Movie executives on the other hand, have no idea. They think funny is watching Ben Stiller or Aston Kutcher getting themselves into awkward social situations with to-be in laws is funny. It’s not, no really. But it does make money, indeed. You see, movie studios are in the business of making money, not say – making a good movie. They take enormous risk to produce and market a hit movie, and they would be silly for them to not make another romantic comedy full of embarrassing moments.

The great thing is, there are  countries where there aren’t movie executives – and here we can find some truly hilarious things.

If you have cable, wait up until 2am on Tuesday and turn on ESPN3 – you will find yourself watching Magnús Ver Magnússon in a valiant attempt at hurling a cement filled keg over a 40ft brick wall, then sprinting up a hill while charioting a cart filled with viking women then race to the finish by pulling a semi truck on a rope.  To top it off, he has to do all of this before Jón Páll Sigmarsson reaches the finishing line.

Yes, you’re thinking – this is FAR too ridiculous to be true. I mean, who names their largest son Magnús Ver Magnússon? Well, if you went through the torture of birthing the worlds strongest man, wouldn’t you name him something terrible also?

Anyways, watching the world strongest man competition is one of the most hilarious forms of entertainment.  It is by no means at the top. For the top, we must turn to the self-loathing Japanese.

Imagine if you will, a ridiculous game in which I throw an impossible task at you which will result in you being thrown into a variety of lakes with differing amounts of mud in them, hurled onto rocks and put into general peril. You have just seen the glory that is Takeshi’s Castle – rebroadcast by Spike TV as Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. Spike get’s it, they understand that in order to make something funny, you have to not try, or to try to do something else.

In Japan, this show was a semi-serious attempt at a game show that was received as moderately funny, it had rules, regulations and governing bodies that made the entire thing organized. When dubbed and sliced and put on MXC the result was a tv show that was like a real-life Super Mario adventure, complete with enemy mushrooms and blocks.  This is the chaotic sort of funny that we Americans like. Take a serious game show and remove all the rules and show the people getting gouged in the face by a rotating boulder. Good.

Additionally, anyone who has ever been to Japan, or Youtube will have seen a variety of American actors who put get on the roster of Japanese commercials. So you get the best celebrities on the worst endorsements. Genius. Throw the super-mario sense of humor into the mix and you get some truly horrendous results. This is what the movie executives should be trying to figure out. How do we mix Magnusson strong-man competitions with the Japanese robotic obstacle courses?

Japan has already had an attempt, and it works. I about fell out of my chair watching this.

Then, after it all I discovered…

None of that stuff actually matters, I was far more interested, and distracted by the following letter that I had found on a friends blog.

It is the story of some dude who keeps sending in useless items of scientific significance to the Smithsonian institute. The letter was written by a curator to the some dude.

This sort of thing makes me grin with glee. This sort of humor really touches me in special places.

Yours in Science!

Mike

Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Sir:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled “211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull.” We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents “conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago.” Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the “Malibu Barbie”. It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to it’s modern origin:

1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.

2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.

3. The dentition pattern evident on the “skull” is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the “ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams” you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.
B. Clams don’t have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in it’s normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating’s notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results.

Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation’s Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name “Australopithecus spiffarino.” Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn’t really sound like it might be Latin. However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard.

We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation’s capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the “trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix” that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe
Curator, Antiquities