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Stubbs the Zombie declared BAD ZOMBIE for eating people

People love attacking videogames. I’m sorry, let me correct that. Uninformed lawyers love attacking videogames. Its an easy target, everyone has them, and as surprising as this may sound developers don’t go to law school so they have a hard time defending themselves. It never fails, every time that a developer does something cool people get pissed off.

The Case:

Most recently, the game Stubbs the Zombie : Rebel Without a Pulse has come under fire by National Institute on Media and the Family*, not for the horrible pun in its title, but because it treats Zombies like they eat people. Please use the pause between this paragraph and the next to scream “DUH”.

The Evidence:

According to (the) NIMF, Stubbs and games like it are “…something we’ve never seen before.” Apparently Resident Evil was a Communist-controlled mass hallucination, along with other survival horror games and Fluoride. But to be fair practically everything has been done in games to some extent. Meaning that unless the game includes a neon blue rabbit/cyborg fighting an army of waffles in the middle of a highway in downtown Tokyo while ninjas in Carebear pajamas recite the Gettysburg address to a council of carpet salesmen selected by Santa Claus himself, then you can’t claim that its something that we’ve never seen before. Trust me. We’ve seen it all.

If you take the time to go to their website www.mediafamily.com and search for Stubbs you’ll get a nice little review just a bit longer than the warning label on a pack of cigarettes that reads (in part): “Players play as a zombie who comes back to life seeking revenge… Players cut skulls of humans to ingest their brains…”

Ignoring that the review resembles a bad lick of dialogue translated by a Japanese hobo, there’s a particular line that bothers me. “Players cut skulls of humans to ingest their brains…” When did that happen? I’ve beat the game twice in both single and Co-Op modes, and I’ve never cut anyone’s skull. Nibbled maybe, gobbled possibly, and ingested most definitely, but never cut. It must be from a bonus stage where Stubbs runs around with scissors trying to give out free haircuts.

On the Count of Skull-Cutting: Not Guilty

Also, the review has a guide at the bottom that sets different colors for different levels of offense: Red, Yellow, and Green. Red being extremely bad, Yellow meaning that there were “some instances of material in this category”, and Green meaning don’t buy this game, its so boring that even Media Family couldn’t find anything offensive in it. Two of the categories marked with yellow were Nudity and sex. Again, we have to put aside that there wasn’t any Nudity to rate in this game, so it would be easier to divide twelve by zero, and try to bend the laws of the universe to make sense out of a rating of yellow. I don’t see why Advocacy groups everywhere wouldn’t be jumping on Zombie sex as a good idea. I mean really, after seeing two decayed corpses getting it on would you desire sex with anyone ever again? Just thinking about it can make you celibate for a week or more. This also raises a few biological questions about fetid organs and blood pressure that I won’t get into here. Which can only lead us to one conclusion: That (a) NIMF has created a Hot Coffee mod for Stubbs and is refusing to share it. That’s not very Christian-like.

One of the biggest complaints as lodged by the title of MSNBC’s article on Stubbs the Zombie was that the game promoted cannibalism and that children would imitate it. No really. Stop laughing. I couldn’t make this stuff up, I’m not that smart. Lets tackle these one at a time.

You can’t declare that Stubbs promotes cannibalism and then turn around and call him a zombie. First of all, it’s in the job description that zombies eat brains. Not Mocha Lattes, not Spaghetti, not even Campbell’s soup in a can. Brains. Besides that, cannibalism is described as a creature that eats its own kind. Zombies are not humans. They only resemble humans, just like Predator, the Mona Lisa, and Michael Jackson. If anything that resembles a human were to be considered as a human, then biting the heads off of gingerbread men is a class A felony. Which means that there’s going to be a lot of grandmas doing some time.

To the second count, I’m not arguing that a 3-7 year old should be playing a brain-eating simulator, or even that they could play the game with any degree of deftness. I’m arguing that we really have more important things to worry about than 7 year-olds with eight teeth biting each other’s heads. I’m not getting worked up over something that happens every day at Kindergarten recess. Mr. President please forget Iran’s nuclear program, this pre-teen cranium biting and attempted head-rolling has to stop.**

On the Counts of Cannibalism and Child Warping: Not Guilty

Of course, the purpose is to protect children from “realistic” brain eating violence. How you would gauge whether a particular brand of zombie violence is more realistic than another is beyond me. Unless someone is secretly hiding Zombies in their basement, I don’t know how they’re even determining what a Zombie eating a human even looks like. I personally have never seen a zombie eat a human, met someone who has been eaten by a zombie, heard a rumor of someone getting eaten by a zombie, seen documentary footage of a zombie eating someone, or read about zombies eating people in the paper. How does anyone know what a realistic depiction of zombie eating behavior would look like? That’s right, nobody does. Suck it Mr. Thompson.

How about instead of bitching about violent games release a game that highlights no violence. Where the objective is to plant fruit, dig up fossils, and pick up litter. They already have a game like that; its called Animal Crossing and it’s fucking boring.

Final Verdict:

Stubbs is by far the best Futuristic-50s-Zombie-Horror-Comedy-Xbox game ever, and most certainly doesn’t make anyone think that they’re a zombie. If you disagree I’ll eat your brains.
*As an acronym is NIMF. That sounds like a group I’d like to get behind.

**If you really think that you can remove your head, roll it down the road and make it explode, please try. Then have your parents email an avi or mpeg version of the videotape to cj@cjdaweasel.com.

The Search for the Funny

Part IV.II : The Showdown of the Cute and Scary Finalists

Finally we had our two finalists:

Jesus Monkguins

Score: 136,004

Pros: Cute, Easy to Laugh at, possibly deadly

Cons: Christians with their humor glands removed wouldn’t find it funny, Poorly drawn, kinda dumb… correction: really dumb. correction: unbelievably dumb. ["Downright Retarded" -Ed.]

Laugh Factor: Absurdity is great, religious absurdity is better. When people take themselves so seriously, and then produce something like this its a bit like a 50ft tall monster that eats people knitting sweaters. Only with Jesus, and a bad drawing, which makes it better.

Handyman Baby Polar Bear (possibly a ferret):

Score: 951

Pros: As Jennifer put it: cute. Possibly evil, and did a fantastic job installing that hot tub upstairs.

Cons: Not near as scary as the Monkguin, but far fuzzier. In a duel the Jesus Monkguin would win, based solely on the fact that it would be difficult to kill something that doesn’t exist.

Laugh Factor: I thought I’d laugh until I cried when I saw him get the baseboards 1/4′ off, or the time that he accidentally bought porcelain polish for that steel frame. Ahhh… good times, but really not that funny.

WINNER: Jesus Monkguins

I just don’t have enough to say about this picture. It has the three easiest to ridicule into one package: Religion, Monkeys, and Hybrid Animals. Okay, maybe two of the easiest things to ridicule. Besides, anything that can make god cry is worth a second mention.

Funniest Person: Mr. T
Funniest Stereotype: Midgets (Super Munchkin Man)
Funniest Cute/Scary thing: Jesus Monkguins

Final Movie Title: Mr. T and Super Munchkin Man Versus The Monkeys of D.O.O.M. (this film as not yet been rated)

Now, to start my movie.

The Search for the Funny

Part IV.I : The Showdown of the Cute and Scary (Section 2)

Google Search 3: Pandas

This is quite obviously a picture of a baby Polar Bear trying to restore the oak flooring in a two story house near downtown San Francisco.

Scariness: 945

It’s not especially scary, being a baby bear. I do remember the story of Goldy.. hawn… and the three umm… panda bears. In which three bears were lifeguards… or something… and Goldie Hawn played the part of a soldier named Ryan, or Benjamin, or something. Anyway, the point is that you don’t fuck with bears.

Cuteness: 4

Jennifer decided that killer ferret instincts aside (she insists that it’s some kind of weasel), it looks really cute. At this point our disagreement over whether it was a bear or a ferret caused us to break out in a plastic sword fight. I won the duel because I broke the most stuff. I still say its a Polar Bear.

va SoH: 2

It seems logical that it would take at least two Klingon soldiers to kill a handy-man polar bear. One to lure him with an offer of free vinyl siding and the other to attack him from behind. I feel that one Klingon could not both sneak up behind him and give a good presentation of our fabulous products offered at reasonable rates.

Final Score: 951

Google Search 4: String Monsters

Do not be fooled by this picture. What you are seeing is one of the fearsome Kat Warriors of Alkamas locked in combat with the String Warriors from the Fourth Dimension. This battle was a bloody one with the Kat Warrior winning by only a narrow margin.

Scariness: 34
Prior to the battle, the bet was on the String Monster, being that it could transform itself into any form, and its “Cat’s Cradle”, was feared throughout the galaxy. The Kat Warrior had won by the end of the halluci… I mean battle, and posed no threat to anyone stronger than a sick toddler. Anything 34 miles away or more would have no trouble escaping.

Cuteness: 10
My sister is adamant that this is the cutest picture of the bunch. She almost went rogue and gave it an 11. Luckily I got to it first. Several swordfights, and a lot of broken Precious Moments figurines later, it was declared that a 10 was high enough.

Va SoH: .5

A paraplegic Klingon could beat this cat to death armed with a rubber pacifier and an empty DVD case. The only foreseeable problem is if the cat ran away, in which case the Klingon would need to roll to catch it. Hopefully it will run downstairs.

Final Score: 44.5

The Search for the Funny

Part IV.I : The Showdown of the Cute and Scary (Section 1)

Google Search 1: Children

At first I thought this was one of those rare shots of Bigfoot after a bad haircut, but it turned out to be, as Jennifer said “a mad little girl”. I’m going to take her word for it.

Scariness: 1

Midgets are funny, children are not. They destroy your life from the inside out and put peanut butter and jelly in the VCR. Though since this rating is based on “scariness” and not “annoying-ness”, the child… thing is only scary from one mile away or closer.

Cuteness: 2

Jennifer said that this is kind of cute, but not really cute. Yes that’s all she said. Her input is invaluable.

va SoH: 1

A blind Klingon Heroin addict could kill this thing with a stiff gym sock.

Final Score: 4

.

Google Search 2: Jesus Monkguins

I honestly thought this was a monkey. The idea that a monkey was thinking that Jesus was cool seemed kind of weird, so when my sister pointed out that it was a penguin, it all came together: Christians don’t make any damn sense.

Scariness: 135,983

I wouldn’t want to fight Jesus, much less Jesus with a super penguin/monkey hybrid sidekick. I figure that going up against Jesus with that kind of arsenal would be certain death.

Cuteness: 1

Jennifer said that the penguin was sort of cute, but being a Christian herself, said that even she didn’t need a monkeypenguin to remind her of the cool factor of Jesus. She gave the picture a perfect 10 for Retardation. And then she said something about Jesus crying over something. I wasn’t paying attention to her, hearing only the sweet sounds of the Baywatch opening theme coming from the living room.

va SoH: 20

It would take at least 20 Klingons to kill a ninja monkguin (monkey + penguin) trained by Jesus in the dark arts of walking on water. Besides, Jesus could turn all the water in their bodies to wine, getting them severely drunk, thus making the job of the Jesus monkguin fairly easy.

Final Score: 136,004

The Search for the Funny

Part IV : The Cute, The Scary, The Really Scary

The last part of my quest for the “Funniest Thing Ever” was to find something that was both cute and scary, like My Little Ponies.

In order to find something cute I was going to need an expert in the field of disgusting cuteness. Someone who had a complete disregard for how useful an item was, and who collect things based solely on their “cuteness”: my sister.

Also, I needed someone who had an underlying knowledge of what it was like to be scary, what it was like to be hated by millions for the ugly scariness that was their face. Someone who had been raised to the rank of hero on Planet Ugly and was defender of the “Early in the Morning with No Makeup” Fleet: my sister, Jennifer.

My arm hurts.

So we sat down and looked over a series of Google searches to find that elusive Third Piece to the puzzle. To assist us we developed a system to score what we found.

Scariness: This is how scary the subject is. Obvious scary things are: Aliens, Ghosts, Dentists and Republicans. This is rated on a scale of 1 to 238,856 depending on how many miles away from it you would have to be in order for you to feel safe. 238,856 is the distance to the moon, which is where you’d have to be to get away from the Republicans mentioned above. Considering that Bush Jr. is the only Republican that even shows interest in going to the moon, and he’s a guy who was given money to find oil in Texas… and couldn’t, I figure that the moon is the safest place to be.

Cuteness: How cute something is. My sister did all of these because I kept getting them confused with the scariness scale. Obvious cute things (as stated by Jennifer) are: Kittens, Clowns, My Little Ponies, and babies. (for those of you out there like me please substitute the preceding with: Stripper, Bikini Model, Baywatch, and Bikini Model Stripper on Baywatch respectively). The subject is given a rating of 1 to 10 depending on how many power puff girls it would take to equal its cuteness.

va SoH: This is my rating scale to give a tilt to the final outcome. It’s Klingon for “Ahh crap, it’s you”… I think. And since I have no idea how Klingon counting works, and according to my sources I don’t care, I used a scale of 1 to 20 based on how many Klingons with Bat’leths it would take to destroy an evil version of the subject.

The Search for the Funny

Part III : Awesome Stereotypes

So with the first part of my search complete, I moved on to the next, and probably my favorite part; the stereotype. I decided to call the KKK and get a few pointers on exactly how to point out flaws of one person and then attribute them to a whole race of people, and thankfully, they turned out to be a great help. The local chapter I called turned out to be a goldmine of rednecks with a great sense of racism. So I jotted down a few of the groups (along with a few I gathered from other sources such as Jerry Falwell, my grandpa, and a Huck Finn book)

The Huck Finn book was the least helpful considering I couldn’t read it. So to simulate the experience, in a language I’m almost fluent in: English, I tore up my Sega Genesis Instruction manual and threw the pieces in a box. Then I pulled the pieces from the box one by one and put them together. I got “[power butt] [on you]” and “[con] [your hand]“. While neither is very stereotypical, I’m sure that if I put them in a book some Christian group somewhere would protest me.

Without the ability to turn on my genesis, and having no other source of entertainment I turned to Google, my savior, and hoped that its infinite wisdom would guide me to my goal.

The first thing I found looked to be a Tupperware party. I’m not sure what all the bed sheets are about, but that might explain why they kept those burning marshmallows at the end of that long ass pole. Safety first.

The next thing I stumbled upon was a child version of the Blob. While not a stereotype, unless you count toddlers in cute pajamas, which is really scarier than it is funny, it is a picture I’m sure I won’t use somewhere else in my life, so here it is.

Then I found him. The funniest, stereotypical loon I could get my hands on. Let me warn you. When I first looked at this picture I laughed for almost 20 minutes, and was only saved from what would have been certain death by my screensaver, which just gave me the depressing flying Windows. It reminded me that yes, my ass was owned by Microsoft.

Being careful to shield my eyes, I uploaded the picture to this page, which may in fact be a picture of a can of baked beans, since I had covered my monitor with a towel for safety purposes. Meet your comedy doom. Its SUPER MUNCHKIN MAN.

So to recap we have determined that the funniest person is Mr. T, and the funniest stereotype is midgets, and most of all Super Munchkin Man. God was that funny.

The Search for the Funny

Part II : Finding an Unfunny Funny Person

The first step in finding the “funniest thing ever” I need to have someone that was funny. Not funny as in a comedian, but was just plain laughable. I had to choose someone out of date, someone who wasn’t relevant any more. Like Al Gore.

I figured that the 80s was such an embarrassment in general that pretty much anyone famous from this era was a solid choice. Aside from being the beginning of TMNT and Ghostbusters, this decade couldn’t be relied on for anything good. For visual purposes, below is a map of recent decades, and what they gave to the world instead of wasting time on curing cancer:

60s – Hippies, drugs, sex.

70s – Old Hippies, new drugs, often confused with the 70s

80s – High-water, big hair. Yeah, I’m sorry too.

90s – Ninja Turtles in their prime. Nike Pumps.

My first choice was that lady who did the thigh master infomercials in the 80s. But since I didn’t have a name, and “lady who did those thigh master commercials” was long, and just a bit cumbersome I figured I needed something a little shorter.

My next choice was Clara Peller, who was the “Where’s the Beef?” woman. But since no one knows her, or really has any clue where the beef actually went to, I was going to need someone else.

I finally hit the jackpot. I found someone who was generally laughable, and was actually looked up to in his prime. Some one who was so wild that when we look back on him we all say something to the effect of “What the heck?”, and in 20 years we’ll all be ashamed that we had anything to do with him. Mr. T was my man.