The PopCulteer
January 3, 2014
Time flies as the years pass. It seems like 2014 just got here a few days ago, and already it’s time for your PopCulteer to look back at this pivotal year. It’s hard to believe all the amazing things to which we bore witness this year. Let’s look at the highlights…
January
Record cold early in the month was followed by an unusual heat wave a couple of weeks later. Ninety-degree weather in the first month of the year was quite a shock, but just as everybody got used to it and fired up their air conditioners, a cold front moved in, bringing 47 inches of snow in three days to end the month.
Russia re-enters the space race by launching a “One-Boy Rocket” to the moon.
Mindful of the upcoming Congressional elections, Congress quickly passed new measures to extend emergency unemployment benefits.
One month after a cynical publicity stunt failed to generate any extra sales of Duck Dynasty merchandise among rabid right-wingers, retailers started moving the merchandise to deeper and deeper discount sections.
Strange sunspot activity alarms scientists. After days of observation, a cluster of moving sunspots seem to arrange themselves to form the letters, “T” and “J.”
February
On February 2, temperatures once again soared above ninety degrees nationwide, melting all the snow and causing flash floods.
Because of the missed call that cost The Pittsburgh Steelers a spot in the NFL Playoffs, it is decided that the 2014 Super Bowl winner will forever have an asterisk next to their win.
Astronomers notice a large structure under construction on the Moon.
On Valentine’s Day in Chicago, an all-nude, all-male fat guy version of “The Vagina Monologues” sets records for ticket sales. Producers credit their decision to charge for tickets to get out of the venue as a major reason for their success.
Pies begin to talk. Stories of the Pie Holocaust caused many to swear off eating the tasty desserts. This lead to many a cookie massacre and an ongoing Cake Genocide.
March
After Matt Lauer accidentally breaks wind on The Today Show on NBC, on-air passing of the gas became a network morning show fad…one which ended abruptly after the Charlie Rose incident on CBS a few weeks later.
Timmy Johnson, speaking from his fortress on The Moon, denies any involvement in the rapid swings in weather, as North America and Europe continue to see extreme changes alternating from sweltering heat to numbing cold every week or so.
Duck Dynasty merchandise begins to turn up at Dollar Tree.
Your Popculteer finally bought a Bulletman figure at JoeLanta, the Atlanta-based GI Joe Convention.
With the Affordable Care Act running rather smoothly, GOP operatives trying to desperately pin some kind of conspiracy on President Obama, try to claim that he was the trigger man in the Vince Foster murder case.
April
DC Comics attempted to launch an ad campaign showing that hip people read their books. The campaign is aborted when DC fails to find any hip people that actually read their books.
Cartoon Network announced an animated remake of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad,Mad World” that will be re-cast with the stars of “Adventure Time,” “Regular Show,” “Uncle Grandpa,” “Steven Universe,” The Amazing World of Gumball,” “Flapjack” and “Chowder,” but not “Total Drama Island,” because they wanted people to watch it.
Episode 200 of Radio Free Charleston was watched by a record number of people who didn’t actually appear in that episode.
ABC’s “Good Morning America” underwent a format change. They dropped news, weather and sports, and began to devote their entire program to the health issues and personal lives of their on-air personalities. Viewers did not notice the change.
Opening Day of Baseball season is post-poned due to six feet of snow.
Bees learn to tap-dance.
May
Mothers Day became an official day to honor Frank Zappa.
Disney, emboldened by Cartoon Network’s crossover plans, announced their own star-studded remake of “Around The World in Eighty Days,” which will combine their classic Disney characters with The Muppets and Marvel and Star Wars characters. This project wound up being canceled after a promotional image of Goofy, The Hulk, Darth Vader and Gonzo riding in a hot air balloon became an internet meme.
While still working diligently to figure out what’s causing the extreme climate change on Earth, child genius, Timmy Johnson, uses a space backhoe to carve a trench in the moon, making it look like a giant butt during full moons.
June
D Day ceremonies are ruined by record snowfalls.
Tap-dancing Bees start using pollen to do soft-shoe routines. Plants start dying off.
Corruption in Mingo County turned out to be even deeper than previously thought when it was discovered that “Mingo County” is not even its real name.
Radio Free Charleston returns to cover FestivAll, much to the delight of the six people who watch the show.
The HUB rethinks its programming philosophy when it is discovered that the high ratings for “My Little Pony” are all due to one Brony who had two-thousand Nielsen Ratings boxes.
July
Timmy Johnson, with the full cooperation of the United Nations, aims a powerful ray at Southeast Asia, with the intention of fixing the extreme swings in climate that plague much of the world. This attempt fails, but it does rearrange the landscape into Islands that spell out the word “FARTZ.”
People went skiing on the Fourth of July.
Following on the success of “Mermaids” and “Megalodon,” Animal Planet aired a new fake documentary about Snuffleupagus.
July 17 was a perfect day, where nothing went wrong, nobody was stressed out, and everyone had a nice time.
Jesco White was seen dancing Gangnam-style. Riots ensued.
August
After much research and consultation between Timmy Johnson and Earth-based scientists, it is determined that the extreme climate change was due to the Earth being thrown off its axis by the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series the previous year. It seems that this upset the order of the universe and could only be reversed if the Red Sox reverted to their losing ways once again. To aid in this, The New York Yankees agreed to trade Alex Rodriguez to Boston.
A government-funded study at Dartmouth University determines that lemonade is, in fact, a cool, refreshing drink.
On August 23rd, residents of Pinch, WV, were shocked when they awoke to find their town buried underneath an eighteen-inch layer of Cheetos.
When it is revealed that Senatorial candidate Shelly Moore Capito is actually her father, former governor, Arch Moore, in drag, polls reflect less than a one-percent change in the upcoming election.
Something big happened, but we won’t talk about it.
PopCults marked nine years of existence. A congratulatory telegram from The Residents, saluting Rudy Panucci for nine years of living the theory of obscurity went undelivered, as all the telegram companies have been out of business for years.
September
Timmy Johnson, now 12 and pardoned by all world governments in recognition of his research into the climate crisis, returned to Earth and was elected president of the new Fartz Islands.
Pete Thaw refined his re-election campaign to the Kanawha County Board of Education and continues under the slogan, “I hate kids and book-learnin’ sucks!”
It was revealed that The Boston Red Sox won their three recent World Series titles due to the work of an evil wizard, hell-bent on destroying the planet. A blue-ribbon commission is convened by Major League Baseball to study their options on banning performance-enhancing wizardry. Their report is expected by 2017.
October
“Halloween ennui” becomes a recognized psychological ailment.
Reality shows suddenly lost popularity when “Reality Stars,” a reality show about how reality shows are produced exposed the industry as being completely staged. Controversy erupted when it is learned that the reality show depicted as being produced on “Reality Stars” was phony and that it too was completely staged. A documentary on the show is in the works.
A person calling themself “Bizarro Terrorist” claims responsibility for sneaking apples into packages of razor blades.
November
“Black Friday” happens on Tuesday, November 4.
H.R. Pufnstuf dies of a variety of ailments in his penthouse apartment in Las Vegas. He is surrounded by Mason jars full of urine and stacks of old Gold Key and Charlton comic books.
A major department store’s plan to honor an American action legend with a special section devoted to merchandise featuring his likeness fell through when somebody busted out laughing during a meeting to plan the “John Wayne Macy Boutiques.”
In the big midterm elections, seats in Congress and the Senate were overwhelmingly captured by politicians.
Chrysler announced that they have developed an engine that runs on cheese. While this is a major breakthrough, it was determined that Velveeta was not close enough to real cheese to power the engine. This development was disappointing, since that would have been the first good use for Velveeta.
December
The Fartz Islands became a major tourist destination due to their policy of legal marijuana, free firecrackers and famous twerking spider-monkeys.
Retailers, faced with yet another disastrous holiday shopping season, decided to kill two birds with one stone and start selling their employees at deep discounts.
Over fifty-thousand people, after eating radioactive tuna, developed super-tuna-based powers, like super-strength, ultra-fast swimming abilities and “Tuna-sense.” Oh, and tumors, they also developed large, malignant, inoperable tumors.
Billions of people are shocked on Christmas Day when they wake to discover that Santa Claus is real, and brought everybody on Earth presents this year. When asked why it had been so long since anybody had a visit from Santa, the Jolly elf explained that “the elf in charge of the Naughty List had been a real tool.”
And that is our look back at the year to come. Now you know, so you can just sleep in for the next 360-something days.
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