Celebrities are loved by millions of people all over the world. We all have a favorite celebrity, someone we’ve never met but love. We watch their movies, or listen to their songs, and could spend hours talking about them. People set up blogs dedicated to them, write books about them, and they’re constantly in the news. But what happens when it feels like your favorite celebrity let you down? Or worse, actually hurt you?

Most of us would just be quietly disappointed, or complain on Twitter. “That sucks,” we’d say, and then move on with our day. Some people, however, feel that celebrities need to pay for disappointments and mistakes, and they resolve to use the court system to make it happen, whether the celebrity was actually in the wrong or not.

Without further ado, here are 10 celebrities who were sued, rightfully or wrongfully, by their own fans.

10 Skrillex

Concerts are a dangerous place to be sometimes. Between the packed, jostling crowds, the limited visibility, the strobing lights, and disorienting loud sounds, there’s numerous ways to find yourself injured. That’s exactly what happened to one fan in 2014, at a concert performed by famed DJ and dubstep artist, Skrillex.

Jennifer Fraissl was in the concert audience when Skrillex leapt off a DJ table up on the stage, allegedly landing directly on her and causing her to have a stroke! Though his attorney claims that the video of the incident clearly shows no contact between Skrillex and Fraissl, the jury tasked with the final decision in this lawsuit disagreed.

Fraissl was awarded a cool 4.5 Million in damages, divided up between Skrillex, his tour company, and the venue for payment.

Skrillex, to his credit, took it well, saying that his number one priority was making sure his fans were safe and having a good time.^[1]

9 Creed

Creed is a well known and well loved “dad rock” band, with tracks that have been featured in movies, played incessantly over the radio, and featured in at least one playlist we all had in our 20s. It’s reasonable to expect such an accomplished band to put on a fantastic show, right? The fans seemed to think so, which is why one 2003 concert was such a shock that it apparently required the response of a class action lawsuit!

In 2003, fans of Creed were shocked and a little horrified when frontman Scott Stapp stumbled out onstage, allegedly drunk and unsteady. He reportedly had severe trouble singing, and at one point actually passed out on stage, halting the concert. Needless to say, the 15,000 who showed up to watch creed play were incensed, some so much that they filed a lawsuit on behalf of everyone else at the venue!

They demanded a refund on the ticket costs (and hopefully an apology) for everyone who came to the show, as well as a refund on their parking, a total cost to the band of 2 Million dollars!

The judge, however, dismissed the case, saying that he was not “a rock critic” and that it would be a very bad idea for the arts to set a legal precedent for judging good art (or shows) from bad ones for the sake of lawsuits.^[2]

8 Lil’ Wayne

Even if you’re not into Rap, you probably know about Lil’ Wayne. From 2009-2014, he was a massive success in the rap world. Kids loved him, parents tolerated him, and fans were crazy about him. His explicit songs, whimsical lyrical twists and often hilarious rhymes shot him to the top of the charts.

In May of 2012, however, one fan wasn’t very happy with Wayne. Alfred Marino claims that, after getting into an argument with the famous rapper, one of Wayne’s ‘crew’ smashed him over the head with a skateboard! Marino had pulled out his phone with the intent of taking a picture of Lil’ Wayne after seeing him outside a shop in Los Angeles. After being told repeatedly to put his phone away (and being called a few nasty names) Marino alleges that Wayne’s bodyguard broke a skateboard over the back of his his head, knocking him out and leaving him with vertigo so severe he had to take medical leave from his job.

Marino was reportedly “disgusted” by Lil’ Wayne after the incident, and as a former fan, sued the rapper for the distressing and painful incident.^[3]

7 Justin Bieber

For a while, just about the most harmless celebrity you could imagine would have been Justin Bieber. The Canadian dreamboat was known for his sugar-pop love songs, big eyes, and irresistible charm. Girls of most any age swooned over him, spending tons of money on his merchandise, his albums, and most of all to see him live and in person at sold out concert venues.

At one such show in Oregon in 2010, Bieber set up an act for the concert that played off that very thing, climbing into a giant, heart-shaped metal gondola and being pulled over the crowd, leaning out to wave to the sea of fans below. In the crowd was Stacey Betts, a stay at home mother of five who had come to see the show with her daughter.

According to Betts, Bieber whipped the crowd of girls into such a frenzy with his waving that their screams reached “unsafe levels”, echoing off the metal heart and causing a “sound blast” that permanently damaged her hearing. She claims to have contracted tinnitus, a condition which causes constant, debilitating ringing in the ears. Betts also claims hearing loss and an overall lowered quality of life.

For her pain and suffering, Betts demanded a whopping 9 Million in damages.^[4] The case was ultimately dismissed.

6 Miley Cyrus

Many of us have fond memories of Miley Cyrus as her lovable, blonde alter ego Hannah Montana, the spunky country pop-star plastered across the Disney Channel schedule (and our hearts). The daughter of famous country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley was introduced to the entertainment business young and has stayed there pretty solidly ever since then. Those perfect wholesome beginnings have not, however, kept her out of trouble with the media, and with her fans.

In 2009, a photo surfaced on the web of Miley making a “Chinese eyes” face. Sitting with a group of her friends, Miley was seen in the photo pulling her eyes out to the sides along with others in the group. In fact, the only person in the photo NOT doing this was a young asian man who, it is alleged, was being mocked by the eye pulling.

The photo was deemed so offensive that it triggered a lawsuit. Los Angeles area woman Lucie J. Kim, alleging to have been personally damaged by the “discriminatory” photo, reportedly sued the Disney teen for $4 BILLION dollars! Not just on her own of course, but on behalf of the over 1 million Asian Pacific Islander’s living in the Los Angeles area.

For frame of reference on how out of this world a sum of 4 billion is, Miley’s entire net worth currently stands at only 160 million: roughly 4% of the requested pay.^[5]

5 Usher

Whether you’re a fan of Usher’s music or not, you’ve probably heard his name. From his involvement with Justin Bieber to being parodied on Family Guy, Usher has been around for a while, and in that time has made a name for himself as a talented musician and agent for up-and-comers.

It’s my unfortunate duty to tell you that Usher is also known for a less pleasant bit of publicity: a lawsuit filed against him in 2017 by three people who say that he gave them all herpes! Way to really screw it all up, Usher!

Quantasia Sharpton, an anonymous man, and another anonymous woman have banded together to sue the R&B star for allegedly giving them herpes (and they’re not talking about cold sores, either). Although he refused to make a public statement, Usher is known to have settled a similar lawsuit about the same allegations out of court for 1.2 million dollars in 2012. The unnamed plaintiff in the 2012 case is supposedly a former lover and celebrity stylist.

Sharpton and the anonymous duo sought unspecified damages and to have Usher cover their court fees.^[6]

4 Jessica Simpson

Serious question: can a paparazzo be considered a fan? They’re obsessive like fans, and they love to take pictures like fans, so for the purpose of this list, they probably count. With that in mind, let us look at the lawsuit against Jessica Simpson in 2018.

Outside a hotel in New York, Jessica Simpson was, as is often the case, ambushed by a paparazzo. A few photos were snapped, the paparazzo ran off, such is life for a famous person. However, a few hours later when the photo was posted to a rag site, Simpson copied it and pasted it onto her instagram. You’d think, being that it was a picture of her, she’d have the right. I mean, it’s literally her face!

According to the paparazzo and the media company that employed him, however, since the photo was taken by their employee, they own it, and Simpson actually stole it when she pasted it on her instagram.^[7]

The company alleges damages upwards of 20 thousand dollars. They may not legally own her face, but they sure are determined to make her pay for taking it back!

3 Snoop Dogg

Imagine for a minute you’re at a concert for your favorite artist. Elated at being near them, you rush the stage and go in for a hug. From the wings, as if waiting for you, several security guards swoop in and tackle you, causing major injuries.

That was the situation for Richard Monroe Jr, a Snoop Dogg fan violently tackled by security when he rushed the stage and attempted to hug Snoop in the middle of a concert. Monroe was knocked out and dragged offstage. He later woke on the ground backstage, his face swollen, lying in a pool of blood.

Monroe originally sued for 22 Million in damages, but was awarded just under 500 thousand after the jury determined that Snoop was not entirely to blame for the incident. Monroe also says that, after spending several days hanging out with Snoop during negotiations for a settlement, he feels very close with Snoop. He even went so far as to say that he felt happy when he saw Snoop in the courtroom, despite the circumstances.^[8]

2 Bon Jovi

As we all know, Bon Jovi is a very successful man. An ’80s star that still enjoys relevance and success today, Bon Jovi is clearly a man who needs no helping hands, ethical or otherwise. In fact, he’s still performing and touring to this day, and still putting out new music! So why would he need to steal a song?

According to one Samuel Bartley Steele, Bon Jovi did just that. In 2007, after releasing his song “I Love This Town”, Bon Jovi was hit with a stunning 4 Billion dollar lawsuit by Steele, who claims that Bon Jovi had somehow gotten his hands on Steele’s “country rock tribute” song to the Boston Red Sox (“Man I Really Love This Team”) and had passed it off to his record label as his own. At the trial, Steele even brought a musicologist to testify that they were the same song, only to be surprised when the musicologist testified that the songs were, in fact, nothing alike save for the words “love” and “this” in their respective titles.

His lawsuit was of course dismissed, but that didn’t stop him. Steele appealed the decision, hoping to take another run at the famous singer.^[9]

1 Taylor Swift

When you’re a pretty girl and your face is plastered across magazines, billboards, and social media almost constantly, you tend to attract a lot of strange people. Most are harmless, simply adoring fans who vie for your attention with gifts, stunts, and social media campaigns. What do you do, however, when you manage to attract a stalker?

In 2015, Taylor Swift had to answer this exact question as a fan went rogue and attempted to drag her into court to get her attention. Russell Greer, a long time Swift fan, wrote a song over the course of two years titled “I Get You, Taylor Swift” and send it to her agents, attempting to have it passed on to Swift herself. The agents were not allowed to pass the song on because of copyright concerns, and sent back polite but firm rejection letters.

Instead of taking it on the chin, Greer began sending mail and gifts directly to Swift’s family, begging them to give her the song. When that failed, he tried a new tactic: suing her to the tune of 7 thousand dollars for both neglect of duty and emotional distress. At first, it was couched simply as an attempt to get her attention, but when the lawsuit was dismissed and Greer, through statements made in the motion, found that Swift’s family considered his efforts “troubling” and “invasive”, Greer became openly hostile, and sued her a second time, this time for 50 Million, in another attempt to force her to acknowledge him.^[10]

Yikes! Let’s hope no other girls ever catch his eye quite like poor Taylor!

We have something of a love-hate relationship with fast food. Many of us happily stop at a drive-through when we need something in a hurry, but we still sneer at the food and look at it with suspicion. We fear constantly eating food that was made in a commercial kitchen, and the speed with which it’s prepared implies that it was made without care. The megalith of commercialized, super-quick food production leaves many nostalgic for the good old days, when you knew exactly where your food came from and what was in it.

While eating fast food may not always be the healthiest option, and we certainly can’t guarantee the safety of our food if we don’t prepare it ourselves, many rumors of the fast food industry’s incompetence are greatly overstated.

10The Incorruptible Hamburger

People have an odd belief that mass-produced food is literally made of industrial chemicals meant more for paint stripping than eating. This has led to the even odder belief that fast food hamburgers never decay. What makes this myth particularly weird is that despite being one of the most pervasive myths about food, it is also one of the easiest to debunk. Anyone can buy a burger and watch it decompose over time, but the myth has only recently seen serious busting.

McDonald’s Canada was asked about the “incorruptible McDonald’s hamburger,” and the company decided to finally kill this silly rumor. A spokesman admitted that the company’s burgers do tend to dry out rather than rot, but that’s not because they’re laden with chemicals. The burgers simply don’t have much moisture in them after the cooking process, and leaving them in the open air removes even more. In properly moist conditions, a McDonald’s burger would rot just like any other food.

An independent study by a food blogger found that under similar conditions, McDonald’s fare rots at the same rate as homemade burgers.

9Fast Food Restaurants Are Less Healthy Than Dine-In Establishments

You’ve decided that you want to take the family out to eat, but you want to feel good about the food you’re shoveling into their starving mouths. You decide that you should go to a sit-down restaurant, since those places clearly offer much healthier options than the local McDonald’s. Unfortunately for your family, you may have made the wrong choice.

A Drexel study examined full-service restaurant menus, and the results were not at all pleasant. While a combo meal at a burger joint has more calories than you need for one meal, a full meal at a sit-down restaurant may have more than you need in an entire day.

The researchers defined a meal for an adult as an entree with a side and half of an appetizer, along with the free bread often offered. The average full meal at a sit-down place hit about 1,500 calories and went well over the daily recommended limit for saturated fat and sodium content. If you throw in a drink and half of a dessert, the average restaurant meal puts you over your daily recommended caloric intake. If you want to make sure you are getting a healthy option, you may just need to cook it yourself.

8Taco Bell’s Seasoned Beef Is Only 35 Percent Meat

A few years back, a rumor arose saying only 35 percent (or another disturbingly small percentage) of Taco Bell seasoned beef is meat, the meat is Grade D, it’s unfit for humans, and it’s somehow still allowed to be sold to massive numbers of people. The rumor’s roots go to an Alabama lawsuit, which was thrown out of court because it was complete and utter nonsense.

To address the rumors, Taco Bell explained that their seasoned beef is 88 percent beef and 12 percent filler, which may sound less than ideal, but that’s comparable to its competitors’ recipes. The website containing this explanation also gave fun explanations for some of the more obscure components, such as “Trehalose,” which they use for sweetening purposes.

Certain paranoid people will continue to fear Taco Bell’s chemical ingredients like “maltodextrin,” but actual chemists laugh off these worries—the ingredients are all very much safe and edible.

7McDonald’s Frozen Desserts Use Pig Fat And No Dairy

McDonald’s calls their frozen treats “thickshakes” or just “shakes,” rather than “milkshakes.” Some people noticing this choice concluded the drink can’t be a proper milkshake at all. In fact, it probably contains no dairy whatsoever. From there, it wasn’t long before people started coming up with theories as to what McDonald’s was using instead. People proposed all sorts of fillers, from pig fat to cow eyeball fluid to Styrofoam balls to bird feathers.

It’s true that the treats don’t use real ice cream, which is why McDonald’s doesn’t call them “milkshakes.” Instead, they use a premade mix—one that does contain dairy. Making actual ice cream shakes fresh on a massive scale day in and day out would be hard to manage logistically.

You may choose not to drink their shakes if you don’t like the taste, but for those of you who do, there isn’t anything out of the ordinary to worry about, aside from how fattening they are.

6The Salads Are A Healthy Option

Salads seem the healthiest option when eating fast food. They’re made of vegetables, after all, which surely have to be better for you than greasy burgers and fries. In reality, however, the salad option contains so much cheese, dressing, or meat that they’re as bad as anything else on the menu.

The Consumerist looked at several fast food chains and found that the salads have as many calories as other menu items. Even worse, salads often contain more fat, more sugar, and oftentimes an absolutely whopping pile of sodium. While salad may sometimes be a healthy option, when you buy it from a burger joint, it probably isn’t.

5Fast Food Is Cheap

One of the most pervasive myths about fast food, as well as junk food in general, is that it’s far less pricey than healthier alternatives. This explanation is often used by people incredulous that anyone would willingly choose junk if better food is cheaper or comparatively priced. But while fast food is certainly cheap compared with other sorts of restaurants, it’s downright expensive compared with what you prepare at home, even when you cook far higher-quality food.

NY Times food columnist Mark Bittman notes that the average McDonald’s combo meal costs about $7, adding up to $28 to feed a family of four. You could feed the family an entire chicken dinner at home for roughly half the cost, and you’ll be giving them a much healthier plate.

On the other hand, cooking food yourself does have a cost of its own. It takes time, and it takes effort. Fast food is undeniably the more convenient choice, which is why people will continue to pick it. But if you have the time and energy, eating at home is a much better option in every way.

4White Castle’s Bait-And-Switch Onions

You may not live in an area with a White Castle, but you may know of it from a certain movie where two guys try really hard to get to one. For those still unfamiliar with the chain, White Castle’s miniature burgers are famous for being incredibly cheap and, anecdotally, for giving indigestion a few hours after eating them. Fans also know the restaurant for its trademark steamed meat that always comes with onions because onions are just that important. For some reason, rumors say that White Castle is pulling a bait-and-switch with one of their most cherished ingredients.

The rumors state that White Castle onions are actually pieces of cabbage soaked in onion juice. It would seem one of the strangest and most pointless things that a fast food restaurant could do, but enough people believe the rumor that White Castle actually responds to it on their website.

Their burgers contain no cabbage and do indeed have real onions—although the restaurant admits to using rehydrated onions ever since World War II.

3Arby’s Roast Beef Is Made From A Gel

This weird rumor says Arby’s roast beef arrives at the store in a liquid gel form inside a sealed plastic bag. The congealed mixture is heated till it becomes sliceable and is then served to the poor, naive customer. Unlike some rumors, this one has understandable origins, but it’s still wholly false.

The fact-checkers at Snopes talked to several people who worked at actual Arby’s restaurants and learned the source of the confusion. The meat arrives at the store inside airtight plastic bags, with a thin layer of basting solution that looks like a gel. This could easily lead a new employee who hasn’t yet cut into the bag and roasted the beef to think they were looking at a lumpy, gelatinous mess. You may or may not find Arby’s food particularly appetizing, but rest assured that it’s actual beef.

2McDonald’s Egg Patties Come Pre-Formed

The uniform circular shape of McDonald’s Egg McMuffin patties look so perfect that people think it’s some artificial substance sent to the restaurant in readymade shapes. However, when McDonald’s in Canada was asked about this question, they responded by supplying a video of how the egg process actually works.

The eggs really are just eggs, and that perfect shape is achieved by cooking them using a ring mold, a method almost elegant in its simplicity. The scrambled eggs are slightly more questionable, as they are made with a liquid egg mix and cooked with margarine, but they still do contain actual egg.

1Darker Roasted Coffee Contains More Caffeine

One of the most common misconceptions among those who head to Starbucks or order coffee at a burger joint is that bolder, blacker coffee is stronger and gives a more intense buzz. But if you’re looking for the strongest possible caffeine hit, you should purchase a lighter roasted coffee.

Coffee beans start out green and become darker due to the roasting process. As the roasting process continues, you also end up losing more caffeine, so darker roasts have less than their lighter counterparts.

The best way to truly increase your caffeine buzz in the morning is to add a shot or two of espresso to your coffee, something that most cafes will happily do for you.

Gregory is eating fast food right now. Don’t judge him.

Everyone loves movies, but many of the movies they love have flaws they either put up with, or often just didn’t even realize that they have. Many classic movies have managed to pull the wool over our eyes, by giving us extremely entertaining side plots or other larger plot-lines, that really don’t make much sense when you hold them up to proper examination. If a director or writer knows how to keep their audience distracted by the right things, they can keep them from noticing, but many of these plots made no sense at all, and some were entirely unnecessary.

See Also: 10 Things You Never Knew About Famous Movie Plot Twists

10 The Entire Subplot In The Last Jedi With Rose And Finn Did More Harm Than Good

In The Last Jedi, the main plot-line was that the heroes were being tracked through hyperspace with some new technology so they could not escape at all. Two main characters, Rose and Fin, forge a plan to sneak aboard the enemy ship, and use the help of a skilled codebreaker to reroute the enemy tracking technology and confuse it long enough for them to escape.

They spent a huge portion of the movie on this, and in the end were betrayed by the codebreaker they ended up hiring. He betrayed them so much, that the enemy was able to find ships the rebels had been hiding, and kill countless more rebels than if Finn and Rose had simply done nothing at all and stayed on the ship. Their entire adventure not only didn’t save anyone, it actually cost lives, and they did it without consulting leadership, right after Rose made a big deal about how everyone needed to be a good soldier and follow rules.

9 Captain America: Civil War Makes Tony Stark Look Small, Petty, Mean And Stupid

In Captain America Civil War, we have a contrived plot where some heroes agree to stop using their powers without proper world permission, and some refuse. The plot goes further south when Bucky, Caps longtime friend is suspected of killing Tony Stark’s parents and Black Panthers father as well. They want to immediately punish him, but Bucky maintains his innocence and runs away with the help of Captain America in the hopes of proving his innocence. Despite supposedly not being supposed to use superpowers anymore, Tony Stark and several others suit up for a very anticlimactic duel between two sides of superheros at an airport, in what is a very weak battle after all the buildup, and all the sacrifices they made when it came to a decent plot.

After the fight, Captain America does manage to prove that Bucky was truly hypnotized beyond his will when he killed Stark’s parents, but this does not sate Tony’s anger at all. Instead, he turns into a crazy rage monster, and tries to straight up murder both Bucky and Captain America, and continues being a complete jerk even after he is defeated utterly, showing he still hasn’t learned anything at all. After several movies building up his character, it is disappointing to see a plot that is so interested in making a fight between superheroes, that is is willing to throw all of his development away.

8The Rage Zombies In The 28 Franchise Make Even Less Sense Than Regular Zombies

28 Days is a well known zombie franchise, and was quite popular during the height of the zombie craze, but by trying to be too realistic it sometimes backed itself into a corner leaving you with questions, where most zombie movies don’t bother so hard with a “logical” explanation. Trying to get more scientific, they say their zombies are infected by the “rage” virus, which just makes people super angry and they attack, bite up and infect others. Eventually, these zombies start to starve to death. Despite being incredibly fast zombies with a lot of energy, they cannot seem to hunt down animals, and when they find other humans, they turn them instead of eating them, despite starving and being filled with rage. Their behavior is supposed to be berserk, but they are almost too logical — working perfectly within the plot to create more and more, while still leaving a way for heroes to beat them.

Now, the fact they don’t eat each other could make sense, as they perhaps smell some sort of disease on those with the rage virus that turns them off. However, it beggars belief that what is basically a berserk animal, would only carefully bite up, and not eat or mutilate a fresh human, when they are half mad and starving to death with hunger.

7The Movie Signs Is Blisteringly Idiotic And Horribly Explained When You Examine It

The movie Signs starts out with some children finding crop circles and acting weird, then they hear noises, and see strange intruders. Before long, the crop circles are popping up all over the world, and people are sure they are seeing strange beings everywhere — many people start preparing for an alien invasion. And, sure enough, at the climax of the movie, the aliens come and attack the family and almost kill one of the children. However, it turns out the reason we were able to beat them, was because they were weak to water and baseball bats. The aliens brings no weapons, no armor or advanced technology despite being able to cross interstellar distances, and gets taken out by a baseball bat.

Worse yet, the water weakness just makes no sense at all. The movie has a character say that “they came for us, to harvest us”, but they never explain for what reason. The most abundant thing in humans you could harvest from us is water, but certainly they aren’t interested in what to them is literally poison. And of all the planets they could have chosen, they chose one that is mostly toxic to them, and don’t bring any protection from the elements at all. The only thing that really makes sense is if no aliens actually invaded and the entire thing was just global mass hysteria.

6The Plot Of Sixth Sense Only Works If All Authority Figures Are Incredibly Stupid

The movie Sixth Sense was almost an instant classic, and people will never forget the haunting line “I see dead people”, however, the movie really didn’t age as well as it could have, and when you hold it up to scrutiny, the whole movie falls apart. The movie follows a psychologist named Bruce Willis, who rarely talks to his wife anymore, is troubled about failing an old patient, and soon ends up working as a therapist for a kid played by Haley Joel Osment. He talks to the kid a lot, spends time in the family’s house, and even sits across from the kids mother at length for different times and never says anything to her.

As the movie progresses, the kid reveals that he can see dead people and talk to them, and the psychologist, while skeptical at first, starts to believe there could actually be something going on. At the end of the movie, we discover that not only can the kid talk to ghosts, but that Bruce Willis was a ghost the entire time and didn’t realize it. Now, the part where all this breaks down is the idea that Bruce Willis could have simply not realized he was dead without an incredible amount of delusion.

He has somehow never had a conversation with the mom of the child he is giving therapy too, does this not strike him as odd? He never interacts with anyone, he couldn’t possibly need to go to the bathroom, and trying to eat would just send it right through him — does he think he has a weird disease where he somehow doesn’t need to eat anymore? It seems Bruce Willis should have very obviously realized what was going on early in the movie, but then it would have been over very quickly and there wouldn’t have been much of a story to tell.

5 Killmonger’s Amazing Plan In Black Panther Is Not So Amazing At All

In the hit movie Black Panther, Eric Killmonger is an African American, originally from the secret country of Wakanda, who returns to challenge the current king for the throne. He has fought since a young age to create a new world where black people will not be oppressed, and has setup revolutionaries around the globe. His goal is to get Wakandan technology in their hands, and then they will lead a violent revolution that will takeover the whole world — he will then rule the world from Wakanda as king, and make sure black people are properly respected.

However, there are two major problems with this: For one, his enemies are living in a world with the Avengers, so they are used to dealing with all sorts of crazy tech and powers already — the moment they captured anyone, they would take the Wakandan technology, reverse engineer it against them, and use their own vibranium against them. And you are still talking about trying to take over the entire world. Which leads us to the second and bigger problem: This is the same world with the avengers and all of the X-Men, does he expect them to simply allow the world order to change to the point of one dictator bent on taking over with violence? Plus there were like a handful of ships leaving Wakanda with equipment, so this was hardly a world ending amount of weaponry.

4 Peter Quill’s Father Could Have Had All He Wanted, And He Completely Blew It

Peter Quill AKA Star Lord is a main character of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, and has been ably played by Chris Pratt, who helped uplift the Guardians franchise into something that would be taken as seriously as the rest of the Marvel universe. For those not entirely familiar with the plot, Peter Quill loses his mother at a young age and ends up going on space adventures with an alien named Yondu, who takes on the role of father figure.

However, his real father was a being in the Marvel Universe known as a celestial, who had incredible powers, and wanted someone else to share his powers with so they could basically seed himself all over and make the universe all extensions of him. He could not do this alone, so he went to many planets impregnating women and trying to find an heir who could contain his powers, and killing any mothers or children who did not live up to what he wanted. Peter Quill, despite having his mother killed, did not know understand that his father had killed her, and had borderline escaped his father’s purge.

When they meet at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2., Ego, Peter Quill’s father (who also happens to be a planet), could have had a chance at getting Star Lord to join him while he had him under hypnosis, and have everything he ever wanted. However, while explaining his crazy plan, he happened to casually admit to Star Lord that he had killed his mother and so many other countless mothers and children around the universe. This infuriated Peter, who decided he would not stand for his father or anything he stood for. All he had to do was not reveal such details, knowing they likely would upset a human being, but he chose to share them anyway and lost everything.

3 The Heroes In Super 8 May End Up In Prison For A Very Long Time

Super 8 was a really popular movie the summer it came out, and really hit a sweet spot in the nostalgia for many people. It was reminiscent of movies like ET, or the Goonies, and starred a group of kids living in the 70s who made super 8 films and had a very strange alien event happen in their town. They were filming by a train station, and ended up barely escaping a huge train wreck. Before long, strange things started happening in their town, and it turned out that the huge train was transporting something that belonged to an alien being.

Eventually the town is evacuated as things get crazier. In the meantime, the main characters father, the town sheriff, decides that he has had enough of not getting answers of what is going on in his town, and takes matters into his own hands. He marches up to the officer in charge of the makeshift military base/Evacuation Shelter and demands answers, only to be put in a holding cell. Instead of taking matters like a man of the law normally would, he decides to force an escape by tricking and beating up a guard, and even leaving with his uniform, and later impersonating an officer to others on duty. In the end he is seen happily hugging his son, but once the military found out what he did, he would probably have a lot of answering to do and may spend many, many years in prison.

2The Timeline In Empire Strikes Back Is A Gigantic Mess If You Stop To Think About It

In Empire Strikes Back, right after the escape from Hoth, Luke Skywalker heads to Dagobah, a supposedly distant planet, and Han Solo and the others try to run away in the Falcon, the hyperdrive fails, and they end up flying through an asteroid field to escape Darth Vader. They eventually make it to Cloud City on the nearby planet of Bespin, where Han’s old friend Lando betrays him, they get captured by Vader, and Luke gets a vision of their plight and cuts short his training to come rescue them.

Now, here is where the timeline starts to get confusing. We are given the impression that Luke Skywalker spent a significant amount of time on Dagobah, but Han and Leia seem to spend very little time in the asteroid field before making it to the next planet — Bespin is supposed to be really close, and with the hyperdrive out is was unlikely they had a lot of fuel to go far. So somehow Luke manages to pack in an incredible amount of jedi training in just a couple days, and still make it halfway across the galaxy to Bespin before lunch.

The only way this really works is if hyperspace travel is nearly instantaneous even when it comes to insanely long reaches of space, which we are usually led to believe is not the case, or something doesn’t make much sense. There is also the unanswered question of how Luke could expect to have gotten any kind of jedi training in such a short amount of time. Either Han and Leia spent way longer in that asteroid field than we realize, or Luke did the most efficient training montage in the history of movies.

1 The Dinosaur Military Subplot In Jurassic World Is Stomped On By Its Own Scenes

Jurassic World was a hugely successful movie that saw quite a successful sequel, despite so many people complaining about it.. People simply love dinosaur movies, and seeing the dino’s duking it out on the big screen will always hold a certain charm with the population. However, if you ask those who did complain, some will admit that overall it fit the same general plotline of most successful Jurassic movies, but it had a subplot that really didn’t work out too well and that was the main source of their ire.

In the movie, the company InGen, which had their hands in making dinosaurs back in the earlier movies, is heavily involved in investments for this new dino theme park. Their man at the park, a guy called Hoskins who is in charge of security for some reason, thinks that the key to huge money payouts and overall military domination are using trained dinosaurs they way we now use drones. The whole thing is invalidated by its own setup, as right before Hoskins gives his dino military pitch to Chris Pratt’s character, Chris Pratt is almost eaten alive by his own trained from birth dinosaurs and barely gets out with his life. It already should have been painfully obvious at that point that the whole thing was not going anywhere.

The words “Victorian science” bring to mind sober men with ridiculous facial hair peering through microscopes. What it doesn’t bring to mind are certifiable lunatics trying to fly into space, electrocute their genitals, and teach dogs the alphabet. Yet that’s exactly what researchers of the day were up to.

10 Trying To Take A Hot Air Balloon Into Space

If scientist James Glaisher had had his way, the first manned spaceflight would have taken place 100 years before Yuri Gagarin’s. That’s because 1862 was the year that Glaisher and Henry Coxwell set off in their hot air balloon for the “aerial ocean” above. Their government-funded flight took off from Wolverhampton on September 5. Almost immediately, things went horribly wrong.

Approximately 8 kilometers (5 mi) above the Earth, the temperatures dropped to -20 degrees Celsius (-4 °F) and the animals that Glaisher had brought to observe died. About 1.6 kilometers (1 mi) above that, both men suddenly got the bends and collapsed.

At 11 kilometers (7 mi) up, both men blacked out but not before Coxwell pulled the valve release cord with his teeth. To Glaisher’s dismay, the balloon descended, taking them away from the edges of the atmosphere.

Somehow, this near-death experience didn’t put Glaisher off. He made 21 more flights but never realized his dream of ballooning into space.

9 Interviewing Politicians Telepathically

As editor of The Pall Mall Gazette, W.T. Stead championed anything that would help us talk to one another. However, he didn’t discriminate between real-world stuff and ideas from la-la land. Stead was convinced that he could talk to people using only the power of his mind.

At the time, many believed in hidden psychic abilities. So it seemed plausible that you might be able to contact people mentally. For Stead, this meant telepathically sending notes to his secretary, dictating reports to his writers while in another country, and trying to ask questions of famous politicians using only his mind.

Indeed, Stead’s greatest “scoop” came thanks to his powers. He was one of the people killed on the Titanic in 1912. His journalists later claimed that he telepathically reported the disaster to them as it happened.

8 Teaching Dogs To Read

Sir John Lubbock was one of Victorian Britain’s leading scientists. Over his long career, he invented the words “Neolithic” and “Paleolithic,” became vice chancellor of London University, and introduced Thomas Edison’s electric streetlights to England. Oh, and he also wasted hundreds of research hours trying to teach his dog to read.

Lubbock was convinced that dogs could be taught to understand English. Not just simple commands like “sit,” “stay,” or “come back with my donut,” but full, complex sentences. To that end, he drew up giant boards with sentences on them, stuck them in front of his dog, and tried to get the animal to understand them.

By his own account, Lubbock insisted he’d scientifically proven that dogs were capable of learning to read. However, no one has ever repeated this feat.

7 Communicating With Mars

In 1888, Giovanni Schiaparelli announced the discovery of canali on Mars. In Italian, canali means “channels.” A translation mistake meant the English-speaking public heard of them as “canals,” implying intelligence. Almost immediately, this sparked a craze for communicating with Martians through any means possible.

One of the maddest attempts came in 1892. A wealthy French woman had bequeathed an absurd amount of money to establish a network of giant mirrors across Earth. These mirrors would be flashed at the red planet, sending Morse code messages hurtling across the empty depths of space. The Martians would see these messages, build similar mirrors, and flash their own messages back.

By 1892, preparations were well underway to begin using the mirrors to communicate with Mars. Unfortunately, the plan fell apart when more sober scientists pointed out that Mars was now moving away from Earth so the aliens wouldn’t see them anyway.

6 Testing Spectacles On Horses

In 1893, an unsuspecting horse owner sparked one of science’s most bizarre quests. Convinced that his horse was going blind, the anonymous man walked into an optician’s store and ordered a pair of horse glasses. For optician Mr. Dolland, it was the start of a lifelong quest to provide horses with spectacles.

Dolland became convinced that all horses were shortsighted. They bolted when something spooked them because they couldn’t see what it really was. Design a pair of perfect horse specs and bolting, with its attendant injuries, would be a thing of the past.

It’s unknown how long Dolland kept at his crazy idea, but it was certainly long enough to test different glasses on dozens of horses. Eventually, he settled on a pair of bifocals he believed could improve the sight of any horse in the world. The horse-owning public disagreed. Dolland’s contribution to equine science sank without a trace.

5 Electrocuting Their Own Genitals

The Victorians liked men to be men, and any sign of unmanliness was a serious cause of concern. To battle weakness and deficiencies of “masculine energy,” Victorian scientists came up with one of the most absurd cures ever: a belt that delivered constant electric shocks to the subject’s genitals.

These were the days when electricity was so new that it was considered a potential cure-all for just about everything. Just as wackos in the 1950s claimed that radiation could heal anything, so too did Victorians consider electricity a kind of wonder drug.

The experiments were considered such a success that their use expanded to curing impotence, and they started appearing for sale in magazines. Strangely enough, they never really caught on with the general public, who seemed unwilling to embrace severe shocks to their genitalia.

4 Training Wasps As Pets

Remember John Lubbock, the guy who thought he could teach dogs to read? Turns out he had a second hobby that was nearly as weird as the first. Lubbock was convinced that you could train wasps to be the perfect pet.

He tried to train them like you would a dog—to eat out of his hand, allow themselves to be stroked, accompany him to meetings, and, presumably, attack his enemies on command.

As you’d expect, these experiments didn’t go well. Lubbock frequently got stung by his tiny charges, who we’re gonna assume failed to understand what the heck was going on. Yet he persevered and, amazingly, managed to train one single wasp to obey his commands. The creature only lasted nine months before dying, but that was enough for Lubbock to proclaim the winged monsters made perfect pets.

3 Imprinting On The Eyes Of Condemned Criminals

Optography is the practice of analyzing the eyeball to reproduce the last image it saw. If that sounds nuts, it’s because it is. Not that this stopped the Victorians from trying. From 1880 onward, scores of condemned men were asked by scientists to look at dramatic things just before they were executed.

Wilhelm Kuhne led the charge. In 1880, he acquired the head of guillotined murderer Erhard Gustav Reif and examined his eyeballs for images of violent movement. As time went on, the experiments became more elaborate. One condemned man was asked to keep his eyes completely shut as he was led onto the scaffold and to snap them open the second before he was hanged. Strangely, he acquiesced.

Such experiments were so numerous that optography acquired a respectable sheen. As late as 1927, murderers destroyed their victims’ eyeballs to prevent identification by optography.

2 Insane Self-Experiments

The Victorian era saw the emergence of medical ethics. For the first time, you couldn’t just grab a pauper to conduct your experiments on. This meant loads of scientists conducted experiments on the only available people: themselves and their associates. Some of these experiments were insane.

Take August Bier’s investigations into spinal anesthesia. In 1898, the German surgeon and his assistant Augustus Hildebrandt shot their spines full of cocaine and tried to discover if they could still feel pain. Hildebrandt punched a hole in his boss’s neck, leaving spinal fluid leaking out. Meanwhile, Bier stabbed, clubbed, and burned his partner before crushing his testicles. When neither felt any pain, they celebrated by getting riotously drunk.

Others did equally bad stuff. Jesse Lazear allowed himself to be bitten by mosquitoes carrying yellow fever, while Pierre Curie brought Victorian craziness into the Edwardian era by deliberately giving himself radiation burns.

1 Eating One Of Everything In Existence

William Buckland has many claims to fame. He was a theologian, a geologist, and one of the only people Charles Darwin actively hated. But we’re only interested in his strangest experiment. At some point in his life, Buckland decided it would be useful if he ate one of everything in existence and recorded its taste for future generations.

In the name of “science,” Buckland located and devoured everything from mice on toast to alligators to bat urine to puppies. He dined on potted ostrich, roast hedgehog, panthers, porpoises, and even the preserved heart of King Louis XIV. He’s been called “the man who ate everything.” And he recorded the taste of each item meticulously.

Incredibly, in his lifelong experiment, Buckland only found one creature that he didn’t enjoy eating. According to his notes, the common garden mole tasted “disgusting.”

Panic over Ebola has reached absurd heights, with people paying far more attention to worst-case scenarios than to likely outcomes. However, mainstream media alarmism looks almost reasonable next to some of the more absurd conspiracy theories currently circulating about the disease.

10America Manufactured Ebola

Delaware State University professor Cyril Broderick published a letter in Liberia’s Daily Observer in September accusing the US government of manufacturing the Ebola virus. Broderick alleges that Ebola is a genetically modified organism that America weaponized and tested in Africa under the guise of distributing vaccines. He further names Canada, the UK, and France as being in cahoots with America, with the WHO and the UN somehow involved as well.

For sources, Broderick primarily quotes Leonard Horowitz, an opponent of vaccination who thinks American scientists also invented AIDS. Broderick further quotes some speculative conspiracy theorist article and the book The Hot Zone—a legitimate work of nonfiction that does not actually support his claims.

Delaware State did not fire or discipline Broderick for his wild, reckless claims. The University instead said that the professor has the right to say whatever he wants in his free time. But they made sure to clarify that they do not endorse his letter, and he has no expertise in the subject.

9The Ebola Virus Doesn’t Exist

A former nurse caused a violent uprising at a Sierra Leone hospital when a crowd heard her say that the Ebola virus doesn’t exist at all. The outbreak, she claimed, is really just an excuse for doctors to perform cannibalistic rituals at the hospital.

It didn’t take much to convince the crowd. Many in Sierra Leone and surrounding countries naturally distrust hospitals. Most patients and their families choose traditional healers over foreign doctors and nurses. One woman infected with Ebola was removed from a treatment center by her family and taken to a traditional healer. A search for the woman paid off, but on her way to the nearest hospital, she died in the ambulance.

Toward the end of July, the violence escalated as more people started believing the conspiracy. People threated to burn down clinics and treatment centers and remove the Ebola patients by force. At that point, Sierra Leone had the highest number of Ebola patients, and police officers had to stand guard at the main hospital in Kenema. They hurled tear gas into the crowd and accidentally shot a nine-year-old boy.

This incident also led health organization Samaritan’s Purse to stop their outreach to patients in the area. Their health workers had been attacked by community members after they tried to collect a patient.

8Saltwater Cures Ebola

False claims of cures have been making the rounds in parts of Nigeria. One of these cures is drinking saltwater—which, far from curing any disease, can dehydrate drinkers to the point of death. At least four people died of drinking saltwater in an attempt to protect themselves from Ebola. These people had been healthy and lived hundreds of miles from the nearest outbreak.

The World Health Organization issued a statement to warn people against treatments not given by doctors or nurses. They especially warn against believing anything about remedies that are posted on social media platforms. Patients should instead turn to health centers and doctors.

However, again, many in the affected region heartily distrust doctors and dismiss anything they say as lies. One man even told the Wall Street Journal that since he had never seen anyone die before his eyes of the disease, it must be only a rumor.

7God’s Wrath

In July, more than 100 Christian leaders met in Liberia’s capital of Monrovia to discuss how to respond to the Ebola threat. After a day’s discussion, the group unanimously declared that God was angry with Liberia and had sent Ebola as a plague to punish its people.

He was punishing them for corruption—for homosexuality, among other things. And the absolute best way for the country to respond would be three days of fasting and prayer. The government should join in the observation, said the group, shutting down for the period.

A Liberian Muslim cleric, Salafia Mosque chief imam Sheikh Salah Sheriff, echoed the sentiments. He blamed the outbreak on such sins as homosexuality, fornication, adultery, armed robbery, general wickedness, and disrespect of the authorities—all grave affronts to Allah. Asked, he conceded that followers should follow medical advice to avoid exposure, but to really defeat Ebola, Liberians had to “begin to fear God rather than the virus.”

6Witchcraft

One other rumor infecting parts of West Africa is that Ebola comes from witchcraft. The consequence of this is that people consider Ebola as a total and supernatural death sentence—even though treatment can help stop the spread and sometimes even save sufferers.

For example, when Doctors Without Borders took two sick sisters to an eastern Guinea hospital in July, both totally lost hope. Neither tried to fight the disease. They just lay still and waited for death. But Rose, the 12-year-old daughter of one of the sisters, apparently did not believe in witchcraft. She assured her mother and aunt that all three of them could survive, staying cheerful and ensuring that they all followed the doctors’ instructions. They all did recover, which makes them more fortunate than most.

The other consequence of irrational fear of Ebola is that sufferers become needlessly ostracized. Patients at the hospital, especially children, should ideally receive regular visits from their family. But family members are so scared of the disease that they often refuse to come in, despite doctors’ requests.

At the same time, the persistent belief in witchcraft is putting a serious dent in efforts to stop Ebola in its tracks. Some refuse to get medical help because they believe witches and sorcerers are cursing people and causing them to die. They simply refuse to believe that a virus is to blame for the deaths of patients.

5Doctors Are Purposely Infecting People With Ebola

In some villages, people don’t just think that doctors are useless in fighting the disease. They think that the doctors are actively spreading it, so they avoid or even fight doctors who try to help. This irrational fear may stem from incidents where patients went to the hospital for separate medical issues only to be infected by deadly diseases while there.

In extreme cases, villagers have threatened to kill any medical doctor or assistant who comes to treat patients. In the village of Kolo Bengou, Guinea, townsfolk blocked roads with logs to prevent Doctors Without Borders from entering. As a result, the disease spread further.

The persistent rumors that witch doctors can cure the sick also contributes to a lack of faith in real doctors, hampering effective treatment.

4It Started With An Evil Snake

One story tells of a woman with a bag at the border of Guinea and Sierra Leone. Someone opened the bag and saw a snake inside it, and as soon as they looked at it, the woman died. The person who’d opened the bag died next, and the snake slithered off in the nearest bush. And that was how Ebola entered Sierra Leone.

This odd tale is actually consistent with one part of the true story of Ebola. This outbreak is theorized to have started in Guinea before coming to Sierra Leone.

Those who believe in the Ebola snake say that those who show symptoms don’t have a disease at all. They’ve been cursed.

3Ebola Is Spread By White Demon Worshipers

The above image appeared on a Nigerian website in September. Along with it came a story that seems to combine the worst aspects of several dangerous Ebola rumors.

That anime-style nurse holding the skull is named “Ebola-Chan,” said the site. Cults in Europe and America worship her as a goddess. They perform blood sacrifices at altars to Ebola-Chan and eat the hearts of victims, and in return for their patronage, the goddess spreads Ebola throughout Africa. In league with the cult are doctors who manually infect victims with Ebola while pretending to treat it.

The posting did not come from a concerned Nigerian, despite what it claimed. It was from a user of the image board 4Chan, where Ebola-Chan is a meme. When a 4Chan user sees Ebola-Chan, they’re supposed to say “thank you, Ebola-Chan” and joke about the extermination of all Africans.

It’s uncertain if anyone in Nigeria was taken in by the website, but nearly all Internet hoaxes manage to fool someone.

2An Ebola Bomb

Dr. Peter Walsh, a biological anthropologist at the University of Cambridge, claims that terrorists could build bombs containing a powdered form of the Ebola virus. Such a bomb could kill huge numbers of people in a major British city, Walsh told a UK tabloid. This threat may seem particularly serious in the UK because there is otherwise little reason to expect that the disease will enter the country.

In reality, while bioterrorism is always a possibility, it’s unclear why any terrorist would choose to weaponize Ebola of all diseases. Unlike many diseases, Ebola is neither airborne nor waterborne. It is far less contagious than most other viruses.

1The Ebola Crisis Will Launch The New World Order

Perhaps the strangest conspiracy theory of them all claims that the New World Order elite created the Ebola virus as a means of depopulating the Earth. The number of people who must die to reach a “manageable population” is a staggering five billion.

According to this insane conspiracy, the New World Order elite have three primary ways of ensuring depopulation. These include famine from unsustainable development, war from artificial conflict, and manufactured diseases. The cure for the diseases will only be held by the elite.

The elite created the Ebola epidemic to depopulate Africa, with the rest of the world their next target. The news that Ebola has reached the US and killed a patient in Dallas only fueled the fire around this theory.

Estelle lives in Gauteng, South Africa. She usually loves conspiracies, but these ones are far too crazy.

We probably do not think much about fonts. Most of us can’t recognize the majority of them, let alone name them. However, history has proven that fonts are more important than we think they are.

Fonts have sometimes become symbols of progress and political allegiance. They can also be used to expose fraud or delay court judgments. They have caused centuries-old disputes, brought down governments, and fomented protests and public outrage.

10 A Two-Century-Old Dispute Over A Font Ends After Hitler Intervened

From the 1800s until World War II, Germany was enmeshed in a weird controversy over the use of two fonts: Fraktur and Antiqua.

Fraktur was the major font used in Germany until Antiqua came along in the 16th century. Antiqua had been adopted in the non-German parts of Europe, including France and Italy, but not in Germany. However, German printers used it to print non-German words and maintained Fraktur for German words.

Antiqua started to gain prominence in Germany in the 1800s. Several Germans resisted it because it was the preferred font for several political events, including the Renaissance and the French Revolution. The German resistance to Antiqua became more heated after Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo.

Conservative Germans considered Antiqua to be a symbol of the French and deemed its use to be unpatriotic in Germany. Radical Germans supported the adoption of Antiqua because they considered it progressive. Soon, German printers were divided over the two fonts. Printers who used Antiqua were called Altschrift, while those who used Fraktur were called Frakturbund.

The Frakturbund continued to win. In 1911, Germany even banned Antiqua in schools and introduced Sutterlin script in its place. The Nazis found themselves at the center of the heated Fraktur-Antiqua dispute when they got into power. They supported Fraktur until January 1941 when Hitler declared it a Jewish script. So they abandoned it and switched to Antiqua.^[1]

9 A Font Brings Down The Pakistani Prime Minister’s Government

On April 3, 2016, German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung released 11.5 million pages of damaging documents belonging to the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. The documents exposed how Mossack Fonseca set up fake companies to help several high net worth individuals hide money in tax havens.

Several top celebrities, businesspeople, and politicians (including currently serving and past world leaders) were implicated. This included Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Gunnlaugsson resigned the day after the leak, while Sharif managed to hold on for some months.

The Panama Papers revealed that Sharif and his family possibly wired state money through the fake businesses to buy homes in London. Sharif and his family denied the accusations. His daughter, Maryam, even provided documents to prove that the homes were owned by a private business. She claimed that her family only acted as the trustee.

The key document was dated February 2006. However, it was printed in the Calibri font, which was released in 2007. The Sharifs’ attorneys and supporters claimed that Calibri was designed in 2004, which was true. The designer, Lucas De Groot, started work on the font in 2002 and completed it in 2004.^[2]

However, Microsoft only released test versions to a closed group of people before its official 2007 release. According to De Groot, it is unlikely that an unknown and unreleased font would have been used to print official documents in 2006. Nawaz Sharif later resigned after the Pakistani Supreme Court declared that he was not honest enough to remain in office.

8 Telecom Executive Loses Homes After Using The Wrong Font

In December 2017, Gerald McGoey, the chief executive officer of Look Communications, filed for bankruptcy. He was ordered to sell his properties to repay the $5.6 million he owed creditors. These creditors appointed some trustees to audit McGoey’s properties to see what they could lay their hands on.

The trustees found two homes. However, McGoey claimed that the homes belonged to his three children and even provided paperwork as proof. He was soon busted after the documents were revealed to have been printed with fonts that did not exist at the time the supposed trusts were signed.^[3]

One document dating back to 1995 was printed in Cambria, which was designed in 2002. The other paper dated back to 2004, even though it was printed in Calibri. As we mentioned earlier, Calibri only became available in 2007. McGoey’s attorneys later claimed that the couple had made mistakes with the dates but insisted their claims were true. The court decided otherwise.

7 Everyone Hates Comic Sans

Vincent Connare designed Comic Sans in 1994. He made the font for Microsoft Bob, a new program that Microsoft was working on at the time. Microsoft Bob turned the screen of a computer using the Windows 95 operating system into the image of the inside of a home. Users could launch programs by clicking on similar objects in the home.

For instance, clicking on the clock opened the calendar. Clicking on the pen and paper opened Microsoft Word. A dog guided users through the home and spoke in a speech bubble in Times New Roman font. Connare thought that Times New Roman was too serious for the new program, so he created the playful and friendly looking Comic Sans.^[4]

Although Comic Sans never made it into Microsoft Bob, Microsoft released it with Windows 95. The font became popular and was soon used for important and official purposes like tombstones, warning signs, and lifesaving hospital equipment. This whipped up outrage against the font.

Having a playful-looking font on official and important items was a big no-no. It was like having a clown in a business meeting. So the font ended up as the most hated font out there. There is even a movement calling for its ban. Nevertheless, it is still good for children and people with dyslexia.

6 Outrage After IKEA Changes Font

In August 2009, IKEA quietly dumped the trademark Futura font it used in its signage and catalog and switched to Verdana. Unfortunately, customers noticed and started a backlash that we remember today as Verdanagate.

IKEA agreed to the change a few months earlier when executives decided to standardize the fonts they used online and offline. Before then, IKEA used Verdana on its website and Futura on its signage and in its catalog. Futura was not available online at the time, so executives settled for Verdana.

Unfortunately, Verdana was created for online use and flops badly when used offline. It looks unusual when the font size is increased or is printed at a high resolution, which is what IKEA did. This was why it was quickly noticed and generated such negative publicity that IKEA was forced to revert to Futura.^[5]

5 A Money-Saving Font Won’t Save The US Government Any Money

In 2014, Suvir Mirchandani, a 14-year-old student, revealed that the US federal and state governments could save around $467 million a year if they changed the font they used in official documents to Garamond.

Mirchandani made the claim after comparing Garamond with Century Gothic, Comic Sans, and Times New Roman. He discovered that Garamond was thinner and used about 25 percent less ink than the other fonts. He later calculated that US federal and state governments could save $467 million a year if they switched to Garamond.

Mirchandani’s experiment was later determined to be flawed because Garamond is 15 percent smaller than the other fonts at the same size. This means that Garamond would use the same amount of ink as the other fonts if its size was increased to match that of the other fonts. Similarly, other fonts will save the government the same amount of money if their sizes are reduced to match the smaller size of Garamond.

Besides, the US government does most of its printing with printing presses and not with office printers. Mirchandani’s experiment was done with inkjet printers, even though the government also uses laser printers which require toner. Toner is cheaper than inkjet inks, which would affect any cost savings.^[6]

Lastly, the US government does not actually buy ink. Instead, it has deals with other businesses to provide office printing services. These businesses charge based on the pages printed and not the amount of ink used. So the government spends the same amount of money to print a color photograph as it does to print a page with just a single letter on it.

4 Font Size Used To Delay Judgment Over A Controversial Michigan Law

In 2011, Michigan governor Rick Snyder signed a controversial law that allowed the governor to appoint emergency managers to take over the affairs of mayors and city councils in periods of crisis. The law quickly became infamous, causing protests, controversies, and a legal battle.

On one side was Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility that opposed the law. On the other was Stand Up for Democracy that supported the law. The state agreed to call for a referendum in November 2012 to decide if they wanted the law to remain.

Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility sued, asking the Michigan Supreme Court to cancel the referendum because the Stand Up for Democracy movement used a small-sized font in the documents it submitted to request the referendum.

Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility claimed that the small font made the petition illegal. This did not fly with the court, which later ruled that the state could appoint emergency managers.^[7]

3 Controversy After The US Federal Highway Administration Revokes Approval Of A Font For Road Signs

The US Federal Highway Administration approves only two fonts for highway signs. The first is the Highway Gothic typeface that has been in use for over seven decades. The other is Clearview, a newer and supposedly clearer alternative to the Highway Gothic typeface.

The Federal Highway Administration first approved Clearview for use in 2004 after researchers proved that it was clearer than the Highway Gothic typeface. A 1997 test indicated that Clearview was 16 percent more readable at night. A 2001 experiment proved that it increased reading distance by 12 percent on the highway. This meant that drivers could read Clearview 23 meters (74 ft) farther away than they could read Highway Gothic.

However, later tests indicated that Clearview was no better than the Highway Gothic typeface. The supposed clarity was credited to the quality of materials used in making road signs bearing the Clearview font.

There were also concerns that the Federal Highway Administration only approved Clearview for monetary reasons. Town and city councils that opted to use Clearview paid a $175 to $795 licensing fee for the font. The Highway Gothic typeface is available free of charge. Nevertheless, the Federal Highway Administration approved Clearview for use again two years later.^[8]

2 Researcher Gets Funding Approval Rejected For Using Wrong Font

A few years ago, Susannah Maidment, a paleontologist at the Imperial College London, tweeted that her research grant application to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) in the UK had been rejected because she submitted it using Calibri.

Apparently, NERC had stringent guidelines and required that grant proposals be submitted in “Arial 11 or other sans serif typeface of equivalent size to Arial 11.” Maidment had used a font that did not fit the guidelines. She claimed that the initial guidelines mentioned “Arial or other sans serif typeface of equivalent size,” which did not ban Calibri.^[9]

NERC later explained that it rejected 4 percent of funding proposals over wrong fonts. The organization said that its font requirement was necessary to ensure that applicants had an even playing field because smaller fonts took up fewer pages and allowed applicants to give more details.

1 Ad Agency In Trouble Over Font

In 2017, Cliff Ross, an advertising agency based in Philadelphia, released 10 new fonts that it felt would resonate with the city. Each font was modeled after a different neighborhood. For instance, the font modeled after Center City, which contains much of Philadelphia’s offices, resembled skyscrapers.

However, the font modeled after North Philly proved controversial. It resembled boards of wood held together with nails. This provoked outrage because it suggested that the African-American–dominated North Philly was filled with shanties. Users called the font everything from offensive to gross and disturbing, forcing Cliff Ross to retract it.^[10]

With the coronavirus shutdown pushing us toward The Greatest Depression and leaving many of us wondering how we will manage our finances, the days when people paid huge amounts of money for celebrity memorabilia seem like something from the forgotten past.

10 Spectacular Meltdowns That Cost Celebrities Credibility

However, we can still cast our minds back to those distant times when people went on to eBay to place bids for a half eaten sandwich that Miley Cyrus might have gotten her teeth into, or one of Harry Styles’ old sweaty shirts.

So to remind us all that a world existed before the virus, here are the 10 maddest celebrity items people have paid for.

10 John Lennon’s toilet

John Lennon was a pathological liar, wife beater, and genuine music legend, both for The Beatles era and his solo career, with the celebrity sing-a-long to his song Imagine already giving us one of the cringiest moments of the coronavirus era. When Lennon sang “Imagine no possessions” from his luxury mansion it might have been because he had seen into the future and learned that one day someone would pay $11,773 for one of his old toilets. This very expensive toilet had been at the Tittenhurst Park home that Lennon and Yoko Ono lived in from 1969 until 1972 and was one that Lennon had given to his builder to use “as a plant pot” when he got a new one installed.

The auction where this bizarre 2010 sale took place was held at the Paul McCartney Auditorium in Liverpool and the person who paid almost ten times the expected price for a used . . . ahem . . . ’john’ kept his identity a secret. We cannot really blame him for that.^[1]

9 Kiss coffins

The only thing that Kiss lead singer Gene Simmons loves more than rock ‘n’ roll is money and that lust for lucre has helped to make his band the Krusty the Clown of rock music – willing to put their name to the tackiest merchandise in the world if it keeps the cash rolling in.

They took things to a whole new low – literally – back in 2001 though, when they launched the Kiss Kasket. This was a make of coffin that was covered in pictures of the group members as well as the band logo and cost $3,300. As if selling band branded coffins was not scraping the barrel enough they also offered urns that Kiss fanatics could have their ashes stored in.

At the launch, Simmons said that although he loved life, the Kiss Kasket “makes the alternative look pretty damn good” and the ads suggested people who had bought one and then failed to die could use it as a drinks cooler while they waited. Among those who have gone to the next world in a Kiss Kasket are Pantera guitarist ‘Dimebag’ Darrell.^[2]

8 Elvis Presley’s hair

The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll Elvis Presley had an iconic haircut. The ducktail and quiff that he rocked much defined the 1950s, but even that does not explain why anyone would want to pay money to own some of his old, dead hair. Back in November 2002, a man who used to cut the hair of The King – Homer Gilleland – put a collection of clippings he had kept for decades on sale at an auction in Illinois.

You might think that keeping someone else’s hair for that long is a bit weird and you would be right. It would be creepy if it was the hair of an ex girlfriend or boyfriend and you wanted it so you could stroke it and cry every night, but holding on to it to sell is not really any better. Then again, BUYING another person’s hair is weird too, so the anonymous buyer does not look great here either. The clippings came complete with letters from Gilleland, expert in Presley memorabilia John W Heath and someone called John Reznikoff who is apparently a respected authority when it comes to collecting hair (!) The final sale price of $115,120 made it the most expensive hair ever sold at auction.^[3]

7 Russell Crowe’s jockstrap

Back when he starred in Gladiator in 1999, Australian Russell Crowe was a sex symbol and lots of women might have been willing to bid for his used jockstrap, but by 2018 you would expect there to have been fewer takers. That was when the piece of sweaty protection was put up for sale as part of a ‘divorce auction’ of his belongings that the actor organized. The jockstrap for sale was one Crowe wore during the filming of Cinderella Man in 2004, although we have to hope that it had been washed during the 14-year gap.

Crowe was expecting to get offers of between $500 and $600 for it – which might seem a bit egotistical, but it actually went for $7,000 so if anything he was selling himself short. The buyer was an English television personality, who later claimed that he bought it for donation to a Blockbuster video store that was struggling for money (ya think?!) so that they could use it as memorabilia to attract customers. Whether they want the sort of customers who would be attracted by it is another matter.^[4]

6 Justin Timberlake’s French toast

Justin Timberlake has lots of fans, both from his days with NSYNC and his solo music and movie career and one of them was passionate enough about the man nicknamed ‘trouser snake’ to pay over $1000 for a couple of slices of French toast that he had come into contact with.

The toast was made for the star during an early morning interview he gave to the radio station Z-100 back in 2000, but the chef managed to burn it and Timberlake decided not to bother. After the interview, the DJ took the leftover toast and put it straight onto eBay, showing the true US spirit of enterprise.

A bidding war then took place over the stale toast, and given that Timberlake was still deep in his boy-band period at the time it is not surprising that the person who most badly wanted his uneaten breakfast was a 19-year-old fan of NSYNC called Kathy Summers. Speaking to the media after claiming her ‘prize’, Summer said: “I’ll probably freeze dry it, then seal it . . . then put it on my dresser.” NSYNC were also toast not long after this heartwarming story, splitting in 2002 as Timberlake went solo.^[5]

Top 10 Tone-Deaf Celebrity Coronavirus Messages That Are Cringey AF

5 Jennifer Lawrence’s sports bra

Jennifer Lawrence rose to fame by playing Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games movie trilogy, but it seems many of her fans are not so much hungry as thirsty – particularly the ones who bid for one of her used sports bras at an auction in 2013. The sports bra was one of several pieces that went on sale at an auction house in Los Angeles, with all of the clothes being ones she had worn during the filming of the movie Silver Linings Playbook.

The auction took place not long after she had won the first of her Oscars so that might explain the frenzied bidding or it could just be that a lot of dudes around the world had money to burn and were a bit too keen to own one of her bras. The total sum that was raised by the sale of the clothes was $12,000 and the sports bra accounted for a cool $3,175 of it. The owner of the auction house said afterwards that global bidding had been “furious” and the people who lost out on the bra were probably furious too. Surely finding a girlfriend would be a cheaper option for these guys.^[6]

4 William Shatner’s kidney stone

We know that Star Trek fans are pretty obsessive about everything connected with the show, so when Captain Kirk sold his kidney stone on eBay the most amazing thing about it was not the money it made but the fact that the buyer was no sci-fi geek. Shatner chose to put the stone onto the site in 2006 to help raise cash for the homelessness charity Habitat for Humanity, after falling ill with it the previous fall while he was filming Boston Legal.

When he put the huge stone up for sale he also included other pieces of surgical equipment like the string and stint that helped him pass it – just for those who did not find the stone itself gross enough. Plenty of people were willing to bid for a – literal – piece of Shatner though, with the whole lot eventually selling for $25,000. Lots of dedicated trekkers must have been mad as hell that night though, as none of them ended up with the precious stone. The buyer who boldly went where no man has gone before was an online casino called Golden Palace, who added it to other collectables that can be viewed on their website, such as a toasted cheese sandwich with the Virgin Mary’s image on it.^[7]

3 Scarlett Johansson’s used tissue

Just in case you thought it could not get any more disgusting than buying a kidney stone, someone actually paid thousands of dollars for a tissue that Marvel star Scarlett Johansson once sneezed into. This moment of snotty behavior came long before Scarlett was cast as Black Widow in the MCU, as it followed an appearance on the Tonight show when she was promoting terrible 2008 superhero movie The Spirit. During the show she complained about having a cold and Jay Leno gave her a tissue that she blew into a couple of times.

This left it covered in both lipstick and nasal fluid, which would make most people want to get it in the nearest bin. Instead the star signed it and put it up for sale on eBay to try and raise money for a charity called Harvest. It worked too, possibly because there were lots of fans who were hoping to use it to clone her, Sheldon Cooper style. The eventual winner had to cough up $5,300 to get his hands on it (yes we are assuming it was a man). He may be having the last laugh though, as he sits at home with his Hollywood star clone wife.^[8]

2 Truman Capote’s ashes

The writer of Breakfast at Tiffany’s was someone who enjoyed being famous and the center of attention so he might not have minded people bidding huge amounts of money to own his ashes. They went up for sale at auction two years ago and the buyer paid $43,750 for his or her ghoulish prize. Capote actually died all the way back in 1984 and his ashes had been kept by one of his best friends – the wife of Johnny Carson, the Tonight Show legend. She claimed that having them near to her was a comfort, but after she died in 2017, the decision was made to put them up for sale.

The president of Julien’s Auctions Darren Julien said afterwards that “with some celebrities this wouldn’t be tasteful” (no kidding), but added that he was completely certain that it was what Capote would have wanted. The starting price for the ashes was $2,000 and it does seem likely that the flamboyant author would have been delighted to have brought in more than twenty times that much money.^[9]

1 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s breath

“Every breath you take”, The Police sang, but the next line was not “I will bottle and sell on eBay.” That is what happened to political activists and part-time actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie during 2005, in the first . . . um . . . breath of their romance. At the premiere of the movie Mr and Mrs Smith on June 7th that year, Joe Wilson and his partner in crime Pam DuMond, who call themselves the Celebrity Air Collection Squad lay in wait for passing stars. As Jolie and Pitt walked by on the red carpet they scooped up some of the air into a jar and sealed it shut.

At this point you might be thinking: “what if they were both holding their breath at that moment?” or “what if one of them farted before the jar was sealed?” It is possible that a Hollywood star fart in a jar would be worth more than basic breath though, so Wilson and DuMond may have missed a trick by not labeling it as that. As it was, they made sure to call it ‘Celebrity Air’ and point out that it might not be that of Pitt or Jolie at all so that they were within eBay rules about not selling something when its existence cannot be proved.^[10]

Top 10 Nutty Conspiracy Theories Involving Celebrities

You’re watching a horror movie in the cinema. The movie’s main antagonist, say a big hairy razor-toothed monster, pops up on the screen. Would you hide behind your popcorn? Would you scream. If you are watching any of the movies in this list, the chances are you’d drop your oh-so-expensive popcorn as you double up in laughter. Movies have helped generations to visualize classic literary monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and The Phantom of the Opera with stunning celluloid renditions. Horror movies have also created new bogeymen like Freddy Kruger, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and the Godzilla; monsters that scores of people see in their nightmares on returning home from the cinema. But, sadly, the movie industry has also provided us with creations like these:

Top 10 Best of the Worst Films

10 Sharktopus—Sharktopus

What could be scarier than a giant octopus? A giant shark, of course! What could be scarier than a giant shark? A Sharktopus! The plot of this dumbfounding T.V. movie is nearly as silly as the eponymous beastie; the US Navy, in a moment of dubious inspiration, decide that their multi-billion dollar arsenal is lacking a certain je ne sais quoi. They commission a group of vaguely science-type guys called ‘Blue Water’ to bio-engineer them a new super weapon. And so the Sharktopus was born. Everything looked to be working well; they employ this giant crime-against-nature to decimate a group of drug smugglers off the coast of California. But the test goes horribly awry when Sharktopus escapes and makes his way to the beach-bum haven of Puerto Vallarta. Many sexy, bikini-clad women and douche-bag Californian guys are killed by the marauding hybrid monster, until it is eventually blown up by the daughter of Sharktopus’s creator. Seriously. That’s the plot.

Crap, yes. But entertaining crap. This wonderfully silly movie from 2010 was made for the SyFy channel by the king of low-budget movies Roger Corman. Initially Corman was reluctant to make this movie but the SyFy team have a certain way to convince filmmakers to get on board—wheelbarrows full of cash. They wanted to cast ‘The Dark Knight’ actor Eric Roberts, (brother of ‘Pretty Woman’ Julia), who agreed to be in the film because he thought that the plot sounded so utterly ridiculous that it’d be a lot of fun to work on. People of the ‘Jaws’ generation always check the water before entering for a swim…can we expect kids of the ‘Sharktopus’ era to do the same? Probably not…^[1]

9 The Lepus—Night of the Lepus

“Jolly Humour”, “Bitter Fun”, “A very different sort of humour…Intercontinental, sadistic”. This is how the British press described the 1964 horror/comedy novel ‘ The Year of the Angry Rabbit’ by Australian author Russell Braddon. When Hollywood decided to make a movie based on this innovative gem of a book, they made one huge mistake. They dropped the humour. Whoever decided that a storyline based on a bunch of giant mutant bunnies running amok could be done as a straight, po-faced horror really needs to take a good long look at themselves, (maybe they had a bad experience with a giant, man-eating rabbit as a child?)

The official poster for the film didn’t actually show any rabbits on it because studio executives thought that audiences wouldn’t take the film seriously after seeing fluffy bunnies on a poster for a horror movie. In reality, nobody can take this picture seriously after watching faded film star Janet Leigh and, (randomly), Star Trek’s DeForest Kelley battling against these monstrous mammals who’ve acquired a taste for human flesh. To make the giant monsters seem extra ‘real’, actual bunnies were used along with miniature sets designed to look like a dusty South-western town! Venerable producer AC Lyles was best known for making B-movie Western flicks such as ‘Young Fury’ and ‘Johnny Reno’ and, most recently, as a consulting producer on the seminal TV drama ‘Deadwood’. So how could a man with years of experience in the industry think that a film about humungous rabbits chasing folk in an Arizona backwater town be a hit? We’ll probably never know. Incidentally, this movie was made was made in 1972 and according to the Chinese Zodiac, it was the year of the, you guessed it…Rat.^[2]

8 Hitler’s Head—They Saved Hitler’s Brain

Although the title states that ‘they saved Hitler’s brain’, in this celluloid atrocity, they actually saved the Fuhrer’s whole head! They couldn’t even get the title right! Originally a TV film called ‘The Madmen of Mandoras’, producer Carl Edwards was unsatisfied by the limited audience his little opus got, so he made a feature length movie. It needed twenty minutes of extra footage to bulk out the original TV film, so he enlisted a UCLA student to make the added material…without any original costumes, the original cameras or any use of original production methods. As a result, large swathes of the movie seem totally different to the original, further cementing this film’s status as one of the worst movies ever made.^[3]

7 Goblins—Troll 2

The scary monsters in the movie Troll 2 are, as the title would suggest…Goblins. Wait, what? There are no trolls in this picture and no reference to the original ‘Troll’ movie. What in the hell is going on here? It’s so utterly appalling that the director, Claudio Fragasso, used the pseudonym Drake Floyd on the film’s credits. But loads of people have done that in movies, right? Well, this is the man who directed such clangers as ‘Women’s Prison Massacre’ and ‘Shocking Dark’, (an unofficial sequel to ‘Terminator’ released a few years before ‘T2: Judgement Day’). So if he doesn’t want to put his name to a movie, you know it’s going to be bad.

Yes, it’s pretty shoddy…however, in the world of bad movies, this one falls into the category of ‘so bad it’s amusing’. In recent years the movie has garnered a cult status, with clips from the film becoming internet memes due to the spectacularly bad acting and the cruddiest monsters seen in 90’s cinema. The plot is pretty damn fantastic too—a family are chased by a group of vegetarian goblins who seek to transform them into plants and devour them. Why they had to be veggies and not just carnivorous goblins I do not know. The sub-Halloween mask faces of the goblins give the film such a comical air that ‘Troll 2’ is immensely watchable; you can’t take your eyes off it… a bit like a watching a hilarious car crash.^[4]

6 Charles “Butcher” Benton—Indestructible Man

Lon Chaney was a giant of the movie world. The ‘Man of a Thousand Faces’ was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, bringing life to genre-defining monsters such as ‘Erik’ the phantom in ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ and ‘Quasimodo’ in ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’. His son, Lon Chaney jnr. also had success in his career—mainly as the title character in Universal Studios’ classic 1941 monster flick ‘The Wolf Man’ and its sequels. However, Chaney jnr. felt that he was living in his father’s shadow for much of his career. Most actors who tasted the success that Chaney jnr. had would be more than happy with their careers. But when your daddy is considered as one of the greatest horror actors of all time, bringing a gravitas to an often maligned genre, then one can understand why he thought he’d lacked sufficient accomplishments.

In his role as re-animated crook ‘Charles “Butcher” Benton’ in the movie Indestructible Man, Chaney jnr. showed that his worries about failing to live up to his father’s reputation was pretty damn accurate. Don’t get me wrong, the younger Chaney was a good actor, but he couldn’t make this embarrassing excuse for a movie monster work. After scientists experiment on the body of an executed criminal, the accidentally re-animate him and making him super-strong and making his skin impervious to damage! This Frankencrook goes on a murderous rampage, seeking revenge on his former partners. Is this even a monster? Certainly not in the traditional sense. He isn’t a composite of body parts like Frankenstein’s Monster, or a magically animated clay giant like The Golem…he’s just Lon Chaney jnr. Also, the title is very misleading—he dies in the end! It should have been called: ‘The Not-Exactly-Indestructible Man’. Poor.^[5]

10 Movies That Are So Bad They Are Good

5 Mothra—Godzilla vs. Mothra

Fans of the ‘Godzilla’ series of movies won’t be happy with this entry. Mothra is a much loved character amongst the long list of giant monsters that seem to destroy Japanese cities on an alarmingly regular basis. Quite why Mothra is held in such high regard is beyond me! It’s a big moth. A giant spider that spits acid would be horrifying. A huge, laser-eyed mantis would cause widespread panic. A flame breathing scorpion would cause fear-induced pants soiling with ease. But a big moth? Other than coating large urban areas in wing dust, thus ruining thousands of white shirts, what’s so scary about Mothra?

Nothing—but then again, she isn’t meant to be scary to humanity. Mothra is a protector of Earth; a re-incarnated race of aliens spliced with a moth by the cosmos(?!) Seriously? A moth? Earth’s most powerful protector is a moth? At least a giant butterfly would be pretty to look at! Granted, she can shoot arcs of lightening from her antennae and cause powerful winds with her giant wings, but come on! The idea that this town-sized bug is here to help humanity just adds to its crappiness. Along with the big bouncing bunnies in The Lepus, Mothra can count herself as one of the lamest giant creatures in film history!^[6]

4 The Monster—Blood Beach

“Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water…you can’t get to it!” Wow. What a tag-line! This film is in no way linked to the movie ‘Jaws’ but the producers had no problem in trying to cash in on the success of Spielberg’s shark attack flick. But this is no two-bit rip off! In fact, there is no sniff of a giant shark terrorizing beach-goers in Blood Beach; the monster is below the sand! I think…

You don’t really get more than a fleeting glimpse of the monster in this movie. You also can’t really tell what the hell it is. Is it a bloodthirsty clam? Is it an carnivorous alien cactus? What the hell is it? We know it has a taste for anything that moves above its subterranean abode…but what is the thing? Even after the local police manage to blow the thing to pieces with dynamite, viewers are left scratching their heads wondering what the hell was chomping on dogs and sexy ladies. Whatever the beast was, it probably cost under a hundred bucks to make.^[7]

3 The Stuff—The Stuff

Over consumption of ice cream is very bad for you. Tooth-rotting sugar, the calorie-count and nerve-splitting brain freezes are all awful side effects to this favourite desert. None of these problems compare to killer ice cream in this film. That’s right, the ‘monster’ in the 1985 movie ‘The Stuff’ is killer ice cream.

When a bubbling white liquid is found oozing from the earth by a couple of miners, they soon discover that it’s tasty, filling and contains no calories! It starts getting sold to the public and ‘the stuff’ fast becomes the new food fad—everyone is eating the stuff by the bucket load. But there are side effects… you turn into a zombie-esque creature and the stuff starts eating you from inside. The oozing sludge also has a mind of its own—in a memorable scene in a motel room, The Stuff attacks a man while slithering up and down the walls and ceiling, (this scene was shot in the same room as Johnny Depp’s bedroom in ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’). Although the film isn’t terrible, the idea of killer ice cream isn’t going to strike fear into the hearts of many people, except the marketing executives at Häagen-Dazs. In fact, the crew used tub upon tub of this particular ice cream as ‘the stuff’, along with yoghurt and fire-extinguisher foam.^[8]

2 Terror Toons—Terror Toons

This is going to be tough to write…here goes: in some place called ‘the cartoon universe’, a character who looks like a green, Nazi-era cartoon of a Jewish man wearing a doctors costume called ‘Doctor Carnage’ rips some blokes skull out through his stomach. So far, so stupid. Meanwhile, sisters Cindy and Candy and some brain-dead friends decide to watch a DVD called Terror Toons (created by the Devil). They watch the film which is about the psychotic antics of Doctor Carnage and his mutated lab monkey side-kick, Max Assassin…jeez. After a quick game of strip Ouija, the terror toons materialize in the house and go about killing the main cast in painfully cheesy ways— a cop is killed by a stick of dynamite in a box of donuts, a girl is sawn in half in a botched magic act and a pizza delivery boy is dismembered with a giant pizza cutter.

The terror toons take Cindy to Hell where she meets the Devil, who tells her of his evil plan to use the terror toons to rid the world corrupt children. Realizing that “she is now in a cartoon”, Cindy turns herself into a superhero and the Devil sends her back to Earth. Cindy seeks the machine that makes the terror toons DVDs and, after killing Doctor Carnage with a giant axe and stomping out Max Assassin’s brain with her new found super power of, uh, stamping really hard, she destroys the machine. Cindy’s parents return home to see that everything went a little bit mad whilst they were away. Right, I’m not writing anymore about this film. My fingers feels dirty!^[9]

1 Leyak —Mystics in Bali

Balinese culture is rich and interesting. From gamelan music to the amazing dancing and stunning food, the people of Bali have an ancient culture that draws tourists from all over the globe to their stunning island home. However, the movie ‘Mystics in Bali’ is possibly the worst advert for Balinese culture one could imagine. ‘Mystics’ is Indonesia’s first attempt at a horror film directed at the international market. Check out the trailer, it’s so bad it’s hilarious!

An Australian women named Cathy travels to Bali to do research on the local mythology. A witch promises to teach Cathy about the dark arts of Balinese magic but instead turns Cathy into a Leyak; a floating vampire head with her internal organs hanging out from her neck. Local holy men seek out Cathy and destroy her. If you could encounter a ‘real-life’ Leyak, I’m sure this foetus-eating monster would be really quite scary. Not in this film. The sight of lead actress Ilone Bastian’s head removing itself from her neck and clumsily floating around is nothing short of comical. The movie was banned in Indonesia—I assume to save face rather than because of its X-rated content. A real stinker.^[10]

Top 10 Films So Bad They Are Hilarious

About The Author: CJ Phillips is an actor and writer living in rural West Wales. He is a little obsessed with lists.

Hysterical witch-hunting spread from Europe to the UK in 1590. James VI of Scotland, later to become James I of England, was the most notable royal witch-hunter. He even published Daemonologie (literally, the science of demons) to inflame the passion of witch-hunting zealots. James described witchcraft as “high treason against God”, which meant that all manner of horrors were justified in wringing confessions from the accused.^[1] Many of the precepts that defined the Salem witch trials a century later, were forged in the flames of maybe 4000 witches executed in the relatively tiny country of Scotland.

It seemed that almost any testimony or evidence, however absurd, could be used to convict those considered unpleasant in society. The following are ten of the most incredulous reasons to be condemned as a witch and sentenced to death.

10 Guilty by floating

We start our witch-hunt in the small village of Milton in Bedfordshire, the year is 1613. Two horses pulling a cart of corn to marked were spooked on the road by a black pig. The sow was said to have spun around in the road, and the horses bolted. Servants managed to catch and calm the animals, but on their return the same thing happened! The sow was seen later entering the house where Mother and Mary Sutton lived. Gossip spread quickly, reaching Enger, the landowner. His 7 year old son took it upon himself to throw stones at Mary calling her a witch. Days later the boy died.

Enger blamed Mary and her mother and decided to prove her guilt by swimming. First she was dunked in the dam with a rope around her waist and only sank slightly. Not satisfied with this they tied her thumbs to opposite big toes and swam her a second time. She span around as if caught in a whirlpool and floated^[2] – this proved she was indeed a witch. If we turn a woman into a wheel she’s bound to spin like a wheel! Mother and Mary were found guilty of witchcraft and hanged on 7th April 1613.

9 Witches bridle

Agnes Sampson was a well respected healer and midwife. But in 1592 she became embroiled in the witch-hunt of North Berwick. The return voyage of James VI with his new Danish wife was beset with storms. These were attributed too witchcraft and conspiracy with the devil to assassinate the king.

Torture and sleep depravation were used to extract confession. Sampson was restrained with an instrument called a witch’s bridle: four prongs placed in the mouth, then attached to a device fastened to the wall.^[3] Agnes was one of around 70 people who confessed to witchcraft. (Anyone who’s had a brace fitted can understand that you will say anything to make it stop). She was strangled to death and her body burned.

8 A child’s testimony

Imagine next time your child hates you for limiting their Xbox time, if they had the power to convict you to your death. That’s exactly how 10 people in Pendle, Lancashire met their fate in 1612. Jennet Device lived with her mother Elizabeth, grandmother Demike, older sister Alizon and brother James. Demike was not liked by the villagers not least for her unfortunate appearance of one eye high, one low, looking in different directions. So when Alizon cursed a pedlar who then collapsed, there were many eager fingers pointing at her and Demike.

Jennet Device entered the court where her grandmother Demike and sister Alizon stood accused of witchcraft. Her mother Elizabeth screamed out at Jennet bringing the little girl to tears. Jennet demanded her mother be removed. She then climbed the table and delivered a calm and convincing testimony. “My mother is a witch and that I know to be true. I have seen her spirit in the likeness of a brown dog, which she called Ball”^[4].
The court believed her and convicted her whole family and many of the neighbors of causing death by witchcraft. The day after they were hanged at Gallows Hill.

7 Witchfinder General

There is a heart carved above a window of number 17 Tuesday Market Place, Kings Lynn. This is the place where the heart of Margaret Read struck the wall after bursting from her chest at the moment of death by burning. The heart then beat its way to the nearby River Ouse and sank amidst the wildly bubbling water. Margaret had been convicted as a witch.

In this same part of East Anglia around 1646, some 60 years later, Matthew Hopkins the Witchfinder General^[5] was paid handsomely to clear the towns of witches. Along with torture and sleep depravation, Hopkins also used a spike to test any scar or nipple to see if it was immune to pain. This would indicate the person had suckled the devil. The test was however grossly unfair as the 3 inch needle actually retracted into the spring-loaded handle under pressure. How ironic that a heartless charlatan was paid £20 (at a time when the average workers wage was 2 pence) for condemning the poor – we wouldn’t let that happen nowadays would we!

6 Familiars

We all make judgements of people based on the kind of pet they have, and some owners even look like their pets. But what if your pet is a black cat named Rutterkin, this kind of familiar could get you the label of being a witch. And so it was that the witches of Belvoir in 1690 were convicted for consorting with familiars.

Joan Flower and her two daughters, Margaret and Philippa were employed at Belvoir Castle, until Margaret was dismissed for stealing. Not long after the whole family became sick and the Earl’s eldest son Henry died. The Earl and Countess were convinced that the three women were to blame, and had them taken to Lincoln jail. Joan would not confess and demanded bread and butter be brought so that if she were not innocent she would choke on it. After one mouthful she dropped dead! At which point her daughters quickly confessed to witchcraft involving incantations and the familiar Rutterkin. They were convicted and hanged.^[6] We would suggest a dog for your next pet!

5 Vicious Kiss

On a cold night in Cork, Ireland, an old woman named Florence Newton begged for a piece of bread at the home of John Pyne. She was refused and sent on her way by the housemaid Mary Longdon. A time later Florence caught up with Mary carrying a pail of clothes for washing, she threw the pail from her head and kissed her violently, saying “Mary, I pray thee, let thee and I be friends; for I bear thee no ill will.”^[7]

Mary soon after experienced fits and trances, even vomited up needles, pins, horse-nails, wool and straw. Newton was brought to trial for witchcraft. One of the tests she had to perform was reciting the Lord’s prayer which she struggled to do. Her jailor Davy Jones helped her to learn the prayer, and in gratitude she kissed his hand. A few weeks later Davy died, cursing the kiss.
Records of the outcome are lost, but it’s likely she was sentenced to death.

4 Unable to recite Lord’s Prayer

The last witch condemned to death in England, in 1712, was Jane Wenham, the witch of Walkern. Once again inability to recite the Lord’s prayer was used against her. She supposedly struggled to speak the words “forgive us our trespasses” and “lead us not into temptation” during her interrogation.^[8] Her accusers also pricked her with a pin up to the head, but instead of drawing blood only a watery liquid was produced. This was a sure sign of guilt.

Attitudes were beginning to change and the judge John Powell was particularly skeptical to accounts of witchery. He was sympathetic to the old woman, dismissing accusations of flying with the assertion that there’s no law against that. The jury still found Jane guilty of witchcraft which carried the sentence of death. However Powell suspended the sentence and in time Jane may have been granted a royal pardon from Queen Anne herself.

3 Convicted by roof tile

If you thought you had heard the most absurd tests of witch craft already, how about conviction by roof tile! It was 1586 in Faversham, Kent, when Sarah Cooke’s daughter Jane fell ill. She was instructed to take a tile from the roof of the woman she suspected of being responsible. This tile was to be placed in the fire where it would ‘sparkle and fly round the cradle’. The worried mother took a tile from her neighbor Joan Cason, and the ritual proved positive. To further compound her guilt, a visit by Joan to enquire into the child’s health led to disastrous consequences. Jane died just a few hours after looking Joan in the face.

The jury at her trial attempted to show leniency, acquitting her of murder and only convicting her of conjuring spirits. However a lawyer who was present quibbled the charge of conjuring spirits and Joan was hanged anyway three days later.^[9] Shouldn’t the roofers have been charged for using sub-standard tiles though?

2 Too brave to be a mere woman

Janet Forsyth was a woman with a talent for predicting the weather. But in 1627 this would not mean a glamorous TV career! One morning after a premonition she pleaded with her sweetheart Benjamin Garrioch, not to go to sea. The fisherman however set out despite her warning. A thick fog descended and all were lost. Janet was branded a witch and spent her days increasingly isolated.

Years later a ship was spotted in trouble off Westray. Janet rallied the village for support to go to their aid, however they were more interested in the ship breaking up and leaving its cargo on the beach. Undeterred Janet piloted her small boat single-handed to aid the ship and bring it into safety of Pierowall Bay.^[10] This act of bravery sealed her fate, it was inconceivable that a mere woman could be capable of such an act. Tried and sentenced to death for witchcraft, the story has one last twist. On execution day the dungeon she had been held in was empty. The romantic conclusion is that her lover, thought lost, had in fact been press-ganged into the navy. He had returned just in time to make her escape.

1 Backwards writing

The craze for persecuting witches largely missed Wales, their courts were so full up with felons that prosecuting witches was seen as a luxury. In all there were five executions for witchcraft in Wales.^[11] The first of these was Gwen Ferch Ellis in 1594. Gwen was a woman with a reputation for healing, but could she also use her powers for ill? If she had kept herself to herself she would probably have gone unnoticed.

Her mistake was crossing social boundaries. The offense that brought her to trial was leaving a charm, a poem written backwards, in the parlor of one of the local gentry. It was seen as a sign to inflict harm on the household. She had the chance to flee but was adamant she had done no wrong. Many of the people her charms had helped testified against her. She was found guilty and hanged.

An emerging author currently working on a first novel. Lives in Shrewsbury, England.

Many people exercise for one reason or another. Most forms of exercise, such as jogging or lifting weights, can be seen everywhere. However, many new and different workouts have also been invented over the years in an attempt to break the monotony and repetitiveness of typical exercise, sometimes with very strange results.

10 Prancercise

In 1989, fitness buff Joanna Rohrback was exercising down Hollywood Boulevard wearing ankle weights. She added rhythmic arm movements to her steps and was struck by the result that she described on YouTube as a “springy, rhythmic way of moving forward, similar to a horse’s gait.” Feeling that she was onto something, she dubbed her new workout “Prancercise.” In 1994, Rohrback wrote a book, Prancercise: The Art of Physical and Spiritual Excellence, which was not published. The entire idea ended up on the back burner for almost two decades.

For most of the 2000s, Rohrback was prevented from exercising due to an illness which lasted nine years. In 2013, however, she began to work out again, resuming her Prancercise moves and posting a five-minute video detailing the concept on YouTube. The video went viral, and soon, others began galloping down halls and streets and filming their own YouTube videos.

Rohrback’s book is now published, and Prancercise has its own website. In addition to physical exercise, Prancercise is also described as liberating practitioners from tired gym routines and allowing for self-expression. Prancercisers move to their preferred music in whatever way feels natural to them.

The unusual workout does have the benefit of being low impact and easily doable for most people. The use of ankle weights can make it a bit tougher. Prancercise isn’t high-intensity exercise, but it will get your heart rate up and can help beginners and people who are restarting exercise after a long hiatus (like Rohrback herself) to get used to regular activity.

9 High Heel Workouts

High heels aren’t always comfortable, and frequent wearing of them has been shown to have negative effects on the body. A 2011 study indicated that high heels may make women more likely to suffer osteoarthritis in the future, particularly in the knees. The shin muscles, quadriceps, and stabilizing knee tendons are placed under extra strain. So are the calves, which can be permanently shortened. The same is true for the Achilles tendon. In addition to the strain placed on all of those muscles and tendons, some scientists think that walking in high heels burns fewer calories because the shoes slow a person’s walking speed.

Exercising in such strenuous footwear might not sound like a good idea, but high heel workouts exist, and gyms even offer classes. These classes look much like a typical fitness class, except that everyone is moving around in high heels. One workout program, Heel Hop, bills itself as a means of reducing the pain and discomfort from high heels through strengthening the body. Other stated benefits include increased cardiovascular strength, a leaner lower body, a smaller waist, increased muscle tone in the legs, and improved confidence and dance skills.

Working out in high heels will indeed burn calories and strengthen the legs, though it’s argued that the visible benefits may mask underlying, long-term wear and tear on the legs. You might want to consider stretching beforehand.

8 Fifty Shapes Of Grey

Whatever your opinion on it, you probably know about E.L. James’s hugely popular Fifty Shades of Grey and the eponymous feature film. Now, there is a workout that features exercises based on the novel’s sex scenes. Fitness personality Kristen James (no relation to Fifty Shades’s author) has developed “Fifty Shapes of Grey,” a 13-exercise routine that can be easily performed with only a chair and mats. The sexual theme of Fifty Shapes is evident in the names of the exercises, which include “seductive squats” and “sexy scissors.”

Physically, Fifty Shapes of Grey primarily builds flexibility and core strength. The ultimate goal of the workout is to give you both the confidence and physical fitness needed to reenact Fifty Shades’s sex scenes in your own bedroom or to simply have better sex in general. Some of the exercises are performed standing on the tips of your toes, possibly because performing the exercises while wearing stilettos would be injurious.

7 Kangoo Jumps

The decidedly unique-looking shoes known as Kangoo Jumps (presumably a play on the word “kangaroo”) were developed in the 1990s for athletes to reduce the impact of vigorous exercise. Techniques designed to develop explosive strength can repeatedly place joints under strain equivalent to five times Earth’s gravity. Kangoo Jumps combat that strain by lengthening impact time enough to allow the muscles to properly absorb impact energy. Studies have shown that they reduce impact stress by as much as 80 percent while protecting joints.

When running on Kangoo Jumps, the entire foot strikes the ground, as opposed to the heel striking first, and is rebounded upward. Users have likened it to running on a trampoline. Running in Kangoo Jumps burns 25–50 percent more calories than regular running, and the core gets more of a workout from stabilizing the runner.

In more recent years, Kangoo Jumps have moved beyond athletic training and into more popular use. Bouncy dance classes have appeared in gyms, and Kangoo running groups and boot camps also exist. Gyms and classes aren’t necessary, however, as anyone can buy their own pair online. Though they make for a harder running workout, use of the shoes is said to be surprisingly easy to master. As of this writing, we do not know if anyone has attempted Prancercise while wearing Kangoo Jumps.

6 Europlate

How about a workout where you barely have to move? If that sounds good, then you might like Europlate, a type of machine featuring a vibrating plate upon which a user sits or stands in various ways. The plate vibrates at 30–50 hertz, and the vibrations cause muscles to contract and stretch like they would during conventional exercise, just more effectively. In fact, the producers of the product even claim that spending 10 minutes on a Europlate is equal to an hour-long workout.

These vibration machines supposedly provide many benefits. For one, muscles are exercised without the strain and impact of traditional workouts. Bone density, circulation, metabolism, strength, stamina, and muscle tone are improved. Fat is burned, and joint pain is reduced. The body is even detoxified through increased lymphatic drainage.

With vibration machines becoming more popular and appearing in more gyms, you don’t necessarily need to drop a few thousand dollars to gain access to one. There is debate over what benefits sitting and shaking on a Europlate actually provides, however. A 2009 study did show that obese women using vibration plates lost more weight than those using conventional exercise. But it’s important to use the machine properly for maximum effectiveness. If it feels easy, it’s not being done right.

5 Chair-A-Cise

Finally, there is a workout that you can do. Chair-A-Cise, like the name suggests, is done entirely while sitting in a chair. Personal trainer Daryl Madison developed the program as a means for anyone to benefit, regardless of their condition.

Many of the typical obstacles that may prevent someone from adopting a regular fitness regimen do not apply. If someone doesn’t have time to go to a gym, they can still do Chair-A-Cise at home or even on a lunch break. Hotels tend to have chairs, so frequent travel isn’t a problem. The program is also easy for beginners and people with injury or weight issues.

Exercising while sitting in a chair might sound counterintuitive, but Chair-A-Cise supposedly provides an effective workout, even for veteran athletes. (To be fair, Madison is certified by the American Council on Exercise and has over a decade of experience as a trainer.) Adding dumbbells to the movements and increasing the tempo can increase the program’s difficulty.

There are currently four Chair-A-Cise programs available, varying in time and intensity. For example, Chair-A-Cise Turbo is a short but intense version optimized for busy schedules. That one may work for reading KnowledgeNuts.

4 Zuu

High-intensity interval training has become popular in recent years, and Zuu offers a new and unique way to keep your heart rate up. Invented in Australia by Nathan Helberg in 2010, Zuu is gaining worldwide attention, with classes now also offered in the US, the UK, France, and Japan. Fans of the workout include Sir Richard Branson, sports teams, and militaries.

It’s probably no coincidence that Zuu sounds like “zoo,” as the workout primarily involves an instructor shouting the name of an animal and the participants moving like that animal for 30-second intervals. Some people also make the corresponding animal sounds. Among others, the moves include the gorilla, the frog squat, the bear crawl, and the iguana. Zuu also features a few movements that aren’t animal-themed.

As silly as Zuu participants may look, the workout is hideously effective. Fifteen minutes of Zuu can burn 500–1,000 calories. Exercisers are typically covered in sweat and may not even make it through the 15 minutes. To make it even more difficult, Zuu can be done while wearing a resistance harness, which has been compared to being on a human-sized leash. Classes tend to be quite a spectacle, but few participants care, citing how good they feel by the end of the workout.

3 Horse Riding Fitness Ace Power

Horseback riding can provide more of a workout than you might think. In terms of energy cost on the body, which is also known as “metabolic equivalent of task” (MET), riding a horse requires 5.5 METS on average. (For reference, sitting here and reading this article uses 1 MET.) The energy cost drops to 3.8 if the horse is walking and rises to 7.3, roughly equivalent to playing squash, at a full gallop. Regular riding has also been shown to improve muscular strength, particularly in the quadriceps and hamstrings. Cleaning the horse’s stall can provide moderate exercise, too.

Granted, horseback riding requires open space and, more importantly, a horse. Horse Riding Fitness Ace Power may change that, however. Using a seat like that of a bicycle, this Korean exercise machine rocks up and down in a manner meant to simulate the motion of riding a horse, which supposedly confers the benefits of horse riding. Users of Ace Power look as though they are hip thrusting in their living rooms. The suggestive appearance of the workout has drawn comparisons to the infamous Shake Weight.

Looks aside, there are also doubts about the machine’s effectiveness. It doesn’t mimic the movements of a horse particularly well and only moves in a single, repetitive way. The arms receive no exercise at all, and some fear that Ace Power could cause back problems. One could arguably get a slightly less repetitive workout from a bull-riding machine at a local bar.

2 Waterwalkerz

Spanning the line between exercise device and party favor, Waterwalkerz are endlessly likened to hamster balls for humans. Originally popular in China and Japan, they’re now showing up in other countries, too. People sealed inside the inflatable plastic spheres use them to walk across water in a manner that does indeed resemble a hamster in a ball. A device to inflate the balls is provided, and their plastic is durable enough to be used on pebble beaches without fear of puncture.

You can spend about 30 minutes inside a Waterwalker before you run out of air, assuming you last that long. Walking in one is not as easy as it looks. Even standing is a difficult balancing act. As shown in the video above, one TV reporter claimed that it would easier to fight Mike Tyson. Walking, running, spinning, and stumbling in the plastic balls provides a full-body workout, especially for the abdominal muscles. Waterwalkerz likely serve as a great way to tire out children at parties, too.

1 Pao Facial Fitness

Whether through conventional or unconventional means, there are many options available for those seeking a full-body workout, but what about exercise for the face? According to spokesman and world-class footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, Pao Facial Fitness fills that niche. A rather simple-looking device made from ABS plastic, Pao consists of a mouthpiece with two weights attached to long, flexible extensions. To use it, you simply place the center part in your mouth and shake your head up and down.

The shaking action is said to exercise the muscles of the cheeks so that a more youthful smile results. The greater and lesser zygomatic muscles are conditioned, as is the risorius muscle, leading to a better-contoured smile. The shape of the mouthpiece is also designed to force the lips into an “O” shape while using Pao, which works the orbicularis oris.

Pao’s weights come in 18, 23, or 28 grams, depending on the desired intensity of the workout. Shaking your head with Pao for 30–90 seconds twice a day is all it takes. If used properly, Pao can tone the face without straining the jaws and teeth.

Anthony’s tried a few odd workout experiments of his own, but he didn’t think to put them on YouTube.