on the San Juan Islands.

But do you know who ultimately got control of those islands?

USA!  USA!

Which should just go to show you.  Even if it’s a stupid war over a single goddamned dead pig, we will win in the end.  Boom.  Face.

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Are You American Quiz Part 3: Foreign Correspondant Edition

Posted on May 9, 2011 | 1 comment

“Even when you start accepting Canadians, you won’t let ME in?”

~Joshua “Hey, remember Dawson’s Creek, eh?” Jackson

 

As we’ve seen previously, we at the AFFotD offices have a series of checks and tests to ensure that those working for us are properly American.  And when our first American test was unable to detect the distinctive traces of maple syrup in Seth Rogan’s Canadian blood, we had to make an secondary “Are You American” quiz to root out the pretenders and, well, Canucks.  And the combination of the two tests worked extremely well, as we were able to spot and turn away Hayden “Well, he was Darth Vader, but he also was the shitty one” Christensen, Ryan Gosling, and Ryan “We get him confused with Ryan Gosling more often than we’d like to admit” Reynolds.  But then, we received a phone call that completely changed the hiring policies of the America Fun Fact of the Day in ways that still has the offices deeply divided.

Jason “Made sweet, grunty, outdoor love to Amy Smart in Crank” Statham called and asked if he could be an AFFotD foreign correspondent.  We’re pretty sure that concept is an oxymoron, but then again we don’t know what oxymoron means (…someone too dumb to breath?), but it did lead to a series of lengthy meetings.  And by meetings, we mean a 48 hour booze party.  When we woke up, we had a series of voice mails from Angelina Jolie asking for us to stop calling or she’d file a restraining order, and Statham was in our offices to thank us for accepting his application.  We don’t remember calling him, but apparently we did.  An excerpt of the voice mail message he played for us is listed below.

“Heyyyyyy Transporter 2 guy!  Hey, it’s the America Fun Fact…urp… of the Day offices here.  Tittays!  Wooo!  Hahaha, dude dude stop it, I’m calling the bald dude from those Guy Ritchie movies.  Hey, shhhhhh guys, I’m on the PHONE here, Christ.  So, listen, like, you’re not American but you do kick ass, like, you know, Americans do, it’s how we doooooooooo.  So you can’t be on the staff man, but you can be like, our British dude.  Like, the resident British dude, or yeah, what you said, the four lane Coors despondent.  Yeah.  Yeah… I’m gonna, just, like, rest my eyes for a bit…”

Forty minutes of silence followed, but the evidence was clear.  We had hired a foreign correspondent doohickey.  And really, if anyone could have swayed us, it would have been Statham.  We added Hugh Laurie to that category shortly thereafter because, dudes, Dr. House, seriously.

But in order to add the appropriate foreign correspondents, and make sure that, despite their “born in another damn country” handicaps, they still have enough American traits to at least keep us informed of the latest crazes in Deer Kickboxing, we needed to create a new, separate test.  One that could determine the Americanness of an individual who was not technically American.  It hurt our brains to think about it, but that might just be the hangover.

And here is the fruit of our labors, the “Are You American Enough To Be Called An Honorary American” Quiz.  You can keep score at home.  A– is worth 0 points, B- is worth 1 point, C- is worth 4 points, and D- is worth 5.  Here we go again.

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Insane American Patents

Posted on April 18, 2011 | 4 comments

“Has someone invented heroin yet?  Because if not, we should get a patent on that stuff.”

~Kurt Cobain

America likes putting time and effort into overly elaborate solutions to simple problems.  A common belief is that NASA spent over a million dollars researching a pen that could work in space, while the Russians solved the same issue by using a pencil.  Apparently, that is utter bullshit, and a pen for use in space was made independently by a company hoping to cash in on a “space-worthy pen” while American astronauts still used pencils.  The pen was only adopted because the lead in pencils occasionally would snap off and could cause mechanical problems inside the ship.

“THEY’LL CLOG THE INSTRUMENTS!”

But don’t let this common myth fool you, America still likes to go about things the long, hard, incredibly complicated and expensive way.  For example, when America had a series of Fruit Flies ruining crops, how did we handle that?  Pesticide?  Hell no.  Large bug zappers?  Get that out of our face.  No, America decided to research fruit flies to learn that their females only mate once in their lifespan, so they sterilized 45 million male fruit flies, doused them with pheromones, and set them loose to fire blanks at all the female fruit flies in the area.  That’s right, of all the solutions out there, America decided to actively neuter 45 million insects, make them sex crazy, and just let them go at all the female fruit flies.  That is not only insane, that is Americanly insane.  And we absolutely love it.

That’s why, we at AFFotD are going to show you some of the greatest American inventions that are absolutely useless.  Because nothing says “American” like wasting the time and money of dozens of people to create a product that no one needs.

Unfortunately for people living in log cabins out in forest preserves, America is a social culture.  We often require someone else’s assistance to get us through our everyday hazards, like riding tandem bicycles, or receiving the Heimlich Maneuver.  And some Americans would prefer to be anti-social.  If only there were a way to do something by yourself that you otherwise would need someone else to do for you.  Something like…

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Science: “Let’s Get Bugs DRUNK!”

Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

“CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG!”

~Science

You know what’s boring?  Math and Science.  Some people say they “like knowing what makes the world work” and “get a thrill from solving mathematical questions using logic and knowledge” but to that, we respond the way we responded to the kids who were good at Math and Science in Grade School.

Stop hitting yourself.  Stop hitting yourself.

In actuality, these areas of study, especially Science, are pointless.  Why should we care what an atom looks like?  And why are you going to try to spin said atoms really fast in a giant tube, when that clearly is going to lead to the destruction of the entire planet?  Really, the only thing part in science class we paid attention to was that thing on how genetic traits carry over from parents to children, because it sure came useful when our ex gave birth to that kid and we were able to know we didn’t have to pay child support because someone with blue eyes cannot have a kid with green eyes.  Thanks, science!  Screw you, Cindy!

But science does, every once in a while, go out of its way to do something to tell us, hey, AFFotD, Science can be pretty American too.  While we do have a team of scientists on our staff who invent things like bologna flavored vodka and vodka flavored bologna, we usually use science just for the silly, inconsequential studies, and not for hard hitting facts that help inform us of the very nature of our American ways.  Sure, we know how tadpoles respond to weightlessness in space, but does science ever study something that really matters?  To us?  Americans?

Apparently, the answer is, “Fuck yes, of course we do, get  your heads out of your ass, AFFotD,” because scientists have spent government money and months of their lives devoted to examining how bugs act when they are drunk.

Not that kind of Bugs, but your head is in the right place

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Nature’s Most Terrifying Insect Creations

Posted on April 11, 2011 | 3 comments

“Fuck nature.”

~AFFotD, everyday

As Americans, and purveyors of facts that tend to be, for lack of a better word, fun, we have a strong hatred for nature in all forms.  We’d sooner chug bleach than eat “all natural” food, because at least we knew that mankind had a hand in making that bleach (Plus?  Surprisingly sweet, goes very well with a cheese platter).  When we read about the world’s largest tree (and tallest living thing) being found in America, standing at 378 feet, we don’t reflect in awe at how this tree has outlived many generations of man, and even America as a nation, we get pissed off that it’s probably protected now, and we can’t turn it into a comically large chest of drawers to put in some small Indiana town somewhere.

Yeah you BETTER run

But, our strong “anti-Nature” stance sometimes gets some negative feedback from people who think “We need to preserve the planet for future generations” and “It’s not good to laugh about how the honey bees are dying off, because that’s actually going to devastate our ecosystem and agriculture.”  But guess what?  Nature started it.  Hurricanes, Tsunamis, Tornadoes, Susan Boyle, all of these are indestructible forces of nature that leaves nothing but shattered lives and broken dreams in their wake.  So why should we box with one hand behind our back?  As Nelson Muntz let us know regarding his pro-nuking-whales stance, “Gotta nuke something.”

This is not a war for the meek.  Nature has gone on the offensive, and it’s not just the direct assaults that we have to fear.  Nature’s representative, the Sandman, a distant cousin of Freddy Krueger, goes into our dreams at night and informs nature what are in our nightmares.  And then nature makes them real.

Nature makes them real.

“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU….”

So below, we must perform our terrifying duty of ensuring that every American is aware of the very real nightmares that nature has unleashed on this world, in an edition we call…

Kill it Kill it Please AFFotD Make the Bad Man Stop!:  A Pictorial Discussion on Why We Must Destroy Nature, Because Fuck Nature.

[Editor’s note:  WARNING:  While these images do not portray any violence, sexuality, or other things that would be considered NSFW, they do have a very real risk of bringing back buried nightmares, because nature is a massive douchebag, and has created these terrifying creatures to haunt us at every turn.  Discretion is advised.  Seriously.  Fuck nature.]

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Wherein AFFotD Discovers The American Ideals of the Innocent and Derive Great Pleasure in Deconstructing the Arguments of Children

Posted on April 6, 2011 | 8 comments

“I weep for the future.”

~That like, assholish matre ’d in “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off”


Let’s take a moment to talk about the children.  Most of our staff never really had what most people would consider a “conventional childhood.”  We never had the opportunity to learn how to play 4 square or hopscotch, we just learned the vintages of actual Scotch.  We never got to run in the park and skin our knees, we had to learn how to effectively run a craps table (apparently a well trained 10 year old craps dealers is a goldmine for an underground casino).  We didn’t get a chance to play Little League baseball, we had to go straight to the majors (the kid from “Rookie of the Year” just joined our staff).

Pictured Above:  The Last Time the Cubs Won the World Series

Children offer a unique perspective for us, since we never had a point where we thought like them.  When we were six years old, our parents would be concerned if we weren’t belligerently drunk.  But when we ask parents why their kid seems so distressingly sober, they just seem to get upset and say things like, “You’re joking right?” and, “What do you mean that a child’s natural state is drunk?” and “You poured what into his apple juice?” and “Get out of here you monster or we’re going to call the police.”  It’s baffling.

One day during lunch, our staff was all outside, horsing around and playing our staff-only game of “Kick in the dick, Punch in the tit,” where our female staffers punch each other in the breasts, and the male staffers kick each other in the groin.  Come to think of it, no one knows why we play it, and no one particularly enjoys it.  But, anyway, as a combination of masculine and feminine voices were shouting, in unison, “KICK IN THE DICK!” and “PUNCH IN THE TIT,” we looked over to see a small group of children had gathered, and were mimicking our every move.  Sure, their form was sloppy (the key is to pivot your standing foot during the kick if you really want to try to shatter something) but they were just like little clones.  Moldable tiny people.

“AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”  (Picture unrelated)

There are many theories about what children are.  Tiny people with heads that are proportionally too large for their bodies.  “Our future.”  The continuation of our species.  Lab experiments.  We’ve heard it all, and we at America Fun Fact of the Day feel that there is a simple way to think about children.

They are something we have to stop.  Children are, in fact, our future, but you know who the future muscles out?  The goddamn present.  That’s right.  In thirty years, those snot nosed kids are going to be the ones to make fun of us for being so “old fashioned” we can’t even adjust our F chip setting to work on more than 5 Farmville accounts, and they’ll say shit like, “Haha, yahoo?  What the hell, grandpa, are you living in the 20th century?”  Those fucking kids.  They’re just waiting for the right moment to muscle us out and form the Republic of, I don’t know, Digimon or whatever (do kids still like Digimon?  No?  Dammit).  So no matter how much we attempt to mold them into little, obedient, groin kicking servants, it won’t make a lick of difference.  They’re out to get us.  So, before they run us out and change the AFFotD into like, a goddamn Justin Bieber fan page or some shit, we’re going to get our licks in at these brats.

Some people say “Children are the future,” others say, “The future is now.”  We say “The future…must be stopped.”

Hey, don’t let poor execution muddle your opinion of a solid idea

The reason why we’re going on this for so long is that we stumbled across an article from Scholastic Magazine.  Back in our day, Scholastic Magazine was just that place that sent out those book order forms where you could ignore all the “educational” books and just get yourself a book of Calvin and Hobbes (is it the most American comic, or is it the most American comic?) for like 5 bucks.  Apparently now they’re asking kids shit like, “What does it mean to be American.”

Well we got news for you, kids.  It’s not your time yet, it is our time.  So let’s savagely immolate your opinions, AFFotD style, in today’s fun fact…

America Fun Fact of the Day Insults the Shit Out of a Lot of Kids Who Can’t Defend Themselves (But It’s Okay Because They’re After Our Jobs, and are Stupid)

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Ridiculous Drugs That Were Once Medicine: Part One

Posted on March 28, 2011 | 2 comments

“Ah, I see you have a nail in your foot.  Some heroin will cure that right up.”

~Like, just the best doctor ever, you guys, circa 1898

As a rule, the non-crazy members of American society don’t really question what doctors tell us to put in our body, unless the words “Hamster” and “Suppository” are involved.  Got a rusty ticker?  Swallow this white chalky square.  Sinus infection?  Rub some of this nasty smelling ointment on your chest.  You just can’t make the jump from “Utility role player” and “Star slugger” on your professional baseball team?  Just let this guy inject some “Vitamin B12” into your ass cheeks.  It’s called plausible deniability, in case Congress ever asks.

But despite all the weird things we’ll just cram into our bodies without a second of hesitation (“Lupidemitrexeral?  Why, I almost named my daughter that!”) the American pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars on development and research to make sure that their medicine won’t turn you into some sort of pig lizard.  And once they hit that perfect, non-mutation-forming treatment of medical ailments, they’ll do us the favor of charging us out the ass for it.  But we can’t fault them for that, hell we’ll applaud them for finding a way to make big bucks even when times are bad by feeding off our addiction to “living.”  Prescription drugs can cost the arm and leg they were meant to treat because they work, and they work better than anything else at our disposal.  Otherwise, those thousands of rabbits and rats died in those laboratories for nothing.

However, in America, things used to be a bit less “controlled” with “procedures in place to make sure you don’t take mercury for medicinal purposes.”  Which was bad for sick people, but absolutely amazing for people who like to laugh at the mistakes of past generations.  Because, come on, are you serious late 19th Century/early 20th Century!?

Damn, 15 cents?  Who’s THEIR dealer?

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The Oregon Trail Raised a Generation

Posted on March 24, 2011 | 1 comment

“The river is too deep to ford.  You lose:  103 bullets, 2 wagon wheels, 2 wagon axles, 2 oxen, TEDDY (drowned), C. DALE (drowned), ULYSSES (drowned).”

~Shit, should have just taken the ferry…

The Oregon Trail was two thousand mile wagon route connecting towns of the Missouri River to the Oregon valley, originally discovered and utilized by fur trappers and traders who would agehpgap

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Oh shit, sorry, fell asleep on the keyboard.  That’s boring.  Stop being so boring.  Besides, that’s totally historically inaccurate.  Because, we at AFFotD, like many Americans, know the real story behind the Oregon Trail.  We know it not because we “read books” or “watched PBS documentaries” or “listened to a lecture from a storied American History academic.”  Fuck that noise.  We know it because we lived it, man.  We were there, we know what’s at stake, and we know what we have lost.


That’s right, you can take your “historical discussions of the cultural impact regarding settlements along the Oregon Trail” and shove it up your monocle, we know the score because we are intimately familiar with the most American Educational Video Game of all time.

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Turtles in a Half Shell, Ninja Turtles

Posted on March 16, 2011 | 2 comments

“Raphael is your FAVORITE Ninja Turtle?  Are you shitting me?”

~U.S. Astronaut John Glenn

Ask any member of Generation X or Generation Y one question, and you’re guaranteed to see a lively debate.  “Who is your favorite Ninja Turtle?  Who is your least favorite?”  There’s brave Leonardo, wielding Katana swords and serving as the leader of the group.  There’s Michelangelo, the comic relief with his nun-chucks.  There’s Donatello, the smart one, wielding his bō staff, and Raphael, the team’s bad boy that no one gives a shit about because a pair of sai is a bullshit weapon and he knows it.

Yawn.

But The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are the most glorious thing to come from a night of smoking pot in the 1980’s this side of most white-person-bar music.  They are a force for good in a world of evil, and they remind us that turtles can be American too.  And if you doubt the cultural significance of the Ninja Turtles, next time you find yourself in a crowded public place, say loudly, “Donatello was the best Ninja Turtle, by far.”  You’ll notice everyone under the age of 40 just turned their head towards you, half of them with a look of agreement on their face, and half of them with a look on their face that screams, “Are you fucking crazy?”  Actually someone might actually scream that as well.  Such is the mystery of the glorious American invention, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

TMNJ sounds like the combination of two stoners saying random words, putting them together, and then deciding to make a goddamn comic book about it.  If you think about it logically, none of those words go together.  Don’t believe us?  Read it in reverse order, and do a word association of the first thing that comes to your head when you read each word.

TURTLE

–          Reptile

–          Shell

–          The chubby dude in Entourage

NINJA

–          Wait, really?  Ninja?  How does that have anything to do with turtles?

–          No, don’t just skip me over, I’m really honestly wondering how you went from “turtle” to “ninja.”  It makes no sense!  Turtles are slow for fuck’s sake!

–          Fine, fine, uh, samurai.  I don’t know.  Japan.

MUTANT

–          What?  What’s going on here?  Are you stoned?  Are you stoned right now?

–          Oh, you’re stoned.  But still, even by stoned logic, thinking about mutant ninjas is…not normal, man.

–          No, I’m not going to even give you the satisfaction of doing a word association for Mutants. I don’t know where you’re going with this but I don’t like it one bit.

–          I’m serious, I’m not going to do it.

–          I don’t care how long you pester me, I’m done with this game, it’s going to weird and twisted places.

–

–

–          Stop it

–

–          You’re just embarrassing yourself

–

–          Not gonna do it

–

–

–          OKAY FINE JESUS CHRIST!  Uh, X-men.  Comic books.  Radiation.

TEENAGER

–          Oh fuck my life.

How the turtles came to be, and how they affected a whole generation, is a true tale of American inspiration, luck, talent, and blind devotion to massive commercial merchandising.  In 1983, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird where two artists, and close friends.  Eastman drew comics in his spare time while working as a short order cook, and Laird was making a living doing editorial illustrations and advertising art.  One night, the two were hanging out, watching TV, and sketching.  They were also probably taking a hit out of a bong made out of discarded LSD squares, because Eastman drew a picture of a turtle with nunchukus attached to its arm, and said (probably while laughing his ass off), “Ninja Turtle.  Laird then said, “Dude…Teenage MUTANT Ninja Turtle.”  Once the weed wore off, they began drawing a small black and white comic, giving the turtles names of Renaissance artists and sculptors, and giving it a surprisingly dark origin story.  Like, just cold blooded killers, and a distinct lack of pizza references or surfer talk.

After writing the comic, they published 3000 of them for $1200, due to a combination of loans from Eastman’s uncle and a $500 tax refund Eastman had received.  That’s right, the American Government helped subsidize the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  This is the best use of government money since that time the Government actually tried to develop real Mutant Ninja Turtles, eventually scrapping the project when it created Vin Diesel.

Ha, the internet is awesome.

They had enough money to put out one ad in a Comic Book Magazine, which got the attention of distributers, who got the TMNT to a wider audience.  But the Turtles really broke through when they grabbed the attention of licensing agent Mark Freedman, who saw the comics and thought, “Kids would buy the shit out of a ninja turtle action figure.”  In 1986, Dark Horse Miniatures made a set of small lead figurines, because the only thing more American than blindly making figurines out of weird mutated reptiles is to make them out of a material that will poison you.  They eventually chose to take the turtles to a small (at the time) toy maker called Playtime Toys, deciding to make the turtles just a little less poisonous to children.  They put together a creative team to create a miniseries of the Ninja Turtles, coining such badass phrases as, “Heroes in a half shell,” and, of course, “Turtle power!”

The Miniseries eventually became popular, and the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle TV Series brought forth the much more family friendly characters to a large audience, and created a pop culture phenomenon.

To show how American TMNT are, you need to look no further than one of the two founders, Kevin Eastman, and let’s see what he’s been able to do because of the Ninja Turtles (and also the millions of dollars he has raked in).

Here’s what Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird looked like in the 1980’s.  Eastman is the one on the right.

Yeah, the guy who looks like Weird Al’s unemployed younger brother?  That guy?  This is his ex-wife.

AROOOOOOOOOGA!

Dayumnnnnn boyyyyyyy.  That’s right, because of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a stoner short order chef was able to marry a woman who’s damn Wikipedia profile picture is borderline NSFW.  Seriously, that’s her Wikipedia page, we didn’t know that women’s shirts came in small, medium, large, and boob sizes.  Is that a tank top, a swim suit, or body paint?  Either way, it’s hard not to stare.  Now look at those, erm, her again, and look at Mr. “It’s the 80’s, it’d be a crime NOT to have a mustache” up there.  Yeah.  Pretty jarring.

That’s Julie Strain and she is known as “The Queen of the B-Film.”  She also is well known for appearing on the show “Sex Court” on the Playboy Chanel.  This is an upper echelon of Americanness right here.  Eastman married a woman who people will go out of their way to do a google image search to find naked pictures of her.  The only thing more American is if you marry someone people will go out of their way to search for naked pictures of, but they can’t find anything.  THAT is the power of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

That and Rule 34

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have spawned an empire, a series of films ranging in quality from “It was great when I was 7” to “What the hell is going on?”  To this date, TMNT remain the only superhero team to successfully defeat a foe with a keytar at full volume.  There were three animated series, one live action series (with the comically bad addition of a female Turtle named “Venus de Milo” because, at this point, who gives a shit about being subtle), as well as three live action films and an animated full length film.  There are over twenty TMNT video games, including the classic, “Turtles IV:  Turtles in Time,” widely considered to be the best TMNT game ever made, which featured such unforgettable lines as, “Bury my shell at wounded knee.”  That’s right, this is a game that combines the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, time travel, and references General Custer’s Last Stand!


Holy shit, awesome, right!?

So whenever you see a jar of plutonium, an empty pizza box, and four box turtles, just put them in a jar and shake them up, just to see what happens.  Worst case scenario, you have some dead turtles, to which we say, “Meh.”  But, but, best case scenario?  Fucking.  THIS.

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How American Are You Quiz: Part Two

Posted on March 15, 2011 | 3 comments

“Get the hell out of here, and take your loveable slacker persona with you, motherfucker!”

~Steven Spielberg, AFFotD’s Hiring Director

For the first time in the history of the America Fun Fact of the Day, we’ve encountered something…well, something terrible.  It is with great shame that we must admit that last week, we accidentally hired a staff member who was not American.  This has never happened before, we swear to God, it was an honest mistake.  We thought that Seth Rogen would fit the much needed “Chubby funny man/loveable slacker” position.  We were excited to have him, we all thought Superbad was a great movie, and not only because we supported the central theme of “underage Americans buying booze to get laid at a party.”  We thought it had a lot of heart.  Like when Michael Cera’s character dropped that bottle of liquor on the bus, and it shattered all over the place, we really felt for the kid.  And all that booze that he could have been drinking.  The only unrealistic part of that scene was that no one immediately dropped to the floor in a desperate part to lick the remains, but we’ll let that one go.

So, as he was turning in his pay forms, and we were asking him about the movie (we basically kept saying, “Hey, hey, Seth…remember McLovin’?” and he’d say, “Yeah,” and we’d say, “Haha, awesome!”) he said, “Well, I got these forms here, I mean, I left the social security part blank, I hope that’s okay.”  We told him it was, a lot of us like being paid under the table in cash, or bootleg DVDs, so that’s not an unusual request.  But then, then, he said, “Well, I’m excited to be working with you, I’ll see you guys bright and early tomorrow, eh?”

The offices went silent.  Some of us dropped our whisky glasses.  One of the interns started crying, but that might have been because we stuck him on “mail bomb checking duty,” so that wasn’t too strange.  At that point, Steven Spielberg, who works in our HR Department, actually read the information listed in Rogen’s hiring forms.  This was the first time anyone at AFFotD has bothered to read the damn things, or even really read in general.  Spielberg flat out admits that he picks movies to direct based on if it’s written in bold font or not, and would be the first to admit that he’s gotten pretty lucky with that.  But sure enough, on Seth Rogen’s form, under birthplace…

It listed Vancouver.  Canada.

That’s right, loyal readers.  America Fun Fact of the Day, where literally nearly double digits amount of people rely on their American knowledge, had employed a Canadian for nearly ten minutes.  We’ve tried to rectify this, we fired Judd Apatow for recommending the hire (and also, really, his work’s sort of been underwhelming post-2007), and our snipers took a couple of pot shots at him as he fled the building.  Though, he was hilarious when he was scrambling and darting around during that whole “us shooting at him” thing.  Say what you will about his country of birth, that motherfucking Canadian is funny.

As we looked back, trying to see where we went wrong, we realized that he had scored a 25 on his “How American Are You?” Quiz.  That’s solidly American, a healthy clip above the “questionable” cut off of 21 points.  That just won’t do, if our America Quiz fails us, how can we keep the Seth Rogens and Jim Carreys out (Oh shit, Jim Carrey’s Canadian too?  Goddamn it!)?  If our America Quiz fails us, how can we convince ourselves to turn down the applications of Pamela Anderson or Natasha Henstridge (GODDAMN YOU CANADA!)?

And so it is out of necessity that we present part two of the “How American Are You?” quiz which we call “How American Are You?  No, Really” quiz.  The scoring is simple.  First, take your result from the first test (which is no doubt seared into your brains), and add the following points for each answer.  If you answer A, you receive zero points, B is one point, C is six points, D is eight points, and E is worth ten points.  The more American answers are worth more points than in the previous test, to truly separate the Larry Davids from the Dan Aykroyds. Continue reading →

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