Photoplasty commentary No. 1

I hate these things, and now I'm going to rant about why.

Yup, Cracked.com put out another photoplasty contest, but fortunately this one actually had a couple of good entries. Not the first page, of course, that’s just bongs and dongs, your usual immature unfunny pig slop that constitutes most of Cracked.com’s guest output.

So I’m just starting on the second page with number nine. Yup, it’s another bong. Next!

Number eight: Alf has been photoshopped into… something. I admit that I don’t recognize the source photo. I’m lost a lot when they do pop-culture crap because the only TV I watch involves British time-travelers or an incredibly dysfunctional family re-enacting of the Book of Exodus/Mormon in space. But if you’re doing a “famous photograph” and I can identify all the other ones on this list, but not this one, you’re doing something wrong. Moving on.

Number seven: Oh look, a bear is flying a stealth fighter. Why a stealth fighter and not a spaceship, I’ll never know but there you have it. Bears can be amusing; this one is not.

Number six: More like it! Buzz Aldrin sees the TARDIS on the moon. I nominate this one for the number one slot. Aldrin is not inherently funny; the TARDIS is not inherently funny; the moon is not inherently funny. But somehow when you slap the three of them together, you get something that even I managed to giggle at. See, this is a thing where all the elements work perfectly. You have to have Aldrin and the moon or else you wouldn’t have this picture. You could do something stupid to Aldrin’s face, but that wouldn’t be funny. Then the item he sees has to be perfectly chosen. It wouldn’t be as funny if it were, say, a big black obelisk, a wrecked Viper, or even a generic alien spaceship (now, the underside of a Star Destroy might just work). Granted, you have to know about a certain British TV show to really appreciate this one, but it’s so obviously the cream of the crop that the fact that it’s back in sixth is just all kinds of offensive.

Number five: Darth Nixious zaps someone with lightning. Not as funny as the one on the previous page about him giving everyone the finger. Also, I’d bet this one was a zillion times easier to do. Nixon’s been done to death, folks, and so has Force Lightning.

Number four: Planet of the Martian Apes. Frak you.

Number three: Lee Harvey Oswald’s murder was staged. For… some reason. Also Jack Ruby has a swastika tattoo and JFK’s hanging out in the background. There’s way too much going on here and none of it is funny. Why is Kennedy even in the frame if this is the angle from which his alleged murderer’s death is going to be staged? If he and his handlers were that stupid, the world would have ended in 1962. Why does the actor playing Jack Ruby have a clearly visible swastika tattoo? Why is the slate (that little “clapper” thing with the words “Oswald Assass” scrawled on it) in the shot once the action has started? Did nobody order a second take? Then again, as far as photoshopping Oswald’s death goes, nothing tops the time they put guitars in everyone’s hands.

Number two: Nixon is getting tattooed. You stole that idea from Jon Stewart and this is at least the third photo that uses Nixon. Getting a tad blah here.

Number one: Look, another dong. It turns out that the Loch Ness Monster is actually Stalin’s dick. Why is this funny? Is it because it’s Stalin? Would it be less funny if it were Hitler’s? How about Mao’s? And if you look at it for more than about a second, the photoshop job is terrible. Stalin’s head is grafted onto somebody else’s, the picture of the guy in the water has been grafted onto the Loch Ness pic with absolutely no subtlety, and it frankly looks like the Monster’s growing out of Stalin’s right thigh.