6 Insane Versions Of Great Movies You Didn't Know Existed

We all joke about how modern Hollywood is being flooded by remakes, but that's not an entirely fair complaint. Sure, no one wanted the new Ninja Turtles or RoboCop, but chances are at least one of your favorite movies is a remake, and you never realized it because they were remaking something so awful it's been long buried in pop culture's graveyard. Like ...

#6. A Creepy, Low-Budget Lord Of The Rings From The Early 90s

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Before filming a collection of video game cut-scenes and calling it the Hobbit trilogy, Peter Jackson did what many thought was impossible: make a good live-action Lord of the Rings (and make people want to visit New Zealand). But most people have no idea he was beaten to the punch by a 1993 Finnish mini-series called Hobitit, either because Finland feels the need to translate made-up words or because they came up with a clever ratings ploy to include "tit" in the TV listings.

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Not to be confused with The Hobbit: In And Out Again.

The series combines the stories of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, focusing mainly on the Hobitits. But the entire series' budget was lower than Jackson's caterers, and the results are ... unsettling. For starters, the cast all look like they just came from one of Middle Earth's lesser methadone clinics.

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Yle

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Christ, Gandalf, what are you cutting your pipe-weed with?

The actor who plays Aragorn Konkari also plays Gollum Klonkku, and interprets them as a deranged hobo and a half-naked man who considers chili cheese dogs as precious as the Ring, respectively.

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Yle

Kari Vaananen, Man of 1,000 Pooping Faces.

The music sounds like it was recorded by a band that got kicked out of their local renaissance faire for being too experimental, and the effects are special in every sense of the word.

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In this version, wearing the Ring inserts you into a Talking Heads music video.

We're not sure if they were planning a Lord of the Rings movie from the start, or were filming LARPers and realized there was greater potential. The fact that everyone constantly looks surprised doesn't help answer the question.

Yle

Maybe this is just how they act in Finland?

The plot of The Hobbit is covered in like 10 minutes (so it does have some strengths). It then moves on to a Rings highlight reel, such as the gathering of the Fellowship at Rivendell, represented here as a laser tag arena filled with men who look like they hang out as laser tag arenas.

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"While in Rivendell, please refrain from running, climbing, and employing foul language."

There we meet Elrond, played by the Finish equivalent of Danzig.

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"All hail him, and the sweet tat he gave me."

Later the Fellowship travels through the forest of Lorien, famed across Middle Earth for its stunning beauty.

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Yes. Truly stunning.

And, of course, they ascend the perilous Mount Doom.

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Sauron really went all out on his elementary school science fair project.

The show concludes with the famous heartfelt goodbye between Sam and Frodo ...

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"But let me know if your nose starts to bleed."

... which, thanks to their old-age makeup, makes them look even more strung out than usual. Maybe the White Ship was actually a metaphor for cocaine.

#5. Unrecognizable Versions Of A Clockwork Orange And Batman, From Andy Warhol

The Factory

When he wasn't painting soup cans or hanging out with Mr. T, Andy Warhol was filming obscure adaptations of iconic works of pop culture, because it's easy to make movies when you don't care about owning the rights or making the slightest shred of sense. Warhol got his mitts on A Clockwork Orange six years before Stanley Kubrick, and while Kubrick was a master cinematic craftsman, Warhol had access to a camera and an arsenal of drugged-out friends with no acting experience who were willing to appear in a boring mess. It's called Vinyl, and it looks like your dad made home movies of your nightmares.

The two movies have surprising similar starts, with an extreme close-up of the protagonist in a milk bar. Although judging by the incomprehensibility of the dialogue, Warhol's bar was an echo chamber.

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Warner Bros.

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Warner Bros.

Those are some sad looking droogs.

Since most of the budget went to drugs, wigs, and drug wigs, the entire movie takes place in that one bar, kind of like our college years. This doesn't stop Warhol from including iconic moments, including the lead character being strapped to a chair and tortured.

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Warner Bros.

In the first draft of the Kubrick version, they made Alex watch the Warhol version.

Unfortunately, this also didn't stop Warhol from stripping him naked and putting him in a gimp suit.

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The Factory

"This torture story needs to be sexier."

Most of Vinyl is random acts of violence punctuated with pointless conversations and dance interludes, because if there's one thing Kubrick's version is missing it's two and a half minutes of the main character busting out every awkward, white guy move in the book.

The Factory

That's either a predecessor to "Gangnam Style" or a seizure.

Warhol also produced the first ever feature-length Batman movie, although he called it Batman Dracula and combined the title characters for reasons that are probably explained in some obscure Velvet Underground lyrics but are otherwise incomprehensible to us.

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Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-wha?

The movie was thought to be lost, but footage that looks as terrible as you'd expect it to has recently resurfaced.

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"OK Andy, just tell us when you're ready to start filming."

"I've been filming for the past six hours."

Sadly, none of the grainy, weirdly edited clips feature Batman in costume, although that's possibly because Warhol forgot to put Batman in his Batman movie.

#4. A Terrifying, Dead-Eyed Winnie The Pooh

NBC

It's hard to imagine a time before Disney owned Winnie the Pooh. Hell, they once had him run for president until allegations of marital infidelity scuttled the campaign. But in 1960, Winnie was adapted for Shirley Temple's Storybook, a TV show where the famed actress presented different kid's stories with a twist -- all of your beloved characters were now nightmarish, dead-eyed marionettes!

NBC

NBC

"Why, what's the matter, Eeyore?"

"MY SOUL HAS GAZED INTO THE ABYSS."

Sometimes the characters don't obey the laws of physics, which suggests either satanic possession or a world where our pitiful "laws" have no meaning. Both would be believable.

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"We can't all be possessed by Pazuzu, and that's all there is to it."

Tigger looks like he should be starring in Five Nights in the Hundred Acre Woods, while Winnie apparently walked off the set of The Shining.

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Later, gallons of honey sweep through the forest in slow motion.

It doesn't help that Winnie sounds like a chain-smoking Southerner whose previous voice acting experience was as Mime No. 2. Eeyore sounds mildly upset that the bar is out of Coors Light, and Piglet sounds like a concussed Kristen Schaal. Christopher Robin, meanwhile, is played by a live actor, which makes the whole thing feel like a small boy is losing his grip on reality as his expressionless toys dance around him.

NBC

NBC

"I swear to God, he was alive ... they were all alive."

By the time Pooh starts talking to giant mice who look like they'd advocate for a cleansing of the rats from our population, you'll wonder if you're watching an old TV show or having an acid flashback inside a Disney store.

NBC

"Remember 'Nam, Winnie? WE WERE THERE, IN THE HEART OF DARKNESS."

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4 Lessons No One Saw Coming From Bruce Jenner

By now you've probably already watched Diane Sawyer's interview with Bruce Jenner, or at least heard the snippets that mattered: that the Kardashian step-dad is now living as a woman, he's a Christian Republican, and, most shocking of all, all the stuff he was doing to his face for the last 30 years made sense all along. Also, Diane Sawyer is still smoking hot.

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This lady is 69 years old. Coincidence?

With one sentence, "For all intents and purposes, I am a woman," a person who spent the last few years of his life as an object of vicious ridicule flipped the script. I say "he" because as of this writing Bruce is fine with male pronouns. He also hasn't announced his new name, so I'm assembling a list of ideas including Athletica, Wheatie, Kruce, and Jen, so everyone sounds like they're stuttering when they say his whole name.

During the interview Bruce and Diane patiently walked the audience through the reasons a straight, 65-year-old grandfather and former world-class athlete wanted to change his gender. The funny thing is that this should have been an educational moment for Baby Boomers, not everyone else. The rest of us should already have a good handle on what it means to be a transgender person in 2015, right?

RIGHT????

Not even close.

Jupiterimages/Stockbyte/Getty Images

This girl represents America after taking a pop quiz about transgender studies.

A lot of us are still in the kindergarten portion of our transgender education, not because we're bad or dumb or sheltered, but because the kindergarten portion was only recently standardized and disseminated and we are easily distracted. For example, the previous sentence almost had the word "semen" in it, and I'm not even making a joke about it even though I want to. Baby steps.

For our kids, on the other hand, the Bruce Jenner interview will be a nonstory, a weird moment when a human felt compelled to explain himself to a world that shouldn't require an explanation because this stuff is BASIC. One day, the Bruce Jenner interview will read like a gay person coming out and then explaining what the word "gay" means. Or a black man explaining how he, a black man, could possibly be president of the United States. These are conversations that won't happen among adults in the future. Yes, Bruce Jenner is brave, but only because we are ignorant as dirt and it took a 65-year-old reality-show star to break down the basics of something that will be a part of everyday life for our kids. Here's why:

#4. We're Already On The Tail End Of A Cultural Shift

http://jimcarreyonline.com

Among Bruce's confessions during his interview was the fact that he's always felt comfortable in women's clothing. I don't blame him, because pants suck and I haven't worn a pair since the mid-'90s. But Bruce Jenner grew up in a world where there was nothing more hilarious and/or horrifying than seeing a man in a dress. If you see a man wearing a dress, you better run because he's about to kill you ...

Or grab some popcorn and enjoy the entertainment from the fundamentally gut-busting concept of a man wearing lady clothes. When the American Film Institute listed the funniest movies of all time in 2000, guess who was at No. 1 and No. 2? Some Like It Hot and Tootsie, two movies that built their entire premises around men passing as women. HILARIOUS!

Only psychopaths laughed during Tootsie.

Speaking of psychopaths: One year after Brandon Teena was raped and murdered by his former friends when they found out he was assigned the female gender at birth, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective came out. You remember the plot of that movie, right? Jim Carrey finds out that he kissed a transgender person, so he cleanses himself by throwing up, plunging his mouth with a toilet plunger, setting his clothes on fire, and sobbing hopelessly in the shower while Boy George's song "The Crying Game" plays in the background. Then the transgender ignorance really starts. See if you can make it through this scene without cringing:

The transgender character is publicly stripped, and the whole room vomits when the bulge in her underwear is found, all for laughs. Fast-forward 10 years to 2004, and the universally beloved show Arrested Development pulls their own transphobic gag. Maeby convinces her mother to wear a trendy shirt from the Shemale brand. It's funny because Maeby pronounces it "Shuh-MALL-ay" and her mom has no idea she's advertising herself as a transgender person. Get it? It's funny to be a transgender woman in 2004? Ha! My side is still hurting from the laughter. Also, remember the butt of the joke is a lesbian in real life, so that sucked.

Oh man, put that shirt away before I pee my pants.

And the thing is, I did laugh during those scenes. Now they feel grotesque, like when a white person wears blackface or a woman does man work. How did the transgender community turn public sentiment and awareness around so quickly?

#3. We've Been Taught How To Get The Words Right

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You guys know that "tranny" is a bad word, right? Not bad like the F-word but bad like the N-word. It's hate speech. But I'm sure you already knew that.

The first time I found out "tranny" was an unacceptable slur was around 2011 when a fellow comedy writer tweeted something along the lines of "It's never OK to use the word 'tranny.'" I. Had. No. Idea. By this point I'd already been writing and editing full-time for several years, and there was no telling how many hurtful, offensive jokes and captions I'd inserted into Cracked articles. I was clueless because my comedy was informed by other comedy writers who were just as insulated as I was (see Arrested Development.)

And it didn't help that even as late as 2008, openly and expressively gay Project Runway contestant Christian Siriano made "tranny" one of his catchphrases. As in "this is a hot tranny mess." GLAAD called him out on the word, and he apologized, but it was a little too late. Dummies like me get our gay slang from Bravo, not GLAAD. In fact, SNL thought Siriano's schtick was so funny that they made a whole sketch out of it:

So other than the fact that you rarely see Ed Hardy shirts anymore, what's changed between 2008 and today? I think the answer is that, in addition to fighting for bare-bone basic human rights, the transgender community has made language education a big part of its focus. Language education as in, "No more he/she/it jokes, you lazy piece of trash hack writers." Pronouns are powerful, and it's important to get them right: A person who calls herself a woman is a she, a person who calls himself a man is a he, a person who checks private parts for verification of gender is called a sex offender.

Fast-forward to early 2015, when the Internet lost its FLIPPING MIND because transgender teen Leelah Alcorn's ignorant-ass parents wouldn't accept her as a girl, even after her suicide. Two ignorant-ass parents, as ignorant-ass as they were, got death threats for not getting their dead child's pronouns right. Can you imagine having to go into hiding because you're getting death threats while processing your child's suicide? Me neither. It's like the old Irish blessing says, "May you never be an ignorant-ass parent who loses a child, no matter how ignorant-ass you are."

The point of bringing up Leelah's parents is that you and I weren't much brighter than them about 10 years ago, so let's not hate on the haters. And the reason we're so smart now is because we've been aggressively educated by the people who have the highest stakes in the conversation. So good job for getting mad at Leelah Alcorn's parents, everyone. Bad job for forgetting that you laughed at the "shemale" Arrested Development joke only 10 years ago.

Hey, speaking of comedy ...

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5 Sad Truths You Learn Watching All The Marvel Films At Once

Ever since we first saw Nick Fury brooding in Tony Stark's Malibu mansion at the end of Iron Man, the Marvel films have presented themselves as a single "cinematic universe" of events. To bone up before Age Of Ultron, some of us here at Cracked decided to watch all ten films in a single 20+ hour half-comatose sitting. It looked something like this:

I didn't add the soundtrack; it just naturally occurs whenever there's more than one Cracked writer in the room.

All things considered, I may have lost my mind at some point during the day. Not because of the length and quality of the films, but rather because when watched sequentially as the part of a larger "universe," you begin to see a bigger picture, like one of those Bob Marley mosaic posters. But instead of America's favorite soul rebel, these films turn into a terrifying world in which every living being becomes an illogical turd-cluster of insanity.

It's very clear that Marvel never thought anyone would actually sit down and watch all these films in a row, because doing so reveals disturbing truths, such as how ...

#5. Marvel Humans Don't Give A Shit About Monumental Tragedy

Marvel Studios

Did you know that the entire Marvel universe is made up of nothing but Robert-Durst-level sociopaths? I'm not talking about the Red Skulls and Kingpins of this world -- I mean the regular people. It's true, and here's the strongest piece of evidence:

Marvel Studios

It's also evidence of your monumental nerdiness if you own this as a poster.

When Marvel Studios released this official timeline of the films leading up to The Avengers, one disturbing detail seemingly went unnoticed: It turns out that the events of Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor all happen in the exact same week.

To recap: Loki sends an Asgardian Gort to blow up a town in New Mexico, Whiplash ruins the Grand Prix and explodes the Stark Expo, and Hulk is hunted by an army that destroys both a university campus and like half of Harlem. All in one week. Imagine if 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and Janet Jackson's nipple all hit America at the same time.

Then, after Captain America gets defrosted, Loki opens a space portal above Stark Tower (located in Lower Manhattan) and causes an estimated $160 billion dollars in gratuitous alien destruction and death. Cut to the fiery aftermath, and the gang is banishing the trickster God in the middle of Central Park like it's a Sunday chore:

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"Let's meet between the stone nipples, say, noonish?"

Just a bunch of people dressed like operatic future lords blasting into the netherworld at ground zero for the largest citywide leveling since World War II ...

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... and the rest of the world is having a goddamn picnic. No crowds of reporters, no protesters demanding Loki's dick on a platter. Anyone old enough to remember the weeks following 9/11 realizes how monumentally bonkers this would be. Compound that with the fact that these events seemingly confirm the validity of goddamn Norse mythology, and it's baffling why all the churches in town didn't declare a holy war or suddenly convert to Idris Elba.

And before you argue that "It's a comic book movie and people in the Marvel universe are different" -- that's exactly my point. This is not the same world as ours, but rather a dystopian hellsphere where the oppressive overlord has long callused over the human condition. What's the very first thing established about the public in Iron Man?

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Other than no one being allowed to stare directly at Robert Downey Jr.

They've made a Hugh-Hefner-style rock star out of a fucking weapons manufacturer. I get that Tony Stark acts eccentric, but that's still like the CEO of L-3 Communications being treated like Jennifer Lawrence. This might explain why in Thor 2, people flock towards destruction, as if human pain was delicious watermelon-flavored candy.

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"Look, a chance to feel something! Anything!"

For whatever reason, the Marvel Universe is filled with blood-hungry, emotionless masses who place no value on human life. It's almost like they've institutionalized careless cruelty. In fact, the more you watch, the more you realize it's exactly like that ...

#4. The Government Is Bafflingly Terrible

Marvel Studios

The new Daredevil series is both dick-numbingly fun and surprisingly grounded, because it immediately establishes a corrupt police environment that nurtures Zorro-type lunatics. The rest of the Marvel franchise attempts the same thing, but does it by turning every non-superhero authority into the bumble-fart drunk from spaghetti westerns. Let's start with their non-Stark defense contractors:

Marvel Studios

The Marvel universe's Larry Flynt and ... guy who owns RedTube.

Aside from being hand-wringing villains, as businessmen, both Obadiah Stane and Justin Hammer are more incompetent and spiteful than the cast of Glengarry Glen Ross. Hammer is impossibly in charge of an entire weapons manufacturing company despite not being able to correctly design a simple projectile weapon, and the big reveal in Iron Man is that Obadiah had originally paid terrorists to murder Stark for, as we've covered before, completely stupid and pointless reasons. When partially exposed, Obadiah goes on a Robotech rampage through Los Angeles instead of covering up the evidence, as if the "evil" switch got jostled in his brain.

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"You'll pay for this, Superma-- wait, uh ... who am I, again?"

He goes from calculating businessman to cackling Batman villain -- which is actually a motif in the early Marvel films, like when the general in Incredible Hulk sends Tim Roth to take out Bruce Banner without mentioning that his target is a steely green gnash-ogre. See, it's not just who they hire; the entire military excels in sucking a veiny D when it comes to consistently dealing with potential threats. The first Iron Man ends with Stark and Stane going robot bananas and leaving a mechanized trail of death on a Los Angeles freeway. The government response? A polite hearing asking Stark to relinquish his flying industrial murder outfit. Now compare that to the way they handle a dude who turns into an invincible punch monster when he gets angry:

Marvel Studios

"Maybe a nice artillery massage will soothe him?"

Tits-out war. Considering that Stark's dickishly possessive of a way more weaponizable ability, wouldn't it make more sense if these two responses were switched? That the army would handle the poor gamma-irradiated scientist with polite discourse while forcing the rich guy with the destructo-suit to give up the goods? My only guess is that deep down inside, the military just likes watching civilians explode like pulp-filled water balloons. That would certainly explain firing blindly through a Harlem brownstone.

Marvel Studios

Killing like ten potential Matt Murdock one-night stands.

So it's not just regular folks but the institutions themselves who revel in epic-scale tragedy, which makes me wonder why they would need heroes in the first place. But maybe that's why the Avengers are not actually heroic at all ...

#3. The Avengers Don't Actually Help Anyone

Marvel Studios

If everyone wasn't a sociopath, people in the Marvel universe would be terrified of the Avengers. After all, by the time you reach Iron Man 3, the only solid fact the masses know is that whenever a major metropolitan area explodes in a rain of hellfire, some costumed jackass is guaranteed to be hanging out in the rubble.

Marvel Studios

"Love those guys!" -- shawarma vendors and literally no one else.

"But what about all they've done to help the general populous?" Like what, exactly? Superman used to go around the world putting out house fires with his magic breath. Spider-Man almost pathologically saves bystanders. Gritty heroes like Batman and Daredevil focus on cleaning up organized crime (and ninjas) in a concentrated area. The Avengers, on the other hand, do zero crime-fighting or any kind of humanitarian efforts to make the world around them a better place ... despite the fact that the movies go out of their way to show us that they have all the power in the world to do it. Iron Man and S.H.I.E.L.D. are shown using computers out of some Tom Cruise sci-fi future:

Marvel Studios

"I'm sending over the schematics for the--"

"I KNOW THAT'S A DICK PIC, STARK."

When, according to the new Captain America film, civilian computers haven't progressed beyond laptops:

Marvel Studios

"This isn't the moment to use the Stark Penis Viewing Machine, Natasha."

Remember that scene? It happened not long after Fury offhandedly mentioned that Stark gave S.H.I.E.L.D some pointers on how to improve their invisible floating deathships -- the same guy who swore off war devices in the first Iron Man. And sure, he's been talking about creating a renewable energy source for the world since that same film, and yet has only taken the time to power his own tower and a bajillion personal battle droids instead. You could argue that there's a lot of political red tape and time that goes into giving the world free energy ... only the films do a bang-up job at showing Tony's ability to get around both of those things when it suits his needs (or when he has a need for suits). For example, not only does he tell Congress to get fucked in Iron Man 2 ...

Marvel Studios

"You can use this."

... but he goes on to create a brand new element in the span of a single afternoon. Yeah, remember that montage in which Tony creates a particle accelerator after discovering that his crazy dead father hid an unknown element in a toy fucking model? According to the official Marvel timeline, that took place in less than a day.

Marvel Studios

That was a trick question; no one remembers Iron Man 2.

Less than a day! And he can't even bother to even give us some hologram computers?

The new Avengers sequel has a scene in which (inconsequential spoilers ahead) the gang sits around and drinks beer in Stark's high-tech tower overlooking the city they were directly responsible for destroying. How is there not a 24/7 horde of angry protesters drowning out their fun? How are children still looking up to Stark in Iron Man 3? For fuck's sake, his World Peace Expo ended with military robots firing into crowds of innocent bystanders before detonating like drums of gasoline.

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"Thank god no one I want to sleep with was hurt ..."

But that's not the weirdest thing you notice when the marathon gets to Iron Man 3 ...

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5 Ways To Abuse Your Body To Greatness (That We Tested)

Psst! Hey, kid! You know those weird, life-hack-type cheat codes for your body? The ones where you blow on your thumb to reduce stress, or increase your skin protection by showering less, or even straight-up rearrange your sleeping patterns for maximum efficiency? Do you secretly find those stupid-ass things intriguing? Have you ever wanted to ... actually try them out? There's no need to be coy about it; you're among friends here.

What, you haven't? It's just me? Shit.

As I've mentioned before, trying out dumbass body-hackin' tricks is something of a hobby of mine, to the point where I can and absolutely will fuck up my sleeping cycle for an extended period of time just to see what will happen (Spoiler: Oh shit please don't ever try it). So, since I apparently suffer from a condition where I'm physically unable to keep my humiliating experiences to myself, once again I have collected a series of me going full Jackass on my biology. You're welcome. I'm so sorry.

#5. Boost Your Confidence With A Power Pose Before An Important Meeting

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In Theory:

The power pose is often dismissed -- by me, if no one else -- as the body language used primarily by Superman and complete dickheads. I've always found these deliberately intimidating and commanding open stances annoying as hell, and if you're not an actual boss giving an actual presentation to their actual subordinates and strike one of these in my presence, chances are I'm going to like you a hell of a lot less.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

However, if your power walk game is on point, we'll be friends for life.

Luckily, the whole power-posing thing is little more than a niche tool used by misinformed former jocks who still think alpha males are a thing. It's not like they actually do anythi- oh, power poses raise your testosterone levels and reduces stress? Never mind. Do power poses. Always.

In Practice:

For the record, this is not an experiment I'm going to enjoy. Apart from my stated sentiments regarding power-pose usage, I'm a natural slouch that prefers to hunch over my desk and sit in the corner with my arms folded whenever someone manages to track me down and lure me to a meeting with promises of being able to keep my job. I realize behavioral psychology labels me a submissive group member or some shit, but I generally compensate for this with generous dropkicks.

Still, science is science, so here we go. Right off the bat, I encounter a problem: Although I know full well what power poses look like and what they're supposed to convey, getting actually tasked with striking one becomes a sort of opposite "don't think of the elephant" problem: No matter how hard I try to think of one, the stances elude me.

So I settle for what I remember from childhood and adopt the signature pose of the strongest motherfucker I can recall: the battle stance of Ryu from Street Fighter II.

Capcom

aka The Spinal Trap.

Funnily enough, a defensive martial arts stance that requires your knees to jut out in directions that would make your chiropractor faint does not prove an ideal way to boost my manliness, especially as the dude I'm supposed to have the meeting with abruptly bumps in just as I get a little carried away and start doing that little toe-jumpy thing Ryu does. I quickly attempt to adjust my pose into a wider, more classic power pose, but it turns out jumping quickly into an arms-raised "X" pose from a martial arts stance while yelling, "Hey!" loudly only commands the room in the sense that everyone else in it is going to make their excuses and fuck right in the general direction of off.

#4. Swear Loudly To Reduce Pain

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In Theory:

Hell, dude. This one is practically common knowledge. There's no cockwaffling way you've been a turd-juggling Internet denizen for as long as you claim without having heard about the way goddamned swearing can reduce pain, you fuckbucketin' testicleaver. I got kicked in the balls right before that sentence, but now I feel fine. Go ahead, try that shit.

Jochen Sands/Digital Vision/Getty Images

"Please don't do anything this man asks."

In Practice:

Swearing works in two different ways: It provides a relief from sudden pain (think the classic hammer-to-the-thumb scenario, here), and it helps you to withstand ongoing pain, as evidenced by tests where people held their hands in ice water while swearing their asses off -- presumably one of the few scientific experiments in history that didn't require any directions beforehand. Swearing works. We may still be figuring out the exact hows and whys, but this is a scientific fact. However, there's a flipside: Where are you when you hurt yourself? Who is listening in?

Stockbyte/Digital Vision/Getty Images

"Such language! Writing you out of my goddamned will right now."

Not long ago, I set out to destroy the very concept of my social life by trying out the whole "swear whenever you hurt yourself" thing while living my life as usual. Some people I met during that week I warned, but most I didn't because there are precious few ways of telling folks, "I'mma just swear my ass off whenever I bump into something," without seeming even weirder than I generally do. I planned to do this for a week, but apparently I'm either a complete klutz or I subconsciously really, really wanted to test this thing, because during just a couple of days I managed to create no less than 12 awkward situations by knocking my knees and elbows into shit and launching into a reflexive flurry of fucks. In other news, it's really, really easy to turn swearing into a knee-jerk reaction.

Did all this swearing ease the mild pain I'd otherwise had to endure? Almost certainly. Was it worth the massive amount of social discomfort I had to endure instead? Fuck no.

#3. Act Like A Dick To Win The Game

Donald Miralle/Digital Vision/Getty Images

In Theory:

There's a long-standing tradition in professional sports: Whenever someone scores, they celebrate as obnoxiously as possible, often to the point where you start wondering why someone in the opponent's camp doesn't just kick the guy in the dick. Often, it gets written away as a symptom of the overtly competitive nature of sportsters and their sportsing of choice, especially if it's flashy enough to put asses in seats.

However, as Cracked's own Kathy Benjamin has told you, that post-scoring dickery actually serves a purpose; it elates your own team and intimidates the opponent in a way that gives you an edge toward winning. You like winning, right? I do! WINNER! WINNER! CHICKEN DINNER!

Eising/Photodisc/Getty Images

"Wait. That was just a rhyme and I don't actually get a chicken dinner for winning?

I've got a chant for you: Fuck off."

In Practice:

Sure, all that huffing and puffing and celebrating works in your favor ... on the playing field. The problem is that Average Joe plays maybe three hours a week, tops, and by going full Richard Sherman on the friends you're playing whatever-the-shit-you-pretend-to-be-good-at-once-a-week with you're not exactly making yourself look better in their eyes for the remaining 163 to 167 hours of the week.

I've tried that shit plenty, back in the day. I'm still limping from the beatings I received.

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15 Weird Realities Of Sex & Dating In Fictional Universes

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