It’s Adventure Time
Is this really on Nickelodeon? Keep in mind this is the network that brought you Ren and Stimpy and The Adventures of Pete and Pete.
This Was Not a Terror Hoax, and They Were Not Fake Bombs
Terror Scare!
If you don’t have a television or a radio, you might have missed it: Mysterious, technological devices hidden across a densely-populated American city. The city of Boston, thrown into chaos, bridge, highways and train stops shut down. After a city-wide search and investigation, officials eventually determined that the whole thing was a terror hoax.
The two perpetrators were quickly arrested and held on $100,000 bond. Although thankfully no lives were lost, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino promised to make them pay dearly for plunging the city into a panic.
The events happened, but the description above is not true. You wouldn’t know it from most news coverage, but this was not a terror hoax, and these were not fake bombs planted through the city. Boston was not targeted, any more than New York, Philadelphia, and a number of other cities were. The “devices” had been around for weeks without causing any panic, threatening anyone’s safety, or making it on the news.
The “devices” were not even “devices,” at least not in the ominous tone of a newscaster. They were advertisements. With colorful lights on them. Lights that formed the outline of an Atari-style video game character giving you the finger.
Nietzsche Family Circus: Die at the Right Time
There are a lot of Family Circus detournements* on the Internet. I chalk it up to two factors: 1. The strip is annoyingly, cloyingly terrible. 2. It has decent art and lots of characters. The former provides the impetus, while the latter increases the interesting options. Proof: Ziggy is equally, if not more, terrible,** yet it only ever really features Ziggy, so manipulation possibilities are less dynamic and therefore less interesting.
My favorite Family Circus mash-up is The Nietzsche Family Circus, which combines random Family Circus panels with random qoutes from that powerfully impotent philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. The combinations often seem surprisingly deliberate and relevant, but that could just be the pattern matching module in my brain creating meaning out of nothingness.
*This is a fancy way of saying “fucking around.”
**I once thought of a really great Ziggy cartoon: Ziggy is standing on a slightly bowed horizon while a crudely drawn smiling sun sets (or is it rising?). Ziggy is looking directly at the reader and the word balloon says, in shaky, trembling lettering, “Everytime I think I am in a groove, it turns out I am just in a rut.” I am truly an ubermensch.