Popaganda: The Pop Culture Revolution

Who needs world wars, political ideology and elections to delve into the world of propaganda? Papa Smurf needs you and Waldo is watching. I've got a thing for spoofs and parodies, and if you can tie together two disparate cultural elements, I'm sold. I attribute it to a lifetime of watching shows like The Simpsons and The Muppets. So behold, a collection of pop culture propaganda posters.

Invincible: An army of Berts couldn't hold me back. From Michigan illustrator Kevin Skinner. This was the image that set me off looking for all the rest.
Update: Kevin got in touch and he is selling his final print over on ebay. He says it is a reductive linocut, so it can't be printed again, so get bidding.

Waldo: Forget finding Waldo, Waldo's watching you. From Worth 1000's Fun with Propaganda 5)


Smurfs: Red Revolution. Come to think of it, the village really was a commune.


Smurfs: Of couse some take a more positive spin, and believe in the pro'papa'ganda. He will know if we are there yet.


Muppet Propaganda: Kermit the Gorf, from Thought Faucet. A Gorf appears to be a wonderfully obscure Muppet reference, and I love the poster.


Plant of the Apes: You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you all to hell!"


Wizard of Oz: Fly my pretties, fly! From Worth 1000's Fun with Propaganda 2.


Spongebob: Fight for Bikini Bottom


Lord of the Rings: I want you for the fighting Uruk-Hai. Hmm, can Orcs read? From Worth 1000's Fun with Propaganda 5.


Mad: What me worry? Must be a poster from Cracked. From Worth1000's Fun with Propaganda.


Jack: Long live the American Nicholson Party. "Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules." From Worth1000's Fun with Propaganda 3.


Willy Wonka: Oompa loompa doopadee dee, if you are wise you'll listen to me. From Worth1000's Fun with Propaganda 3.


G.I. Joe: You can't beat COBRA if you get VD. You'd figure that there would be way more G.I. Joe posters - seems the perfect subject matter. From Chris's Invincible Super-Blog.


Transformers: All hail Megatron. From the aptly named All Hail Megatron series from IDW Publishing.

Rocketeer: Some revisionist film history, as Cliff Secord lets the rocket pack fall into the hands of the Germans. From Something Awful.


Street artist Shepard Fairey created a series of Hope posters supporting Barack Obama's candidacy for President. They were quickly parodied into 150 different versions. These are four of my favourites:

Star Wars: Long before there was Barack Obama, there was a new hope. Luke Skywalker.


Debork Obama: Says the Swedish Chef, "Yom-yom-yommm, mit de chocolad. Bork, bork, bork!" By Sleeper Cell.


Winnie the Pooh: Wouldn' you trust a bear of very little brain? By Commissar Maksim.


ALF: It seems to be that ALF would be of very little hope for Melmac, as the planet has already blown up. Easier to keep your promises I suppose.


Animal Farm: Four legs good, two legs bad


Star Wars: Our Imperial Forces. There's no war like a clone war.


BattleStar Galactica: So say we all!


Gnomes: This ain't your garden variety revolution. I knew they were up to something.


South Park: Respect our authoritah. Really fits well with Cartman's fascist bent.


Star Wars: The Empire — Ensuring your safety by choice or by force


SuperMario: The Mushroom Guard


Pokémon: I choose you, Pikachu. Much like everyone else in the draft, he didn't really have a choice. From Worth1000's Fun with Propaganda 8.

Waldo: But where is Waldo? At least they let hi keep the hat. From Worth1000's Fun with Propaganda.

Star Trek: Stop this Klingon brute. Who knew Star Fleet was so xenophobic?


Futurama: You're not paid to think.


Spongebob: Are you sponge worthy? Loose lips sink ships to Bikini Bottom.


Kool-Aid: Oh yeah! From Worth 1000's Fun with Propaganda 4.


Mary Poppins: Just like a spoonful of sugar is all it takes to corrupt you children. Serves you right for letting some woman who blew in on the wind into your house. From Worth1000's Fun with Propaganda 6.

Previously Popped Culture...
Suddenly Last Supper
Would You Like Fries With That?
Find Waldo, Yet Again
Come as You Are: Nevermind The Parodies
Pillow Talk: 25 Strange Throw Pillows

Fly Me To The Moon...

Fly me to the Moon
Let me sing among those stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars

Nothing to add here, just really loved this picture.

Photo: A plane flies past the full moon on November 13, 2008, seen from the southern German town of Kalchreuth, near Nuremberg, Bavaria. (Timm Schamberger/AFP/Getty Images)

Three Imaginary Boys

A mopey 26-year-old once spoke musically to a 15-year-old. Can a 49-year-old do the same for a 38-year-old?

I was that 15-year-old (the pic is when I was 17, close as I could find) and The Cure diverted me from a path of Top 40 mediocrity. There wasn't a great moment of epiphany when I first heard Robert Smith, but there was when I saw his picture taped to the inside of a locker door of a girl I was far too shy to talk to.

She was what would now be called a goth, but this was the mid-80s in London, Ontario, a solidly staid and middle class town, so she was, of course, labeled a freak. There was a small handful of them at my high school and as somebody who belonged to no particular subculture, our paths never crossed.

So when I saw the birds-nest haired visage of Smith, I figured this was my way in. Get to know The Cure and I'd get to know her. It worked, kind of. For the next six years, I became obsessed with the band, but today I can't remember the name of my goth inspiration. I got as close as calling her one day, but it went no further. But my love affair with the band was intense.

I bought everything they released, pasted up pictures and extolled their greatness to all and sundry. But I never fully bought into the image, never teasing out my hair or lining my eyes and lips in black, which actually made me stand out at the concerts. Which led to one of my first, and best, geek showdowns.

One summer at an amusement park, two typical Cure fans, spying me wearing a tour shirt came up and accused me of not being a real fan, in the righteous way that only teenagers can muster. The demanded I tell them what the band's last two albums were and I responded by listing off The Cure's discography in reverse order, down to the UK-only release of Three Imaginary Boys, which I owned on vinyl. The backed off, apologizing profusely.

But during university, my ardor cooled, as it turned out I really wasn't a despondent teen. Their music remained static, but I moved on. So when I read a review of 4:13 Dream, the band's 13th studio album in 29 years, I was intrigued. Could I go back? Were they playing in this decade, or had they been standing still since I'd last paid them any mind?

The simple answer is not much has changed. Smith, the messiah of melancholy, is still feeling glum, proving that boys do, in fact, cry. The guitar work sounds au courant, but when Smith warbles "I won't try to bring you down about my suicide," he already has.

Above: Poster from the Toronto stop on The Prayer Tour, from The Cure Concerts Guide. Still one of the best concerts I've ever seen. Almost four hours!

Come as You Are: Nevermind The Parodies

Remember the baby chasing the dollar bill on the cover of Nirvana's seminal album, Nevermind? Yup, that's Spencer Elden, all of 17 now and likely chasing more than a buck for recreating this photo. Happily, this time he wore a bathing suit.


Of course this got me thinking, as I'm wont to do, about parodies of the album cover I've seen here and there, which are are now conveniently located below:


The most famous version was of a baby version of Bart Simpson chasing the almighty Krusty buck, for the November, 2002 cover of Rolling Stone. It's rare to get official parodies.


Of course the King of Parody is the other exception to the rule. "Weird Al" Yankovic's Off The Deep End, which featured Smells Like Nirvana:

Were so loud and incoherent
Boy, this oughta bug your parents
Yeah

You know you've had an impact when "Weird Al" spoofs both your hit song and your album art.


A nice take on a Van Gogh self-portrait and a comment on how much money everyone has made on the back of his art following his death. Shades of Courtney Love. Found on one of Worth 1000's brilliant photoshop contests.


A mashup of Jaws and Nirvana. Cute. Again, from the archives of Worth 1000.


Millions of users at a buck a download? I think Apple found their Nirvana with the iPod. From Flickr user axb500.


Just another way those bastards killed Kenny. From a South Park fan art page, in case you couldn't tell.


I think I mostly amused by the Neverfind band name. Yet another from the whizzes at Worth 1000.


And lastly, what roundup of parodies would be complete without a Lego entry? From a collection of Lego album cover parodies. Is there anything minifigs can't do?

Previously on Popped Culture...
Suddenly Last Supper
Popaganda: The Pop Culture Revolution
Would You Like Fries With That?
Find Waldo, Yet Again
Pillow Talk: 25 Strange Throw Pillows

I'm Coo Coo For Killing Stuff

I can't resist cereal mascot humour. Enjoy for the few days before Fox has it pulled down.

Update: Oh yeah, they pulled that, as expected. But too late, there are more versions out there.

All Movies Are Better With Muppets

It's been sometime since there was a new Muppet movie, and even longer since there has been a good one. While Jim Henson Co. is working on Happytime Murders, a muppet comedy in the "film noir detective genre," earlier this year FARK users tried their hand at inserting the "not quite a mop, not quite a puppet" characters into some more adult fare.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Gonzo takes gonzo journalism to a whole new, literal level. I always suspected there was something odd going on with him.


Single Orange Muppet: People have always suspected there was something untoward about the relationship between Bert and Ernie. And of course we now all know that Bert is Evil.


The Muppets Take Manhattan: In this post 9/11 world, stange outsiders conqouring New York takes on a whole other meaning.

Be sure to check out the FARK thread — there are dozens more.

Madness? This... Is... Lego!

Lego minifigs! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty... For tonight, we dine in Denmark! Flickr user keithcku has created an incredibly detailed version of a poster from 300, in celebration of 30 years of the figures.

There are a couple of Lego versions of the 300 trailer floating about on YouTube, among many other parodies, but none of them seem to match the visual prowess of the film, but this mashup with Monsters, Inc. seems to do the trick.

Imperial Stormtroopers... Wheeee!

Roger Denyer's t-shirt design combines to '70s classics: Star Wars and space hoppers. Who needs a TIE fighter or an AT-AT when you can bounce your way into battle? (Much like Fry does on Futurama's War is the H-Word.)

Now go and check out more of Roger's designs and pick up a shirt. If you had an online t-shirt store, he'd buy one from you.

Here Be Anthropomorphic Dragons

A map of online communities (click on the map for a larger version) and social networking from the web comic xkcd. It's from last year (so of course I'm only seeing it now) and already some of the lands should be resized (up Facebook, down MySpace) and a new island of lolcats is probably required, but other than that its incredibly detailed and funny.

Strange Maps, where I origianlly came across this clever piece of cartography, has a version with a slew of comments explaining some of the more obscure terrirtories. And I'm off to sail the Sea of Memes on my way to the Ocean of Subculture.

In A Voting Booth Far, Far, Away...

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Happy voting day, my U.S. friends. Here's hoping you get Lando Calrissian instead of Emperor Palpatine.

Boot Hill For King of The Hill

It's the end of the line for the Hill family of Arlen, Texas, after 13 years. Most TV shows don't make it that long, let alone cartoon. It would be a remarkable run were it not airing at the same time as The Simpsons, the juggernaut of the cartoon world.

The show was never as flashy as The Simpsons or as edgy as South Park or Family Guy, yet it carved out its own niche as an almost-realistic animated show. It was that realism that made the show unique in the 2D world. Characters felt real emotions and, most unusually, time progressed. Bobby grew older (ok, not 13 years older, but still) and characters changed. I was stunned when Nancy Gribble ended her 14-year dalliance with native "healer" John Redcorn and renewed her vows with her conspiracy-obsessed husband Dale. Changing a major focus of a character is just not done.

But all good things must come to an end and the show has had a good run — already having survived once cancellation from Fox. Hopefully the network allows for a finale, but I'll be happy if they just end the show like any other episode and I can go on believing that these congenial, redneck suburbanite Texans are carrying in the alley as normal. Yep.

The ABCs of Horror

An Alphabet of Horror for your pre-Halloween festivities. Jared von Hindman of Head Injury Theater has put together a ABC of horror movie monsters and ghouls (or at least he did a couple of years ago. I just got around to it via a link from Coolios, which is kindly linking to my Last Supper smorgasbord. Yay, interweb!) Anyway, Hindman's site sucked me in for quite awhile, just like current fave Topless Robot, which together make me wonder why I bother.

And seeing as I an name dropping sites, I picked the letter C above for Matt of Culture Kills who doesn't think clowns are scary, but has more than enough film-related fears to last a lifetime.

Music And Blasters And Old Jedi Masters

His name was Solo
He was a pilot
With a blaster at his side
And a smile 12 parsecs wide
There with Chewbacca
He was a Wookie
They met with Luke and Obi-Wan
About the Millenium Falcon
Docking bay ninety-four
Stormtroopers at the door
With a flash of Ben's light-saber, now there's an arm on the floor

At the Star Wars, Star Wars Cantina
The weirdest creatures you've ever seen-a
Here at the Star Wars, Star Wars Cantina
Music and blasters
And old Jedi masters
At the Star Wars...

I came across this video of Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine's parody of Barry Manilow's Copacabana last week and I can't get the damn thing out of my head — so I'm passing it on to you. Mind you I was already susceptible to this happening as Copacabana has always been a guilty pleasure of mine, often appearing in karaoke rotations.

Popped Culture — bringing you last year's videos, today!

Some Throws Are More Equal Than Others

Propaganda posters for the World Rock Paper Scissors Society's online museum. I love the Soviet-inspired, worker's paradise style. I first saw these on Friday, at the Toronto premiere of Mike McKeown's documentary Rock Paper Scissors: A Geek Tragedy.

It's a great film, the making of which equals the passion, time and money sunk into the World RPS Society by the film's main subjects, the Walker brothers. The film also has a real love of Toronto rarely seen on the big screen, especially by a Calgarian no less. I know Mike is looking for distribution, which his movie clearly deserves. I will let you all know if I hear anything.

In the meantime, Torontonian Monica Martinez was named the 2008 Rock Paper Scissors World Champion on Saturday, with a final throw of scissors beating paper.

Rock Paper Scissors - The Documentary

"A combination of Halloween, Mardi Gras. Really a Star Trek convention with binge drinking and much better looking women."

This weekend is the 2008 Rock Paper Scissors World Championships here in Toronto (I'm not kidding either, there's $13,000 in prize money). Along with that comes a screening of my friend Mike McKeown's film Rock Paper Scissors - The Documentary.

Mike worked on this for years (as did a couple other friends) and I've been waiting to see it for awhile. Here is the synopsis:

"The Walker brothers wanted to turn a child's game into a good-natured competitive sport, but when Rock Paper Scissors fanatics converge on the World RPS Championships, they're caught between big business, talk show pundits, Playmate mascots, and a battle of good versus evil that asks the question, "Can purity beat commerce?"

Rock Paper Scissors is a verité style documentary that follows the story of the Walker brothers and the evolution of RPS into a legitimate sport of skill and strategy, worthy of training and competition. Starting from humble beginnings with only the love of the game as their motivation, the Walker brothers reach a crossroads during the film as they're approached by corporate sporting giants Fox Sports and ESPN to back the sport with an official world circuit culminating with the annual world championships. The story is a classic Greek tragedy waiting to unfold.

As we navigate our way through outrageous characters, hilarious strategies and heated competition, one thing becomes absolutely clear -- RPS is much more than a game, it's a lifestyle. While it may sound like a mockumentary, these people are definitely real."

Hope to see you there...

Anatomy Of A Gummi Bear

I don't know if I'll ever be able to eat a Gummi Bear again. The idea that they have a full skeletal system and organs freaks me out a little. I suppose they are soft bones — makes them more chewy than crunchy.

This wonderfully twisted piece of anatomy comes from Jason Freeny, who has similar looks at the innards of Lego minifigs and balloon animals, which all remind me of a series of skeletons of cartoon characters. Faux anatomy is creepy fun.

Where The TV Truth Lies

Just watched Heroes and never has there been a truer TV title card.
Why. Won't. People. Stay. Dead!

Anyway Glark has put together a series of title cards that cut to the heart of what it going on shows like The Amazing Race, Lost, Battlestar Galactica and others.

(Link via Ka Ge, who really should update her blog.)

All Right Mr. Groening, I'm Ready For My Close-Up

The Simpsons are big. It's the pictures that got small!

Much of the joy of watching the yellow denizens of Springfield is the cornucopia of pop cultural references that make up every episode. I've always felt the show was my reward for a lifetime of watching TV and movies, especially as the writers and animators constantly borrow from classic films.

Of course, some references manage to get slip by, no matter how diligent ones has been about sitting on the couch and inside darkened movie theatres. For example, I never realized that a scene from Duffless, where Lisa was experimenting on Bart with two cupcakes was directly from A Clockwork Orange.

So imagine how happy I was to come across a Spanish Simpsons' site that has painstakingly matched screenshots of the show with their cinematic equivalent. I knew most of these, but it was still great to see them side by side, shot for shot. Below is one of my all-time favourites is the recreation of Psycho's shower scene in Itchy and Scratchy and Marge. Take that, Gus Van Sant. Check out Actualidad Simpson for many, many more.

Brush With Ungratefulness

Back in 1991, Ringo Starr said he would answer every one of his fan letters, "and I don't care if it takes me another 20 years." Seventeen years later, he's had enough.

Sure, his pledge was made by a cartoon version of himself on The Simpsons episode Brush with Greatness, but the sloughing off of his fans was no joke. Earlier this week the fourth Beatle posted a short rant on his website (which now appears gone), telling anyone who was still enamored with the drummer to stuff it.

"This is a serious message. I want to tell you please, after the 20th of October do not send fan mail to any address you have. Nothing will be signed. If that has a date on the envelope it’s gonna be tossed. I'm warning you with peace and love, I have too much to do. So no more fan mail. Thank you, thank you. And no objects to be signed. Nothing. Anyway, peace and love, peace and love."

Apparently peace and love is the equivalent of telling somebody "with all due respect" before you dump all over their idea.

Of course Ringo is under no obligation to sign anything for anyone, but I can't help but wonder what influence his Simpson appearance had on his level of fan mail.

Dear Marge,
Thanks for the fab painting of Yours Truly. I hung it on me wall. You're quite an artist.
In answer to your question, yes, we do have hamburgers and fries in England. But we call french fries `chips'.
Love, Ringo.
PS: Forgive the lateness of my reply.

Have people been sending him new mail ever since? And the show is in permanent reruns, so countless people have see it anew every month. And how many budding painters will give up their dreams, just because Ringo has gotten all crotchety?

Disco Will Keep You Alive

Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk,
I'm a woman's man, no time to talk...

For those who think disco sucks, knowing the Bee Gees mega-hit Stayin' Alive could mean the difference between life and death.

When administering CPR to a heart attack victim, the perfect rhythm is 100 compressions per minute and, according to the strut-inducing beat of Stayin' Alive clocks in at an almost perfect 103 beats per minute.

In a study to be presented at the Scientific Assembly of the American College of Emergency Physician's annual meeting, med students and physicians trained to perform CPR to the beat of Stayin' Alive maintained close to the ideal rhythm.

Take that, punk rock!

Supposedly Queen's Another One Bites the Dust also has the proper beat, but that's just negative, and we just don't go for that sort of thing around here.

And because you can't not have this song in your head...