10. The Burger King
A very appropriate character to start this list, BK’s chief mascot somehow appealed to America while resembling a monster from a Tim Burton film. Just glance at The King and analyze: a plastic-faced member of royalty who sneaks up on unsuspecting persons and ambushes them with heart-clogging foodstuffs, ranging from Double Whoppers to breakfast sandwiches capable of derailing even the hardiest Elvis impersonator’s heart.
How can a being so otherworldly, so scary, so plastic possibly appeal to viewers not locked in an insane asylum? Such a mascot could have backfired big, making people swear off TenderCrisp sandwiches because of a creepy character. Instead of frightening a nation away from BK forever, however, The King somehow spoke to a generation of people desperate for the next ironic icon to latch onto and call their own. Burger King’s spooky spokesman went from demented concept to common conversation, as plenty of people (especially “uber-hip” college kids) talked about how The King was so creepy and weird, a topic exhausted so deeply I’m certain mothers in Third World nations now have views on the masked menace. The King generated buzz, but what keeps him so low on this list is that he hasn’t necessarily driven in the big bucks for BK. McDonald’s still reigns supreme (even with spots like this) while The King plays second fiddle. A very freaky fiddle.
9. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Today, R. Kelly or Trent Reznor or whoever can shit out a concept album about closets or George W. Bush or George W. Bush controlling the world from a closet. But back in the ’60s, albums served as veiled excuses to sell a couple amazing songs with a bunch of lame tracks tacked on for no reason. The Fab Four changed that with 1965’s Rubber Soul, the first LP ever where every track seemed listenable (writer’s note: OK, I have no proof that any album before Rubber Soul is completely listenable, but I’m a writer, it’s called hyperbole). Soon, bands released masterpieces such as Pet Sounds, and the album became respectable. So The Beatles took another risk and decided to create an album with a running theme throughout: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Now, this album sort of cheats a bit, because it didn’t technically end up a concept album. Pepper’s initial idea was having a band performing a concert throughout the disc’s running time. The Beatles abandon this premise about two tracks in, bringing it back only once for a song near the end. Still, any gamble could have turned the album into The Beatles’ biggest flop of all time, an embarrassment on par with Metal Machine Music or Dylan Does the Dead. Instead, the group crafted their magnum opus, one of the best LPs in the history of music and a revolutionary disc that influenced every subsequent concept album ever made. Though, I guess any album ending with “Day in the Life” could never end up a miscue.
8. Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?
You’d think a show revolving around semi-Neanderthal adults trying to outsmart 10-year-olds couldn’t possibly succeed in an intelligent nation like America, where flying, automobiles and the Kentucky Fried Chicken Famous Bowl were invented.
Now, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? is the most-watched show on Thursday nights. Guess America isn’t one big Mensa club after all.
7. The Super Bowl
Hard to imagine an event capable of bringing Prince in for halftime entertainment and making companies pay millions of dollars for thirty seconds of airtime as once a possible failure, but the Super Bowl wasn’t always a lock to be called an unofficial national holiday featuring an eight-hour pre-game show. Originally, the big game’s fate didn’t look so rosy.
The Super Bowl originally went by the long-winded moniker “AFL-NFL World Championship Game,” a collision between champions of the well-established National Football League and the upstart American Football League. Everything went wrong for the first game: It was held in the Los Angeles Coliseum, a massive (and ugly) stadium, and it didn’t come close to selling out, leaving tons of empty seats. Two networks broadcast the game (CBS and NBC), yet no footage of the game exists, as the networks taped over the original footage. More embarrassingly, NBC missed the second-half kickoff, so game officials stopped the game and redid the kick. U2 for halftime entertainment? Try marching bands.
But most glaringly, nobody thought the AFL would ever be able to compete with the NFL. Ever. And things looked grim, as the NFL’s Green Bay Packers trounced the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs in the first game. But the bowl game pulled out some competition, thanks in part to the AFL’s New York Jets’ stunning upset of the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III and, even more influentially, Kansas City’s blowout win over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV. Instead of being a failed experiment at pigskin perfection, the Super Bowl is the biggest day in American television and has tableware in its honor.
6. The Simpsons
Skits rarely transcend their original format and often fail as TV shows or movies, as anything ever based off an SNL sketch will attest. So, Fox’s decision to create an entire show based around short animated segments found on the so-so Tracy Ullman Show seemed like a big gamble. Add in the fact cartoons rarely appealed to grown-up demographics at the time (no Adult Swim to turn the minds of 20-something America into cookie batter), and a half-hour program completely drawn could be a complete network failure.
Eighteen seasons and endless catch phrases later, The Simpsons may very well be the greatest TV show of all time. Hopefully, The Simpsons Movie pulls off a similar underdog success story.
5. Superhero movies
Who are the harshest critics in the world? Indie-music fans? Supreme Court justices? RTVF kids? Nope, correct answer: geeks. The socially challenged people of the world attack plot continuity and poor design like hungry lions hunting gazelle. On message boards and blogs across the virtual land, they lie in wait, eyeing the latest piece of nerd-related media, ready to strike at the first sign of betrayal. The worst type of geek sniper is the comic book fiend, a kid caught up in the world of words in thought bubbles, ready to turn one graphic novel mishap into a scene reminiscent of the Salem witch trials.
The trend of studios putting out superhero movies could have ended in total disaster. One change to the beloved worlds of Spiderman or X-Men or whatever hero could have caused the geeks of the world to unite in a locust-like wave of nerd rage aimed at the studios responsible for mucking up their heroes. The studios got it right though, creating films very faithful to the source material (and just as action-packed) that won the nerdy masses over. In fact, a lot of geeks are defending Spider-Man 3, a film only those who have suffered serious head trauma can possibly enjoy, a sign Hollywood did especially well in winning the nerd demographic.
Though, I think even the ravenous nerds of the world can agree, The Punisher sucked. Real bad.
4. Westward expansion
America was a fine enough country with just the East Coast and the South, a nation on the rise and slowly becoming a player in the world scene. So why would the United States dare roam west, into unknown territory teeming with Native Americans, bison and the Midwest? As anyone whose played Oregon Trail can tell you, it seems like more trouble than it’s worth to pack up the covered wagon and go west, since you are only one click away from getting a fatal fever.
But the nation wasn’t deterred by the threat of Native American attacks or overplayed Facebook group-related accidents. Americans ventured into the great nothingness known as the Midwest, settling new areas along the way. Now, the whole westward expansion thing looks like a total flop if you look at the Midwest today (You got Chicago, the Mall of America and the world’s biggest ball of twine. Nothing else there.), but the pioneers weren’t dumb, and they kept going until they hit the greatest place in the entire world: the West Coast. California teemed with gold and became a hot spot (it still hasn’t cooled down), and even the Pacific Northwest flourished, still home to beautiful trees, majestic mountains and a glorious music scene. Heading west could have ended with nothing but a bunch of dead Americans, but instead the United States grew even stronger than it already had been. Plus, Pizza Hut was invented in Kansas. Never would have happened without the pioneers.
3. Titanic
Entertainment and history mix as well as Aaron Carter and success — not at all. The 1963 feature Cleopatra nearly bankrupted Fox, and The Patriot marked the beginning of Mel Gibson’s slow descent into madness. Hell, the only reason anyone saw Troy was because of Brad Pitt’s hiney. Most kids don’t view history class as a rip-roaring good time, but rather the perfect time for a nap before gym class.
James Cameron’s Titanic never should have blown up like it did. Centering on a romance aboard a doomed ship (many people “cleverly” pointed out at the time that everyone knew how the story ended), the film featured Leonardo DiCaprio, at the time best known for being the specially challenged boy in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, and a still-unknown Kate Winslet. How could a movie about love on a historically famous boat pull in big bucks, especially enough cash to make up the film’s $200 million budget? Plus, the damn film lasted longer than the Daytona 500.
But people loved it. Lured in by a schmaltzy love story and Leonardo DiCaprio’s adorable face (thanks, ladies), Titanic obliterated box office records and pulled in an astonishing $1.8 billion, enough to buy a small country. The film also swept the Academy Awards, becoming one of the highest-grossing and most-celebrated films of the ’90s. With a massive budget, a historically based story and relatively middle-of-the-road actors, Titanic should have never been such a hit (and definitely never made Warren Buffet-levels of money), but it broke through and became one of the biggest films of all time.
2. Dance Marathon
Philanthropy Guy A: Hey, we need a cool idea to raise money for worthy causes. What are some ways we can get students to donate lots of money for good while still having a good time?
Philanthropy Guy B: What if we had students raise money so they can take part in something really fun?
Philanthropy Guy A: Great! What should they do?
Philanthropy Guy B: How about we lock them in a room and make them dance around for 30 hours straight! No breaks, no sleep, no anything.
Philanthropy Guy A: …….
Seriously, who raises money (I don’t care how good the cause) to basically re-enact life at Guantanamo? No sane person should want to do that. But people love it! Hell, I’ve done the damn thing twice (once as a dancer, once as a blogger who actually stayed up even longer than the 30 hours) and I’d love to go back again. Kudos to the folks behind DM for getting people to participate in the hoedown of doom.
1. Weird video game controllers
You can sell a lot of crap to nerdy children (Remember Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Pokemon? Those shoes that had lights on them?) but one thing even the lamest kids never went for were novelty video game controllers. Only the most foolhardy children bought R.O.B., and the SNES Super Scope’s honking bazooka build kept it from being fun to play with outside of World War II reenactments in the backyard. And don’t even get me started on the Power Glove. Exotic video game controllers never appeal to anyone, even the loser kids spending most of their free time running around a sewer and dressed as an orc.
But two very unique controllers have not only taken off in video game circle, but have actually crossed over and become popular with the whole world. First off, the Nintendo Wii. Sony released the PlayStation and convinced the masses Nintendo was a “kiddie” system, a successful tactic, as the company with a plumber for a mascot sagged in sales compared to the Xtreme consoles put out by Sony and Microsoft. But now Nintendo is nearing the top once again, due to their new system, the Wii, which utilizes a bizarre controller. Players hold a remote, which looks sort of like the thing you use to change channels on your TV, and swing it about to affect actions on the screen. So, if I’m playing tennis, I swing it like a racket, or if I’m playing chef, I use it to stir stuff (no, this really does exist). The Wii has become the poster child for the latest generation of video games, taking off by luring in non-video game folks with the “Oooo, ahhhh, look how neat this is” factor, and appealed to the geekier side even while causing the bane of nerd existence (physical activity). Getting video game-centric kids to get up and move could win Nintendo the Nobel Prize.
More impressive is Guitar Hero, a music game made for arcades but sold for consoles. How do you play this game? Simple. You buy a $40 guitar-shaped controller and start strumming. This shouldn’t work at all. Nobody should want to shell out a nice-meal-out amount of money for a goofy-looking controller for a game which is basically Dance Dance Revolution featuring bad metal songs instead of brain-melting J-pop. But Guitar Hero is one of the most popular games around today, transcending its dumb controller concept to appeal to the masses. To be fair, Guitar Hero does offer escapist fantasies for many people: For the nerdy folks, it is there one chance to do something “cool” and impress their more popular peers, while it’s also the perfect outlet for alpha males/jocks/frat dudes/assholes to RAWK OUT WITH THEIR C*CK OUT without actually learning an interesting skill. Basically, it’s the Warped Tour in your living room.
By soaring above the greatest social barrier of our time (the social/dweeb divide) and uniting both Pikes and Paladins to swing at virtual baseballs and strum along to bad Iron Maiden songs, these kooky-controller games that could have ended up in the discount bin take top prize.