Then you’re old.

However, if you’re part of the demographic, then at least it will confirm that we knew how to be weird, years before the Internet. Of course, we had the Bomb to help us.

Rock Lobster on YouTube.

Alltop finds fallout quite exciting.

What Mom Says Goes!, originally uploaded by captainpandapants.

The day after, chemist Leo Sternbach, decided to give his new “relaxing compound for stressed-out mothers” another go. And within a year, Valium was approved for commercial use.

Of course it would never bring Jillian or Fluffy back.

Alltop loves the fake sitar riff in “Mother’s Little Helper.” Hilarious refit of the retro scene by captainandpants.

On February 2, it is customary in Canada and the United States to celebrate an annual tradition wherein we allow a chubby burrowing rodent to forecast the weather. This is an important ritual, but not for the reason that many people think.

Many believe this “holiday” can be traced back to an ancient pagan ritual called Imbolc, which was duly adopted by early Christians and turned into Candlemas. (This means Mass of the Candles, in which the clergy would perform ear candling on the most hairy-eared and disgusting member of each parish, in a metaphorical recreation of the time when Jesus performed the Ear Candling of Jergomethia, cleaning the aural canals of a score of waxy hermits, and curing them of their deafness.) Finally, this holiday or “holy day” was further perverted by the German-speaking populations of Pennsylvania, who fused the day with European folklore and a desire to celebrate fersommling, a kind of Pennsylvania Dutch orgy. (Obviously, these depravities are only celebrated by the Fancy Dutch, and eschewed by the more plain sects, such as the Amish, Dunkards and Mennonites.)

However, there live amongst some of the Elders in these plain sects of the Pennsylvania Dutch — or P-Dutch, as they are known on the streets of Philadelphia — the horrible, truthful truth.

Once, North America was largely ruled by these underground rodents of the family Sciuridae, and though they lived largely in peace with the native human populations, the arrival of the white man marked the end of their peaceful co-existence. For when the early settlers began tearing up the forests, and plowing the meadows where the groundhog, or woodchuck, lives, war between all men and the Tcuckbar (as the groundhogs call their own race) began.

Amongst the Elders of the Dunkards, this is known as the Grundschwein Zehekriege, or literally, “groundhog toe wars”; this name is taken from the favourite martial tactic of the Tcuckbar, which is to sever the large toe of a human being, and thus cause him to lose his balance, fall down, and then have his carotid artery savaged. Normally, groundhogs are peaceful herbivores, but when roused, they can eat up to twice their own weight in human flesh.

It is when they are thus engorged, looking almost like a bristly boar that they are most dangerous. Indeed, one of their other names is taken from this state: while in boar mode, the average groundhog will make a high-pitched sound, from whence their nickname, “whistle pig” derives.

During this dark period of the war, many humans took to fighting one another, or slaughtering local wolf populations, for no-one could believe such excessive butchery could be done by the lowly woodchuck — and the groundhog attackers were always disappearing into holes or climbing trees before humans could spot them. (You didn’t know they could climb trees, did you? Then you probably don’t know about their limited psychokinetic ability to move small objects such as golf balls, musket balls, and human eyes.)

Eventually, through an uncharacteristic adoption of empiric method the P-Dutch Fußführer (or “Foot Leader”), Johann Suppetrinker, figured out it was the groundhogs, and the war turned to the favour of the human forces. Unfortunately, most humans outside the P-Dutch Confederacy did not believe Suppetrinker’s explanation, and it took many years for the humans to gain control of the situation.

To this day crack forces of Amish and Mennonite Grundschweinmörders (Groundhog Killers) spend part of every winter season hunting down resistant forces of the dangerous Tcuckbar groundhog clans. Luckily, evolution has done the rest of the work for us, and the remaining non-sentient species is largely harmless, except to the occasional horse or golfer.

But this is why we celebrate Groundhog Day, and the annual humiliation ritual surrounding it. Otherwise, what other explanation could there be for the pomp and elaborate circumstance of this winter rite? Punxsutawney Phil and Wiarton Willie are not terrified by their own shadow, so much as the deep racial memory of seeing the figure of an Amish Grundschweinmörder, poised to spit him on a finely crafted spitzerstock. (Pointed stick.)

And they’ve only been slightly more accurate at predicting the end of winter than the Farmer’s Almanac, the P-Dutch edition included.

Alltop doesn’t believe that Wiarton Willie even exists. Picture of ritually humiliated groundhog courtesy of Scottobear. Brilliant artwork of Whistle Pig preparing to strike by ~Artsammich. Defeat of groundhog poster by Northfield.org.

Thag presents “Less darky!” (circa 11,564 BC) –> Only slide

• Shortest day in year
• Less darky after this
• More light good
• Pass mammoth rib please!

Catullus presents “Saturnalia ho!” (circa 69 BC) –> Slide 6

• gifts
• gambling
• tomfoolery (masters serve the slaves, nudge, nudge)
• public nudity
• the best of times!

Snagur Snarfasson presents “Yule be guessing” (circa 215 AD) –> Slide 3

Julebukking is the best:

• Disguise ourselves in masks and costumes
• Carry dead goat’s head in honor of Thor
• Visit neighbors
• Scare shit out of them ’till they give us mead.

Origen presents “Nativity schmativity” (circa 245 AD) –> Slide 1

• Christ is not like some pharaoh
• Only sinners celebrate birthdays
• Do you want to be a sinner?

King Richard II presents “Pig out with the Plantagentents!” (circa 1377 AD) –> slide 12

Christmas feast includes:

• 28 oxen
• 300 sheep
• 2000 chickens
• 1 Yule boar.

Thomas Nast presents “Fat Santa” (circa 1863) –> slide 3

• Harper’s wants a Santa Claus illustration
• Everyone else draws him like some emaciated string bean
• I’m going to make him a fat jolly bastard.

Beautiful photo by Peter Bowers. He has nothing to do (that we know of) with humor-blogs.com or Alltop. Originally published December 2007.

Before discovering Chaucers, the Emily Chesley Reading Circle had been meeting in a re-creation of Emily’s old bedroom in her flat at Spidgy Park. (Before its incineration, of course, and without all the Norwegians.)

Most of the members were happy with the arrangement; however, Quizzling (at bottom) was nonplussed. And everyone agreed that is was unsporting of Dr. Robotnik to keep shifting off to the left like that.

Not to mention the mess caused by all the spilled Guinness.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com enjoy their vitamin g. Photo via Postaltrice.

General Ludwig von Falkenhausen presents “The Week of Suffering” (circa April 2-9, 1917) –>slide 2

• Artillery relentless
• I’d guess about a million shells
• Somehow can target our artillery, even though they’re hidden behind ridge
• We ran out of aspirin, earplugs.

Allied General Arthur Currie presents “Better Creeping” (circa April 9, 1917) –>slide 4

• first wave attacks behind creeping barrage
• continuous line of shells
• improve on what we did at the Somme.

Corporal Gus Sivertz (2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles) presents “Nervy” –>slide 7

• a macabre dance
• nerves vibrated
• thousands of shells, machine gun bullets whizzed overhead
• advanced over no-man’s land
• if you put your hand up, you’d touch a ceiling of sound
• and probably lose a finger or two.

French soldier learns of victory at Vimy –>slide 1

• C’est impossible!

French soldier learns four Canadian divisions fighting at Vimy with one British division–>slide 2

• Ah! les Canadiens! C’est possible!

Notes: The shelling at the battle began April 2, 1917, and the battle itself began on April 9, 1917. Vimy marked the first time that Canadian troops fought together on a a corps level, and they took the ridge with casualties of 10,000. Previous attempts to break the strong-point in the German line had cost French and British troops more than 150,000. Vimy is often seen as a defining moment in Canadian national history, and as Pierre Burton wrote in his book on the battle, it quickly attained mythic status. This seems like an appropriate post for Remembrance Day.

Photo by Andreas-Photography. Alltop and humor-blogs.com are in the trenches of comedy.

Thomas Cadwell watched as the children danced around the bonfire, singing:

A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o’ cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A fagot of sticks to burn him.

He marked the fifth of November — as all in England did — though it was a strange kind of celebration. But he was old enough to actually remember the events they all sang about. He’d been in London when it happened; he had been just a boy, no more than five or six, visiting relatives for the opening of the parliament, and the celebrations that would accompany the long-awaited event.

Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.

Back then England had been partly Catholic, even if there were no rights for them. Not anymore.

Burn his body from his head.
Then we’ll say ol’ Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!

His family couldn’t get very close to the Houses of Parliament, because of the crowds. It ended up saving Thomas’s life. The explosion had been spectacular: When the gunpowder went off, the House of Lords was reduced to rubble, killing King James and many nobles instantly. Everyone within 100 yards of the building was killed — the crowds outside, the Commons, all of the Lords — and the stained glass in Westminster Abbey shattered like the uneasy peace between Catholics and Protestants.

But the carnage was not over.

It came to light that the catastrophe was a Catholic conspiracy; the plotters tried to set Princess Elizabeth, James’s eldest daughter, on the throne. But England was having none of it. Catholics were rooted out and slaughtered, though some were allowed to convert to the Church of England.

Thomas had been one of those. In 1605 he’d only been six — younger even than the new King, Henry — and the mob that hunted down his Catholic family showed him mercy.

But not his father or mother, his brother or sisters.

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see of no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

He knew the children dancing around the flames could not remember what happened, so he was not angry with them for starting to sing the song again, dancing now with even more fervor. Since that day, Parliament had never met again, and the King’s power in Great Britain was absolute.

A tear ran down his face, and Thomas looked away, as the children continued dancing, and singing as the flames licked the darkening sky.

A papist plot of great extent,
Blew up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:

By God’s providence they were catch’d
The Catholic treason was o’ermatched.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!

Inspired by: The Gunpowder Plot | Bonfire pic by Dan Taylor. Originally published in 2006.

Most people tend to forget that the founder of Juggernaut Business Mechanicals, Dr. Malifico had a younger brother, Reginald Spiney “Fist-Face-Smash” Malifico.

It was Reggie who took over JBM after his elder brother’s demise in a tragic misfire of the company’s first death ray.

They are pictured here, right before Reggie’s second birthday.

(Off camera: their body guard, an early prototype destruction bot, and their terrified nanny.)

Alltop and humor-blogs.com have an entire fleet of red juggernauts at their disposal. Photo via Zellaby, used courtesy JBM.

In the years before the Great Striping, the common people had a champion. Whenever injustice reared its linear head, Pokadot Joe was there to thump it with his curly-cue cudgel of curvy vengeance.

Mounted on his mighty steed, Dosage Twelve, Pokadot Joe made his meandering way across the land (always avoid straight stretches of road), keeping the Euclidean Overlords in a parabola of fear.

Nobody could keep him in line. Until his tragic end at the brick wall.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com think that all-in-all, it’s just another brick… Photo via Strange Ink.

Most cadets are not prepared — at least not mentally — for the initiation ceremony at the Her Majesty’s Military Academy for Muscular Gents. Its homoerotic nature was repellent to most well-bred young
gentlemen, and even the most buff scion of the British upper-crust could not pull off an outfit consisting of Graeco-Roman diapers and plimsolls.

That would be done for them.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are also strenuous heterosexuals. Photo via Postaltrice.