“Funny like how? How am I funny… like I’m a clown to you?”

10 Hilarious Realities Behind Your Favorite Movie Scenes

Like Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta^[1] before us, we could all use a good laugh lately – a welcome escape from our current housebound humdrums. There may never be a better time to curl up on the couch and revisit some legendary comedy films. And whether or not you agree with every entry, I hope you’ll have as many chuckles reading it as I did putting it together.

Here are ten of the funniest films in movie history, presented in chronological order with a so-bad-it’s-good wildcard at the end.

10 Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

No, it’s not just a flesh wound.^[2] It’s comedic genius and a no-brainer addition to this list.

No comedy group does “morons on a mission” better than Monty Python. Half a dozen knights crouching dutifully behind a boulder, cautiously peering out at “the beast” that ends up being a bunny (“That’s the most foul, cruel and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!”). Efforts to vanquish the rascally rabbit include the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

When the gang comes across the Bridge of Death, they must answer three questions from a troll to gain crossing privileges. The troll goes easy on the first knight before asking the second two easy questions followed by “What’s the capital of Assyria?” The questions get more ridiculous from there (“What is the air speed velocity of a laden swallow?”). And of course, an attempt to lay siege to a castle is viciously repelled via catapulted livestock.^[3]

One of the reasons Holy Grail is widely considered its funniest film, I believe, is that comedy often doesn’t age well. This gives an advantage to something set in the Middle Ages, eliminating decade-specific references that grow stale with time.

9 Airplane! (1980)

Surely you didn’t think^[4] I’d leave Airplane! off this list. Produced for what even 40 years ago was the astoundingly low budget of $3.5 million, the ensemble-cast laugh-fest gets my vote for funniest film ever.

If comedy were boxing, Airplane! is a lightning-fast bantamweight that peppers rapid-fire jabs. Airplane! is spaghetti at a wall shot with a machine gun: the comedy comes so fast that the audience isn’t done laughing before the next joke lands.

Of course, that recipe can only work if enough of the jokes are good. And from the main character’s drinking problem^[5] to an old lady who helps the stewardess translate jive,^[6] Airplane! is so fast and laugh-out-loud funny that it’s hard to catch your breath.

Of note, Airplane! excels at comedy welded with wordplay. When a flight attendant tells passenger and disgraced fighter pilot Ted Striker that “there’s a problem in the cockpit,” he replies “The cockpit? What is it?”, prompting her to explain that “It’s a little room in the front of the plane, where the pilot sits.”

This device, in addition to recurring jokes like “I picked the wrong week to stop…”^[7], allows Airplane! to fill 90 minutes with a plot that could have been told in 15. “Plane in danger, hijinks ensue” is a simple way to put the plot on (a sexually satisfied) autopilot^[8] and clear the path for undistracted comedy brilliance.

8 Caddyshack (1980)

Any movie that ridicules golf – per George Carlin,^[9] an “arrogant, elitist game which takes up entirely too much room in this country” – is OK in my book. Riding Rodney Dangerfield’s boorish irreverence, 1980’s Caddyshack does so with a style that smacks the smarm right off a country club member’s face.

As brash, obnoxious nouveau riche protagonist Al Czervik, Dangerfield is both fish out of water and bull in a china shop. After yelling “Fore!” and hitting one of his antagonist’s square in the nuts with a tee shot, a self-satisfied Dangerfield declares “I shoulda yelled two!”.^[10] Later, at a posh party chock full of snooty septuagenarians, Dangerfield deems the shindig “The dance of the living dead.”

The movie also showcased two early Saturday Night Live cast members. Chevy Chase showcases his unsurpassed ability to deliver deadpan lines as an offbeat straight man. “Do you take drugs, Danny?” he asked the caddy. When Danny answers in the affirmative, Chase replies “Good.. so what’s the problem?” Meanwhile, Bill Murray takes a break from his groundskeeping duties for a horticulture hole in one, teeing off on flowers^[11] while mimicking a subdued TV announcer (“He got all of that one!”)

As a bonus, 1988’s Caddyshack 2 was one of the rare sequels worth making. Not as funny as the original, but in the same ballp… I mean, on the same fairway.

7 The Naked Gun (1988)

No, that’s not Enrico Palazzo.^[12] It’s Leslie Nielsen again, deservedly making his second appearance on this list.

A side-splitting big screen follow-up to the comedy series Police Squad!, The Naked Gun is the funniest TV-to-movie adaptation ever. The highly unorthodox foursome of Nielsen, Ed Williams, Priscilla Presley and a pre-alleged-double-homicide OJ Simpson^[13] left audiences laughing—and wondering why Police Squad! was canceled after just six episodes.

Like Airplane!, The Naked Gun has a spaghetti-at-the-wall, rapid-fire style where deadpan one liners, silly slapstick and general stupidity fly full-speed at the audience. Nielsen plays the perfect idiot protagonist—a bumbling investigator drawing parallels to Maxwell Smart.^[14]

Notably, while many comedies struggle to close a film, because the need to sew up the plot tends to pump the comedy brakes, The Naked Gun’s saves its best for last. Punctuated by a mangled Star-Spangled Banner^[15] (“And the rockets’ red glare/buncha bombs in the air”), a pregame bloopers reel featuring a decapitated outfielder (“How about that?”), and Nielsen as a breakdancing umpire, the baseball game at the film’s finale is among the funniest fifteen minutes in cinema history.

6 National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

The question wasn’t whether National Lampoon’s would make the cut, it was which movie. I went with Christmas Vacation, which holds the distinction of funniest holiday movie ever (honorable mention to Will Ferrell’s deranged classic, Elf).

This movie has so many quotable lines it’s impossible to know where to start, but how about Randy Quaid, playing Ellen’s white trash cousin-in-law, emptying an RV sewage tank into the street grate while waving to Clark’s uptight neighbor: “Merry Christmas! Shitter was full!”^[16]

Christmas Vacation might be the most hilarious cascading-disaster movie ever made. Clark’s elderly uncle burns down his tree with a “stogie”, a last straw that causes Clark to go berserk with a chainsaw and cut down the evergreen on his front lawn, which smashes his neighbors window as it falls. He drags it in… and a squirrel jumps out, prompting Eddie’s dog, the aptly named Snot, to chase the rodent and wreck the rest of the house. The solution? Clark opens the door and both squirrel and dog leap out… into the arms of Julia Louis-Dreyfus,^[17] who’d come over to confront Clark over the tree that has smashed through her window.

Christmas Vacation is one of those movies that, more than 30 years later, can and never will feel dated. It will be there year after year, comforting us amid a sea of annoying in-laws. Be thankful for it – and say grace. (“Grace? She passed away 30 years ago!”)^[18]

10 Great Overlooked Comedies

5 Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

Yeah baby. Mike Myers’ James Bond parody was the funniest live-action movie of the 1990s (an honorable mention to Tommy Boy, starring the late great Chris Farley).

The film works on so many levels – the bad spy movie-mocking fight scenes (“Judo CHOP!”) and Myers’ impeccable comedic character development, to name just two. But perhaps the most successful element is the “double fish out of water” element. Myers plays both the protagonist Austin Powers and his archnemesis, Dr. Evil, each of whom have been reanimated after having been frozen for 30 years.

The result is an extra layer of cluelessness that allows Myers’ knack for awkward-moment hilarity to really pop; for example, Dr. Evil attempts to hold the world ransom for… “one MILLION dollars!”^[19] – a paltry price to prevent a lunatic from incinerating civilization with liquid hot magma.

Practically nothing Myers tries in this film falls flat. From pairing Dr. Evil with a clone 1/8 his size (“I shall call him… Mini-Me”) to his right-hand woman, Frau Farbissina (“head of the militant wing of the Salvation Army”) to Austin punching an old woman in the face^[20] out of suspicion she was really a “man, baby!,” the movie swings wildly and lands every punchline it throws. Its funniest scene might be Dr. Evil’s maniacal rant^[21] during a father-son therapy session, where he describes his childhood (“Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons… quite standard really.”)

4 South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

By far, the funniest animated movie ever is Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s adaptation of their envelope-pushing cartoon series, South Park. At a time when musical acts like Eminem and Marilyn Manson were causing parental uproar, Parker and Stone decided to troll the audience and society at large with one of the most subversive comedies ever.

I was in college when the movie came out. Sitting in the theater, I was surprised to see parents there with little kids; after all, the movie was rated R. Then it hit me: Parker and Stone had done this on purpose,^[22] luring unsuspecting parents to take their kids. After all, how raunchy could a cartoon really be?

At about ten minutes in, “Uncle F*cker,” the movie’s second musical number (yes, it’s a musical—a brilliant, foul-mouthed musical), answers this question with authority. (“Shut your f*cking face unclef*cker, you’re a c*cksucking asslicking unclef*cker…”) From there, a full album’s worth of uproarious songs, including the Grammy-nominated “Blame Canada,”^[23] amount to the funniest soundtrack in film history.

The movie’s plot – the South Park kids must rescue a pair of scapegoated comedians from being executed for telling fart jokes – ingeniously mirrors the reception Parker and Stone knew the movie would receive. The movie, then, both causes controversy and responds to it. And if you don’t like it, well, Cartman has a message for you.^[24]

3 Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

“I’m Ron Burgundy?”^[25]

His 2004 portrayal of a cluelessly misogynistic 1970s newscaster is the highlight of Will Ferrell’s comedic career – and that’s saying a lot. Like Austin Powers before it, you get the feeling ten minutes in that Anchorman is going to be a really stupid movie. And it is – it’s just stupidly terrific, a feat only pulled off with a fearsomely funny front man. From cheery-faced vulgar banter over the newscast’s closing credits^[26] (“You’re a real hooker, and I’m gonna slap you in public”) to wistfully musing that the name of his hometown San Diego translates to “whale’s vagina,” Ferrell’s delivery is sheer genius.

It’s the famous newscaster royal rumble,^[27] however, that puts Anchorman into the all-time top ten. Including Tim Robbins as a public access newsman (“No commercials… no mercy!”), the weapons-laden street brawl features Luke Wilson getting his arm chopped off with a machete while Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), a mentally-challenged weatherman, kills a horse-riding combatant with a trident. “Boy,” Burgundy says the next day to his team, “that escalated quickly.”

Still don’t think Anchorman belongs on this list? Then go f*ck yourself, San Diego.^[28]

2 Borat (2006)

Officially titled “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” Sacha Baron Cohen’s brilliantly offensive depiction of a foreigner exploring American society is the most side-splitting mockumentary ever (honorable mention to 2000’s Best in Show). Like his groundbreaking TV series Da Ali G Show, the movie’s greatest asset is that its subjects aren’t in on the joke.

As Kazakhstan native Borat Sagdiyev, Cohen uses America’s faux-inclusion and racism against it in a way that is revealing and revolting, yet hysterical. At a dinner party, Borat pleads ignorance of not only American customs but American indoor plumbing, graciously handing the host a bag with his feces after using the restroom. At a rodeo, he declares his support for America’s controversial Iraq War by declaring – to a ravenously applauding crowd of rednecks – “we support your war of terror” and hoping “George W. Bush drinks the blood of every man, woman and child of Iraq!”

At a honky tonk, Borat performs a song called “In My Country There is Problem,” eventually getting the crowd of cowboy hat-wearing dimwits to clap and sing along to the refrain “Throw the Jew Down the Well,^[29] so my country can be free!” When he meets an actual Jewish couple – a kindly old man and wife renting a room in their home to overnight guests – Cohen flips his mockery to the Middle East’s rampant hatred of Jews by throwing money at cockroaches, whom Borat believes are his shape-shifted hosts^[30] (“You could barely see their horns”).

1 Superbad (2007)

Moving into the most recent set of big-screen comedians, we’d be remiss not to include Seth Rogan somewhere on this list. And while The 40-Year-Old Virgin gets due consideration (and has Paul Rudd – whom everyone loves),^[31] 2007’s Superbad beats it out by the tip of an obsessively-drawn penis^[32] from a grade-school Jonah Hill.

Superbad is one of the rare comedies that manages to incorporate and resolve a variety of plot twists without sacrificing the humor. Difficulty getting alcohol for a high school graduation party, tension between the two main characters as each goes to different colleges, teen get-the-girl ambitions and insecure police dickishness are A, B, C and even D stories that combine to make the film both heartwarming and side-splitting – a rarity for R-rated comedies.

Superbad’s physical humor is particularly outstanding. Fogel’s nervousness as an obviously underage liquor store customer, including his ridiculous attempt to small-talk the cashier^[33] (“Been drinking the stuff for years… I hear they’ve recently added more -twitch- hops”) is interrupted by one of the best movie face-punches ever.

When the cops show up to interview the witnesses, his single-named fake ID draws suspicion and then pity, and the legend of McLovin’ is born.

+ The Room (2003)

“It’s ‘The Room’ bad.”

That was a film industry friend of mine reacting to the 2019 movie Cats, roundly mocked as among the worst movies ever made.^[34]

2003’s The Room – written, directed by and starring the eccentric, marble-mouthed Tommy Wiseau, who invested millions of his own money to produce and release it – was so bad (and so ridiculously weird) that it sparked a cult following (including a talking bobblehead)^[35] and even a hit movie about its making, 2017’s The Disaster Artist.

It’s awesomely awful. The dialogue, whose foibles include a prominent character announcing she has cancer, then never referencing it again, seems written by a bot that studied human behavior, albeit poorly. Two awkward, waaaaay too long love scenes leave the audience wondering whether Wiseau is familiar with basic human anatomy, and for some odd reason there are pictures of spoons in the background^[36] – prompting cult followers to fling silverware during indie theater screenings.

“So what?,” you may be thinking. “Lots of movies are awful.” True, but The Room wasn’t just parodied by mainstream Hollywood: it was torn a new one by the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Now called RiffTrax, the trio makes a killing from killing bad movies. Watching RiffTrax roast The Room^[37] is the funniest cinematic experience I’ve ever had. I highly recommend it.

10 Hilariously Horrifying Foreign Marketing Fails

When people think of the most iconic food scenes set in movies, that one in Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman drinks the $5 shake is definitely at the top, but what are the most hilarious scenes featured in comedies? The ones mentioned here range from the incident in Some Like it Hot where Jack Lemmon, dressed as a woman falls out of bed after someone stuffs ice cubes down his back, to the one in Mrs. Doubtfire where Robin Williams, also dressed as a woman, sets his shirt alight while he’s leaning over the hob. Here are 10 of the funniest movie scenes that contain food and drink.

Top 10 Disgusting Foods Westerners Eat

10 Groundhog Day

This film was released in 1993. When Bill Murray finds out he’s living the same day of his life over and over again he realizes he can do whatever he wants without having to deal with the consequences. This includes shoving a whole slice of cake into his mouth in one go. A range of biscuits, ice-cream, donuts and milkshakes can also be seen around the table where he’s sitting and Andie McDowell doesn’t look very impressed. While he sits there with a cigarette in one hand and a whole pot of coffee in the other she asks him whether he worries about cholesterol or lung cancer. He simply replies:

“ I don’t worry about anything anymore.”

At the moment it might feel like we’re all living the same day over and over again but watching this film will cheer anyone up.

9 Pretty Woman

An up-to-date version of the classic film ‘My Fair Lady’. Instead of the ‘guttersnipe’ played by Audrey Hepburn who is shown selling flowers on the street, Julia Roberts plays a prostitute hired by Richard Gere as an escort, attending a range of business and social functions. While Audrey Hepburn learns to talk correctly by singing ‘The Rain in Spain’, in Pretty Woman Julia Roberts has to be taught how to use a wide range of knives and forks properly for a dinner party.

She becomes confused because her salad doesn’t arrive at the right time and she’s forgotten which fork to use. There’s also the point where the snail she’s trying to eat flies across the room with the waiter smiling and letting her know: “Happens all the time.”

8 Bridget Jones’s Diary

In this modern comedy version of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, Renée Zellweger is a 32 year old woman who starts writing a diary to reflect her social life and two men she’s interested in, played by Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. In this scene she’s making a birthday dinner for friends with Colin Firth as her assistant.

After leaving the blender open and covering herself with the contents after they fly out, she wonders what to make instead and creates some blue soup, colored by the string she has left around a leek in there. This is the first time that Colin Firth makes a joke in the film, eating it and saying “this really is the most incredible shit”, while laughing.

7 Meet the Parents

With Ben Stiller playing a young nurse named ‘Gaylord Focker’, travelling out to meet his future father-in-law for the first time, this film really shows the full potential of Robert De Niro as a comedic actor. One of the funniest moments in the film is before dinner when De Niro reads a sad poem around the table about his dead mother. To try and cheer people up, Ben Stiller comes into the room with a bottle of champagne. When the cork flies out of the bottle, it hits a large urn holding the mother’s remains. If this wasn’t bad enough, the cat then walks over, sniffs the ashes and pees on them. Ben Stiller has already told the family about his experience in milking cats and saying ‘Oh you can milk anything with nipples’. Then there’s that funny line where Robert De Niro replies: “I have nipples. Could you milk me?”

6 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

There are so many funny food moments in this film from 1971, like the part where ‘Augustus Gloop’ falls into a river of chocolate, gets pulled into a pipe and then stuck. There’s also the funny scene where the young girl ‘Violet Beauregarde’ grabs a piece of chewing gum from Willy Wonka who warns her not to eat it. After enjoying the three course dinner taste that comes off it, she then starts to balloon and her face turns blue, with Willy Wonka sighing and saying “It happens every time they all become blueberries.” Some of his other funny, memorable quotes include:

“If the good lord had intended us to walk he wouldn’t have invented roller skates.” “Hurry please. We have so much time and so little to see. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it.”

The second version made in 2005 and starring Johnny Depp has some funny moments but no one can outshine Gene Wilder as the original Willy Wonka.

10 Crazy Times People Used Food As A Weapon

5 Mrs. Doubtfire

In this film, Robin Williams is hilarious, playing a divorced man who turns himself into a female nanny so he can keep seeing his children. There is a funny scene where Robin Williams is learning how to cook for himself but trying to do this while he’s dressed up as a woman. Forgetting about the fake breasts he’s put on, they’re set on fire as he leans over the hob. Two saucepan lids seem to be the best way to put the fire out. There’s also the scene where he throws his face into a cream pie to hide his identity, pretending it’s a face mask.

Reviews may have been mixed when it came out in 1993 but since then Mrs. Doubtfire has been voted by the American Film Institute as one of the top 100 comedies of all time.

4 Some Like it Hot

First released in 1959 and often named one of the greatest films of all time, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon’s characters are still hilarious, working as musicians and then dressing themselves up as women after witnessing a massacre. They both have their eyes on Marilyn Monroe and in this scene she’s having drinks with Lemmon’s female character in the sleeping berth of a train. As the other women decide to join in, food and drink is passed around, with some being put into hot water bottles. Then someone throws ice-cubes down Lemmon’s back. Accidentally pulling the emergency break the women are all thrown out of the sleeping birth and onto the floor of the train.

This film may be over 60 years old but the last line has been voted one of the best in movie history, where Lemmon admits to a man he’s seeing that he’s not really a woman. The man simply shrugs and says: “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

3 The Breakfast Club

The whole of this high school comedy from 1985 is set in one place, the school library where five students are serving out their detention. When it comes to lunchtime they’ve all got very different tastes . While Molly Ringwald takes out chopsticks to eat her sushi one of the boys says, “you won’t accept a guy’s tongue in your mouth but you’re gonna eat that?”

The school wrestler, played by Emilio Estevez, pulls out six big bags of food to eat. Everyone’s eyes then turn to the girl at the end of the room who throws the meat from her sandwich into the air where it hits a modern work of art. Then she opens the coke can before leaning over and licking the fizz off her desk.

2 Julie and Julia

Made in 2009, in this film Meryl Streep plays a chef taking lessons in Paris who is the only woman in her class. Wanting to impress the teacher and meet the same standards as the men she needs to practice quite a lot and is absolutely delighted with herself when she flips an omelette for the first time. Learning to cut onions quickly and carefully Meryl Streep is still practicing when her husband comes home one night and is not even able to come through the front door because his eyes are watering so much. Asking him if he is hungry, he quickly says “No” before storming out with his hands over his eyes.

1 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

This 1984 sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark is set in India in 1935 where Indiana Jones is asked to find a mystical stone. This disturbing but humorous banquet scene is set in a palace where he’s staying as a guest with two others. Some of the delicacies include a snake which is sliced open to reveal lots of live ones and seems popular among the guests. The soup might appear normal at first but once the steam has cleared away, the eyeballs can be seen floating on top.

Luckily for the actors, these pieces weren’t real. What were made to look like chilled monkey brains were actually made of custard with raspberry sauce. The beetles were not real but made of plastic with custard that slid out when someone bit into it.

10 Bizarre Origin Stories About Your Favorite Foods

Think you’re too old for cartoons? Think again. Some of the most hysterical shows in TV history have been animated, often only bluffing at younger audiences while sneakily saving the biggest yuks for adult viewers. Matricidal fantasies, sexual innuendos and unsparingly un-PC jokes seem more palatable on pen and paper, often giving cartoons leeway unavailable to us flesh-and-bone folks.

Here are the ten funniest cartoon shows ever, listed in order of their debuts. If you disagree, please refrain from smashing me with a mallet or pulverizing me with an anvil.

Top 10 Real-Life Inspirations For Famous Cartoon Characters

10 The Bugs Bunny Show (1960)

Ain’t he a stinker? Yes – an absolutely hysterical one. Premiering in 1960 and morphing into various iterations in the ensuing decades, The Bugs Bunny Show was more entertaining and flat out funnier than any animated series that came before it.

From its inception, the program was an ensemble vehicle – a means of showcasing the lengthy list of Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies characters that graced the airwaves starting in 1948. The Bugs Bunny Show used the franchise’s marquee character – that wascally wabbit himself – as a springboard to promote and popularize his cartoon cohorts, many of whom have become cherished characters in and of themselves. The despicability-professing Daffy Duck, the gregarious Foghorn Leghorn, the stuttering swine Porky Pig, the seemingly-too-angry-for-gun-ownership Yosemite Sam and the sexual assault enthusiast Pepé le Pew all made appearances under Bugs’ banner. In 1966, the show merged with another catch-me-if-you-can trickster to become The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, hysterically showcasing the thousand and one ways to kill a coyote, albeit temporarily.

But it was Bugs himself that often stole the show. Whether tricking hopeless hunter Elmer Fudd into shooting himself yet again, crossdressing as femme fatales ranging from Marilyn Monroe to Little Red Riding Hood, or conducting an opera singer into first nearly suffocating, then imploding the opera house upon himself, Bugs made superfluous injury fun as few others can.

9 Inspector Gadget (1983)

What’s the two-word answer to both 1) one of the funniest animated shows ever and 2) Matthew Broderick’s biggest career mistake? Would you believe… Inspector Gadget?

The only spinoff to make this list, Inspector Gadget is basically Get Smart minus the sexual tension – with a crafty niece named Penny replacing the sultry Agent 99 – and, instead of Maxwell Smart pursuing the evil but comedically futile KAOS syndicate, our cartoon Columbo bumblingly foils plots birthed by Dr. Klaw’s M.A.D. crime outfit.

The other link, of course, is Don Adams, the actor who both portrays Maxwell Smart and voices Inspector Gadget. A dunderheaded cyborg law enforcement officer, Gadget, like Agent 86 before him, saves the day through a combination of dumb luck and savvy help from secondary characters. Throughout, Gadget’s device are an inventive… well, device, allowing our hero to alternately overcome obstacles and screw situations up terribly. Traffic jam? Go-Go Gadget van! Plummeting to your imminent death? Go-Go gadget copter! Need to strangle a killer shark? Go-Go Gadget necktie … until the shark drags you around the tank like a marionette.

But the most effective tool in Gadget’s ample arsenal is Don Adams’ impeccable comedic timing. Few actors play the fool better than him – an awkward, face-palming and altogether hysterical idiocy that carries over to his animated avatar.

8 The Simpsons (1989)

When The Simpsons debuted on December 17, 1989 on the three-year-old FOX Network, George H.W. Bush was in his first year in office, the Berlin Wall had fallen just a month earlier and the Internet didn’t exist. Thirty-two years and over 700 episodes later, Matt Groening’s yellow-skinned family is the longest scripted television show in American history.

Although by today’s coarser standards the show is comparably docile, when The Simpsons debuted it was edgy to the point of widespread controversy. The recipe was there: An adult-ish cartoon on primetime network television with a character, Bart, emulated by kids everywhere. Almost overnight, T-shirts with Bart’s signature expressions – including “I’m Bart Simpson… who the hell are you?” – were banned from schools across the country.

Regardless, The Simpsons didn’t need controversy, because it was, and remains, flat-out funny. The best episodes revolve around Homer, the underachieving, hare-brain scheming, stereotypical sitcom doofus dad. But even when the donut-scarfing, Duff beer-chugging patriarch is sidelined, The Simpsons has the largest, deepest bench of recurring characters in TV to keep it from going stale.

An older-than-dirt and richer-than-sin boss with a fawning, obviously homosexual assistant. School days consisting of nerds, bullies, a stoner bus driver and checked-out teachers. A product-shilling kids show host named Krusty the Klown – aided mightily by the uber-violent Tom & Jerry knockoffs, Itchy & Scratchy. The Simpsons started with a family and built a broader universe that gave it both ample comedic outlets and, of course, staying power.

7 Ren & Stimpy (1991)

Looking back, it’s mind-boggling that the farting, nipple-obsessed adventures of an angry Chihuahua and his clueless cat cohort was a Saturday morning kids’ cartoon – and on the squeaky-clean Nickelodeon network, no less.

Stylistically, Ren & Stimpy alternates between a universe seemingly created by a stoner a few joints in (no one comes up with a superhero named Powdered Toast Man sober) and one dreamt up by that same stoner after finding his magic mushrooms stash. Visually trippy and musically eerie, the action catapults between a dog whose head is about to burst with rage, and a cat whose head has nothing in it to burst.

In one hysterical scene, Stimpy affixes a device to Ren’s head that keeps him uncharacteristically merry, before turning on his favorite tune, “Happy Happy Joy Joy.” As the song concludes, we see Ren, maniacally grinning ear-to-ear, bashing his unwanted helmet with a hammer along to the cheery chorus.

Not surprisingly, the show’s creators came into frequent conflict with concerned network executives. Several episodes had violent, gruesome, or suggestive scenes shortened or removed, including a sequence involving a severed head, and a close-up of Ren’s face being grated against a man’s stubbly beard. Fortunately, one signature scene survived the cutting room floor: a sing-songy commercial for Log, whose versatility includes being “great for a snack, it fits on your back, it’s Log! Log! Log!”

6 Beavis & Butthead (1993)

Uh-huh-huh-huh, you dumbass. Of course Beavis & Butthead made the cut. Despite the unforgivable crime of inventing modern reality television with 1992’s The Real World, MTV – short for Music Television – also contributed one of the most hysterical cartoons ever.

Beavis & Butthead were a product of their unique moment in time: teenage Gen Xers slacking off by doing the most slack-centric thing imaginable in the early ‘90s: watching music videos. Brilliantly, the show not only gave MTV a hit series but, through it, a vehicle to promote both music videos in general and certain artists in particular – typically head-banging acts the Metallica and AC/DC t-shirt-wearing pair could thrash along to from their well-worn couch.

The show is so stupid that it’s smart. A pair of white trash-adjacent, semi-literate 14-year-old miscreants sticking M-80s up frogs’ asses, stabbing each other in the eyes with pencils in class, and hopelessly pursuing every pubescent male’s perpetual goal – to “score,” as Butthead so eloquently puts it.

At its heart, Beavis & Butthead has a Seinfeldian component to it, insomuch as the duo’s mundane adventures accomplish exactly nothing and have zero point. It’s just a couple of antihero losers failing at everything – and it just works. Notably, Beavis & Butthead birthed a successful spinoff, Daria (whom the two called – what else – “Diarrhea”), that received serious consideration for inclusion on this list.

5 South Park (1997)

A quarter-century ago, Trey Parker and Matt Stone premiered a crudely drawn cartoon on a little-known cable channel called Comedy Central. Showcasing the mountain-town tribulations of four 8-year-old boys, South Park’s pilot episode featured one of the children, Eric Cartman, getting abducted by aliens. Its title, “Cartman Gets an Anal Probe,” hinted at the groundbreakingly offensive humor to come.

South Park is great for two reasons, the first being its main characters. Cartman is a pudgy, foul-mouthed bigot who frequently goes full anti-Semite on his Jewish cohort, Kyle. Stan is the nervous “straight man” of the quartet, while Kenny, muffled under a hood, finds a way to get killed each episode.

The recurring cast is just as hysterical. A wise chef voiced by R&B singer Isaac Hayes who brags about his “chocolate salty balls;” a balding transvestite schoolteacher who can’t wait for someone to “pound my vag;” a Christmas Poo named Mr. Hankey who symbolizes the season’s rampant consumerism.

South Park is at its best when using a “child’s medium” – cartooning – to parody or troll society. One recent winner came when Cartman messes with his parents’ Amazon Alexa by swearing and adding disgusting items to their online shopping list. Many viewers reported that their own Alexa heard Cartman and acted accordingly – a brilliant prank indicative of the show’s mocking genius.

4 Family Guy (1999)

The Griffins did what few other shows have accomplished: they returned from a multi-year cancellation to achieve longstanding success.

The first three seasons of Family Guy were… OK. The animation was unrefined, and the show lacked the anything-goes, go-for-the-jugular bite that defines it today.

Like other contemporary cartoons, Family Guy gets away with comedy that would cause human-acted shows to get cancelled – both from networks and uber-sensitive society in general. Gay jokes; racist tropes (including a money-loving Jewish storeowner and an episode where Peter, obsessed with his new bullwhip, conspicuously approaches the home of his Black friend); an insatiable neighbor’s rapey escapades; and even the frumpy daughter’s frequent suicidal gestures are all leaned into without fear of repercussion – a refreshing offensiveness in the vein of Archie Bunker.

Two of Family Guy’s attributes stand out among also-rans. First, the show both knows and double-downs on its audience: young and middle-aged men. A prime example is its epic, inside-gag-riddled Star Wars parodies, starring Peter as Han.

The second is the simple fact that the baby, Stewie, might be the funniest cartoon character of all time. A wise-cracking, sexuality- ambiguous evil genius, Stewie waffles between inventing inter-dimensional travel and not knowing his shapes, while employing the show’s signature cutaway segments to reference everything from matricide to dancing topless at a gay bar.

3 The Ricky Gervais Show (2010)

How talented is Ricky Gervais? He did something never intended to be a cartoon that became among the most laugh-out-loud funny animated series ever.

In 1998, Gervais and fellow comedian Stephen Merchant started a radio series that was mostly just them telling silly stories. It aired for a few months before ending so the pair could collaborate on the soon-to-be-legendary TV series, The Office. The radio show returned in 2001 with a producer named Karl Pilkington. It was a match made in comedic heaven… because Pilkington is an idiot, and Gervais’ brand of humor is made for mockery.

Karl’s comments were so odd, and his answers to standard hypothetical questions so inanely imagistic (Ricky: “What would you do if you knew the world was ending?”; Karl: “Well… I’ve always wanted to kick a duck up the arse.”) that making a surefire hit cartoon meant nothing more than animating a ready-made, prerecorded radio program.

As an unintentional comedic motherlode, Karl’s moronic brilliance cannot be overstated. Here’s a highlight reel, where he muses how he’d trust jellyfish more if they had eyes (“since, you know, you can look a fish in the eyes.”); repeatedly calls British film star, Clive Owen, Clive “Warren,” prompting a hilarious cutaway sequence; and answers a question about what he’d do with an exact clone of himself by wondering aloud: “How would I know which one I was?”

2 Rick & Morty (2013)

Rick & Morty follows the freewheeling, intergalactic adventures of a megalomaniacal septuagenarian and his tepid teenage grandson. Armed with a portal gun and an endless arsenal of gadgets, weapons and anecdotes, Rick Sanchez drags his hesitant helper, Morty, on hilarious half-hour missions ranging in importance from the annihilation of Earth to a multi-thousand-some orgy with a goddess-like former love interest who embodies the residents of an entire planet.

The show has an obvious advantage: a literally infinite universe from which to invent sick, weird, nerdgasmic comedy. Rick takes his son-in-law, Jerry, to a spa with an invincibility shield. Alien children run around with real guns shooting each other, but pop right back up because dying is impossible… until Rick gets into a fight on a rollercoaster, which spins out of control and shatters the forcefield. The same kids shoot each other again; this time, they stay dead.

No plot? No problem, Rick can just turn on the intergalactic cable and let hilarity ensue, like a leprechaun getting gutted by kids for his Strawberry Smiggles. “Jeez, Rick,” says Morty. “That’s some pretty hardcore stuff for a cereal commercial.”

In another episode, Rick and Morty embark on a roundabout, time-traveling journey to 1998, for the express purpose of getting a short-lived dipping sauce that McDonald’s introduced to promote a Disney movie. The episode was so popular that McDonald’s brought the sauce back for a limited time.

1 Son of Zorn (2016)

This list’s most recent and shortest-lived entry is “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” on steroids. Son of Zorn depicts an animated barbarian brute dropped into modern day, live action society, complete with a human ex-wife and son. It’s basically He-Man in suburbia – if He-Man told R-rated jokes and threatened to murder innocent people.

The premise: A warrior from the fictional island of Zephyria moves to Orange County, California, to reconnect with his ex-wife, played by Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Cheryl Hines, and teenage son Alangulon, nicknamed “Alan.” Zorn tries his best to pick up where he left off with Alan (impressed, Hines notes that Zorn has “got a job, got an apartment, even freed all his slaves!”), but is perpetually thrown off course because… well, because he’s a cartoon barbarian. Along the way, Zorn gets a job where he literally can’t comprehend his boss’ womanhood, and incessantly intimidates his ex-wife’s boyfriend, played by Tim Meadows.

In one scene, Zorn orders a steak at dinner. Asked how he’d like it cooked, he answers “Uh… not. Let’s go with ‘not’.” Later, he gifts his son a giant animated falcon from his homeland. When Alan’s mom refuses, a miffed Zorn stabs the enormous bird with his sword.

Unfortunately, Son of Zorn never really found an audience, and lasted just a single season. Netflix, Amazon and Hulu: we’re looking at you for a revival.

Top 10 Pro-Nazi Propaganda Cartoons From World War II

Most of the time, when somebody upsets us, we attempt to stay calm, offer our forgiveness, try to be the bigger person, and move on. However, in some scenarios, we just cannot suppress the urge to seek some sort of revenge. And some people out there have resorted to some wacky and hilarious revenge-seeking methods! Try not to get any ideas as we list 10 of these clever and funny—and hopefully harmless—acts of revenge.

Related: Top 10 Times Animals Held Grudges Against Humans and Took Revenge

10 The Lone Tattoo

Whenever somebody discovers that their other half has been cheating on them, their initial reaction is usually to confront the cheater to express their fiery emotions. However, this was not the case for one Twitter user, who managed to remain calm and devise a simple but genius revenge plan.

“My boyfriend cheated on me, so I convinced him to get matching tattoos…he went first, and I went home.” Cheating usually results in a lot of consequences, but an ironic tattoo isn’t usually one of them. What an incredibly effective way to teach a lesson because now the man has been left with a constant reminder of his mistake, permanently engraved on his skin!^[1]

9 The Big Rock

Newly divorced couples are often filled with the feeling of wanting vengeance. This was particularly the case for Dany Larivière, the mayor of a small Canadian town. He felt so much bitterness when he and his wife got divorced that he decided to finally give his wife the big rock she had been asking for.

Obviously, she had been talking about a big, sparkly diamond ring, but he took it to the next level. He took her words quite literally, leaving a 20-ton boulder in her front lawn on her birthday! He even spray-painted the message “Happy Birthday” over the rock. Unfortunately for Larivière, after undergoing an investigation, he actually faced charges for his petty act. As a result, some might say that he hit rock bottom.^[2]

8 Dance, Thief, Dance!

Getting your possessions stolen sucks! Especially when there is nothing you can do about it and have no way to get them back. However, sometimes with the use of some creativity, instead of resorting to the police, we can take matters into our own hands. A man from Massachusetts once had his laptop stolen, so he decided the best way to retrieve it was to remotely hack into his own laptop. Upon doing so, he hit the jackpot and found a super embarrassing video that the thief had recorded.

The thief had filmed a 12-minute-long video practicing dance moves in front of the webcam. When the man discovered this footage, he posted the video to YouTube, entitling it “Don’t steal computers from people who know how to use computers.” The video reached the thief’s attention, and sure enough, he returned the laptop to the man, begging for him to take the video down in return. The man got his laptop back as well as his revenge—because he never took the video down!^[3]

7 A Song About Luggage

Some airlines do a terrible job at keeping passengers’ luggage safe. On many occasions, people’s luggage gets damaged or even lost. Whenever this happens, many people don’t know what to do. Canadian musician Dave Carroll knew exactly what to do about it.

He decided to make a song about his experience and how his guitar got damaged by the airline. The best part is that the song became so popular that the value of the company dropped by 10% within about four weeks of YouTube’s video release of the song, as reported by the BBC. This devastating loss would have bought Carroll more than 51,000 replacement guitars.^[4]

6 Don’t Eat My Food

Some people say that revenge tastes sweet. However, this isn’t the case whenever revenge contains large servings of mustard. Having communal fridges and cupboards is often a recipe for disaster because it often sparks intense debates in the workplace over who ate what.

According to a Reddit story, a man from Leeds, who was fed up with his colleagues eating his doughnuts, decided to take matters into his own hands. He brought a fresh packet of doughnuts into work one day and, using a syringe, injected large dollops of English mustard inside each of them. He then resealed the packet. It was safe to say that none of his colleagues dared to steal another doughnut again after receiving a mouthful of mustard.^[5]

5 Got Change?

In 2009, a college student named Jordan Renken took pettiness to a new level whenever he emerged from a bar and discovered his car had been towed. He needed $88 to pay for the release of his impounded car, and the ordeal resulted in him having to face a 15-mile walk home.

Jordan decided to pay his fine while also seeking revenge on the towing company in the process—he delivered the fine in the form of 8,800 pennies! Initially, the cashier refused to take the payment and thought he was out of his mind, but Recken had done his research beforehand and knew they were required to accept the money as long as it was legal tender. He was so stubborn and refused to back down to the point where the woman called the police, who arrived and found the situation hilarious. After almost an hour of debate, Recken actually managed to retrieve his car while also giving the employee the worst day she’s ever had.^[6]

4 Drive-Thru Trickery

Big displays of public aggression can be overrated. Sometimes the most satisfying types of revenge are the sneaky, passive-aggressive ones. This was the case for a McDonald’s drive-thru customer in August 2019, who placed an order for revenge as well as an order for food.

While placing his order, an impatient woman behind him started beeping her horn and cursing the man for taking too long. Then, in an unexpected twist, he kindly paid for the woman’s food as well as his own. The woman saw this and began rethinking and regretting her actions. However, when he proceeded to the pickup window, he showed the receipt for each of the two orders, collected both of them, and then smugly drove off with the woman’s food!^[7]

We don’t have a name on this one, and it seems to have become somewhat of an urban legend. But it can still act as a cautionary tale—hence it remaining on the list—as nothing in the drive-thru is that important!

3 The Shopping List

In March 2019, a blogger by the name of Baby Sideburns thought of a hilarious way to get revenge on her husband and to take out all her frustration over his laziness. Karen Alpert was getting fed up with her husband lying on the couch while she got stuck with the housework, so she thought of a cunning plan.

She comprised a long shopping list containing numerous items, gave it to her husband, and sent him out to the supermarket. However, the items she wrote down didn’t exist. So Karen turned her phone on silent while her naive husband cluelessly searched for unsour cream, seedless strawberries, and diet diet coke—it’s new—among other wacky items!^[8]

2 Airport Arrest

Londoner Angel Exford got the ultimate revenge on her boyfriend in 2018 after realizing he was nothing but a scammer. She started noticing red flags when he posted pictures with expensive cars on Instagram, despite the lack of money he had available in real life. On their first date, after claiming that he had lost his wallet, they were forced to use Angel’s card to pay for the meal.

Turns out the man had actually stolen her card details on the date and had been using the information to purchase Instagram followers as well as stuff for another girlfriend! She exposed his fraudulent behavior on social media platforms, which went viral with thousands of likes and reposts. However, she was not content with this. After discovering that he was planning a getaway with his other girlfriend, she got her ultimate revenge and had him publicly arrested at the airport before he could head away on his romantic holiday—that was funded with Angel’s money!^[9]

1 The Airport (Doggy) Mess

Revenge can often benefit more than just one person; sometimes, it can even benefit a plane full of people. This was the case for stand-up comedian Steve Hofstetter when he encountered an incredibly obnoxious woman in an airport in 2017. The woman was talking loudly on the phone and was oblivious to her dog, who had defecated beside her. Many witnesses were appalled and asked the woman, “Aren’t you going to clean that up?” To Steve’s astonishment, the woman replied, “They have people for that.”

Everybody sat as far away from the woman as possible in the boarding area, but Steve sat down beside her and politely asked where she was going. “I’m going to Tokyo,” she responded gruffly. Steve then responded, “Oh, then you better hurry. That flight got moved to gate 53C. This is the flight to London.” In a panic, the woman rushed to the other side of the airport, and by the time she realized that she had been fooled, she had missed her flight! Steve didn’t actually mean for this to happen; his intention was to only give her a moment of panic!^[10]

Virtual Reality (VR) is still relatively new, and its gaming application is even newer. The first headset that was suitable for VR gaming was the Oculus Rift which didn’t become commercially available until 2016. Developers expected an immediate demand for VR games and headsets. In reality, the VR gaming market grew slowly at first.

There were problems with motion sickness and the lag between a player’s action and the feedback to the headset (called “latency” in the jargon). By the time Valve launched Half-Life: Alyx in 2020, the developers had solved some of these problems. Headsets became cheaper, and the range of games increased. Google has introduced a range of cardboard headsets, bringing the price down to an affordable level for everyone.

As people interact with a virtual world, their reactions are often funny to watch. The reason why we find watching VR gamers so amusing is easy to find. Players are immersed in a situation that we might be able to see on a monitor, knowing what is coming and that the game is completely fake. For the player, the VR world is real—even though they know deep down it’s just a game. Here are our top ten funniest moments in VR gaming.

Related: Top 10 Things That Will Shatter Your Perception Of Reality

10 A Screamin’ Good Time

In this video, the player repeatedly tells himself that he doesn’t like what is happening to him. Judging by his reactions, this is undoubtedly true, but it begs the question of why he doesn’t take the headset off. We’ll see other videos that make us ask the same question. I suppose the answer must be that he wants to see what happens next and is afraid of looking weak if he gives up.

Notice that the man does a fair amount of screaming. What good does he think that will do? Screaming is not rational, so why do we do it when we are scared?

The amygdala is a structure in the brain’s center that processes those emotions triggered by fear. A scream in the amygdala prompts our brain to be more alert and heightens our powers of analysis. This may help you escape a haunted house, but a fat lot of good it will do you if you jump out of a plane and your parachute doesn’t open.

Still, it’s funny to watch people reacting primitively.

9 Down the Rabbit Hole

You have to admire Mom’s persistence in this clip. She’s willing to give VR a go, even though she’s scared half to death. Her family finds her antics hilarious because they know she is safe at home and not where she believes. Of course, Mom would know this, too, if she could think about the situation rationally. But the thing about virtual reality is that it affects the brain on a more primitive level.

In Lewis Carroll’s enduring classic novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice follows the White Rabbit into his burrow and finds herself in a nonsensical, surreal world. Her experience doesn’t help her much in a place where her logical rules often don’t apply. Very similar to the experience of donning a VR headset.

Mom has gone down the rabbit hole, and, at one level, her brain is convinced that this is a true experience.

8 This Game Has Teeth

The girl here is a little wary about what her boyfriend tries to persuade her to do. He’s honest enough to admit that he hasn’t played the game before, so he doesn’t quite know what to expect. The girl has experience with VR gaming, so she is aware that this undersea world is artificial.

Still, on occasions, primitive emotions come to the surface. This game is distinguished by the fact that the player has no control over what happens to her. She is in a protective cage and is warned that something is coming. As many of our players do, she says she doesn’t like what is happening. Still, there’s not much she can do about it if she wants to finish the game.

An interesting advantage of VR gaming is that it can help people to get over phobias. If people can have fun with sharks, they may be helped to overcome their fear.

7 Stepping Off into the Deep End

This one is interesting because it’s a challenge shared by people you know who would probably be too ready to make fun of failure. As you will see, the premise of this game is simple. Players have to walk a short plank suspended high over a city. If they get to the end, they can step off the end and fall to the ground. The graphics clearly show an imaginary place; there’s no attempt to fool the players into thinking this is real.

Our brains are divided into the reptilian (or primal), the limbic, and the neocortex (although some use different terms). When our players are walking the plank, the reptilian section is dominant. This is the most primitive of the three parts and controls vital functions such as balance, breathing, heart rate, and temperature. Rationality is not part of its function; it is concerned with basic survival.

The dominance of the reptilian brain explains players’ reactions in all of our videos and explains why we, who are using more rational parts of the brain, find VR games hilarious to watch.

6 Releasing Steam

Although the player reassures himself that he is safe inside a room, rationality flies out of the window once he has his VR helmet on. He babbles occasionally and swears a lot. There’s a lot of swearing in some of our videos, and most of it is stronger than the occasional “dammit.”

Swearing is a safety release that allows us to relieve tension, and the stronger the swear word is, the more effective the action is. This player is always clear in his mind that his experience is completely artificial, taking his helmet off to give himself a break before plunging back in. A good idea if you are beginning to feel overwhelmed by the experience. But our player can’t resist diving back in. The VR world is challenging, fun, and addictive.

5 Safety First

Here, we see a mixture of experiences of people who are not used to VR gaming. We have seen them in other videos. The players shut their eyes, scream, and contort their bodies while onlookers laughingly remind them that they are safe.

What is particularly striking about this video is the number of times that people blunder into objects in the real world. This can be dangerous, especially for inexperienced users immersed in a virtual world with no spatial relationship with the actual.

I suppose the lesson is that you shouldn’t use VR technology unless you are in a safe environment. This is one reason why some gamers prefer to play in arcades. There they are monitored and can immediately share their experiences with others.

4 This Game is Sick

This compilation backs up what we’ve said about other videos. At one point, one of the players says, “I get dizzy,” and this can be a problem with VR technology.

Many players report feeling dizziness or nausea when using VR helmets. Basically, this is the difference between what the eyes are telling the player and what the body is actually doing in real space. For example, if a player is climbing stairs in a game, but the body knows that it is really on a flat floor, the player can get disoriented.

This feeling can be heightened by something under the impressive name of “vergence-accommodation conflict.” This occurs when, in VR, the eyes are focused on something that seems to be far away but which, in reality, is on a screen right in front of the eyes.

But watching people whirl and stagger as if they’ve over-indulged at the Christmas party can be comical.

3 Don’t VR Alone

This video highlights the fact that people shouldn’t use VR alone. You might find—in fact, you probably will—that everyone else in the room is laughing themselves sick. Not funny to you when you are going through a terrifying experience. Never mind, you will have your turn to laugh at the others, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

I wonder if it might be a good idea to incorporate a proximity sensor into VR headsets so that people get a warning if they are too close to a real object.

2 With Metaverse, It’s Only Going to Get Better

The commentator on this video points out that space is important. He’s talking about having enough room to play safely. It’s a point we’ve already made, and it’s certainly true. However, in VR, two different spaces collide—the real world and the imaginary.

The fact that the Facebook group has changed its name to Meta tells us something about the unlimited ambition that drives the company. It is now dedicated to building a Metaverse. The idea behind a metaverse seems to be the construction of an alternative reality that is internally logical but allows users to perform actions in the “real” world.

Gaming will undoubtedly be an important feature of the Metaverse, and companies are developing new technologies to make the experience more real. More real and more fun for everyone.

1 Fast Food Futures

I don’t know if “funny” is the right word to describe this last clip. “Surreal” might be better. The normal activity of ordering a meal in McDonald’s becomes an interactive shooter game with graphics from an early Duke Nukem.

The only limits in VR are the limits that we place on our own imaginations. The gaming world is changing, and the changes aren’t just limited to gaming. VR can change the way that we interact with the world. How we live, work, play, and relate to others might change dramatically.

The world of advertising is wildly competitive for your attention. Most people despise ads and prefer to skip or mute them if they can (thank goodness for ad-free streaming TV!).

The first thing a commercial has to do is grab your attention, and advertisers will do nearly anything to do so. Sometimes these stunts go a little too far, and the commercials only air for a short time in the public eye before they are removed for one reason or another. But hey, by the time they’re banned, they’ve already snagged enough attention to see a rise in sales, so making the most effective ad you can is always worth it.

Here are just ten (or more?) examples of hilarious ads that went out in a blaze of glory.

[WARNING: Some of these commercials were banned for a good reason, as they are NSFW!]

10 Darts Athlete

Give this poor guy a break! Of course, darts is a real sport with real teams and sponsors… it’s just too bad this “athlete” with the weird warmup ritual is no good at it.

I imagine this one was banned for slandering the grand sport of dart throwing. Either that or depicting violence on an innocent bystander—that dart to the chest can’t have felt good, and it was probably too shocking for TV.

By the way, I have never heard of Zoosk before. In a world before smartphone apps, they must have gone under pretty quickly.

9 Poor Dog

This is one of those ads where it’s impossible to guess the product they’re selling until the very end. Dog treats? Flea treatment? Therapy for dogs? Even when the car stopped, I assumed it was selling its automatic braking safety system, but I should have known better—this ad is way older than any modern car braking system these days.

This ad was probably banned for its dark depiction of attempted suicide. We don’t want to give people going through similar tragedies any ideas. And we get enough dead dogs from sad movies; we don’t need that in our commercials too!

8 Cheating Death

I don’t know how much sense it makes to sell a car with only one door on the driver’s side, but this ad makes a compelling case. On the other hand, it also makes it much easier to trap people inside the car in the event of other much more dangerous situations, like, I don’t know… any car accident. Maybe it would be easier just to teach people to watch where they’re going.

Like the commercial with the dart thrower, this ad was probably banned for its violent, pedestrian-smashing content, even if one of them was a CGI Grim Reaper (who apparently likes to stalk Uber rides?)

7 Best Method for Shortening Labor

After this ad began to air, I wonder how many times Scotland’s OBGYNs heard jokes about trying to lure the baby out with IRN-BRU.

“I’m afraid there have been some complications with the delivery; we may have to consider a cesarean section.”

“Aye, I’m sure it’s fine, doc—maybe we should try a bit o’ that IRN-BRU like in the commercial, eh? Hehe”

“Sir, this is very serious.”

It probably got old pretty fast. Also, there’s a joke somewhere about Macbeth versus Macduff, but I lost the thread.

Anyway, this ad was either banned for cutting it very close with baby-birthing nudity or stopping giving ideas to new parents—do NOT give your newborn (or fetus, for that matter) a can of IRN-BRU!

6 Pepsi or Coke?

Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi is a classic rivalry, and this ad really heightened the tension. But is Pepsi so much better than Coke that you’d pay for three cans of soda and leave two behind? That was an outlandish stretch, but Pepsi’s marketing team was bold enough to reach for it. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, as both colas taste like expired battery acid, in my opinion.

The reasons behind this commercial’s ban are troublesome. Some vocal critics pointed out that the ad is an unfavorable depiction of poverty in some less fortunate countries, and the boy’s questionable spending habits only reinforce it.

5 In the Can

You can always rely on beer commercials to be crass. In this case, it was too crass for most television audiences. But if I were a kid and I saw this ad, I probably wouldn’t get it. I would have immediately thought of the intended meaning: the metal can that most drinks come in. Duh! Also, beer is gross. Especially lime-flavored beer. Yech!

That’s why I prefer the much funnier, way smarter, and not banned K-Mart ad, where they talk about how they shipped their pants. I would have laughed my “can” off at this ad as a child, did laugh as a teen, and still do today.

4 Doritos Are Sexy, I Guess?

When you hear “banned commercial,” the first one in this video is likely the one that most think of. It seemed to be everywhere on TV while it aired. This ad and thousands of others use a classic advertising technique called “sex appeal”—throw attractive women (sometimes men) on the screen to draw attention, then convey the idea that using/consuming this product makes you the most attractive being on the planet—which apparently includes having gross Doritos dust all over your fingers, face, and clothes. Sex appeal doesn’t make any sense, but it’s proven so effective that it doesn’t have to!

As for why this particular ad that used sex appeal was banned, we can probably blame the Dorito crumbs poured all over the man’s crotch and the implications of such. Good grief, she licked a complete stranger’s face the first time they met, and he wanted to skip to… well, you know. It was a bit extreme. At least take her to dinner first!

3 The Presidential Voodoo Doll

This ad uses some simple comedy to hook its audience. Getting former President Clinton to spin around and raise his arms into the air isn’t the highest form of art, but it grabbed your attention long enough to sell insurance. Although, I’m not sure how much of their audience needed this specific kind of insurance. How many people own museums with priceless artifacts? Whoever they are, I’m sure they know better than to leave stuff like that out in the open rather than protect them behind a glass case.

This ad was probably banned for its less-than-favorable depiction of old tribal artifacts and what they’re used for, as well as implied violence against the president of the United States. Say what you want about Clinton, but no one deserves a metal spike up their… saxophone.

2 Learn English (NSFW: Bad Language!)

What a happy family, bobbing their heads to the beat of one of those popular American pop songs! There’s no way such an upbeat tempo and rhythm could accompany such awful lyrics, right? I especially like the two kids in the back, innocently smiling at each other as they listen to the song.

The clear language gap is the crux of this ad’s effect, as well as why it was banned. It must have left non-English speakers scratching their heads—what did a family getting into a car have to do with learning a new language? (And what was that fun song?)

As for English speakers, well… it’s shocking content, to say the least. These lyrics would push a movie into an R rating, let alone get a commercial kicked off public broadcasting.

1 Zazoo One for Two

Talk about effective! This ad uses the spectacle of a kid throwing a tantrum in a grocery store, a very real situation many of us have witnessed—either secondhand or with our own kids. The melodrama draws us in, and then BAM hits us with the product that would most effectively prevent this embarrassing situation. Not a pacifier, toy, or even whatever the sweets the kid wanted, the thing that would prevent the kid in the first place!

As for why this ad was banned, I’m not sure. It could be because some prudent critics out there wanted the ad removed. That would certainly be a dramatic reason, but I think there’s an easier answer. We like this ad decades after it aired because we only need to watch and hear it once, but could you imagine it coming on the air every ten minutes or so? A screaming kid is not something we want to hear that often.

+Honorable Mention: Japanese Tea Ad

I’ll admit it; this ad wasn’t banned—as long as it aired for Japanese audiences, anyway. Censorship is a little different over there, so they’re okay with a little (or a LOT) of blood. Anyway, I wanted to share this ad because it is peak comedy, and I love it. The fire, the practical effects, the unusual situation, the tea kettle sound, the clever payoff, and even the last little squeeze at the end—it’s all gold.