The PopCulteer
January 4, 2013 

It’s time for our annual look back at the year that wasn’t yet. It’s hard to believe 2013 is already in the record books. Seems like it only started a few days ago. Let’s take a month-by-month look at the year that history will remember as the time right before the Earth established contact with the planet Tanger-5.

January

Early in the month a last-minute deal with Congress prevented the coming of the Fiscal Cliff. We then returned to the Fiscal Norm. Later in the year, as the economy surged, we experienced a Fiscal Woody. After that we ran out of characters from Cheers whose names worked for this joke.

Your PopCulteer made it a point to read the previous two “Year In Review” posts before working on the second draft of this column, which lead him to consider editing out the talking dog and butt-sniffing jokes. He didn’t, but he seriously considered it.

NRA president, Wayne LaPierre, is hit in the face with a cream pie. It is pointed out that, if everyone carried a cream pie, he probably would have been hit in the face with one way sooner.

NBC announces a new series in development for the fall, “The Zombie Family, ” a sitcom about a family of zombies trying to fit in today’s society. Each week the wacky neighbor stops by and gets eaten.

A class-action lawsuit is filed against Sonic for misrepresenting their new line of sandwiches as “Grilled Cheese,” when, in fact, these sandwiches contain other ingredients such as meat and vegetables, and are legally not grilled cheese sandwiches under several federal and state laws and international treaty.

Another class-action lawsuit is filed against Sonic, hoping to force them to remove those two idiots in the car in their commercials from the airwaves.

February

The Super Bowl was disrupted when a prankster tossed a basketball onto the field. Millions of viewers, upon seeing the basketball, quickly switched channels out of habit, resulting in the lowest-rated Super Bowl telecast in history.

The Amazing Spider-man #700, where Peter Parker switches minds with his arch-enemy, Doctor Octopus, and then dies, leaving Dr. Octopus’ mind in Spider-man’s body forever, wins a special Pulitzer Prize for “Most Moronic Comic Book Plot In History.” This prize has only been awarded once, previously, to The Amazing Spider-man for the “Clone” storyline.

It turns out that North Korea did not really change its name to “Poopistan,” after all. The name change was due to a miscommunication. After placing Timmy Johnson in exile, they change their name to “North Korea…hey I really miss Burger Chef and Jeff.” The person taking dictation from Kim Jung Un is executed for incompetence.

Psy, of “Gangnam Style” fame, makes his first appearance on “Where are they now?”

Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber merge into one, asexual, gigantic beast. “TaylorBieber” that then terrorizes the East Coast before a plan hatched by the military to shock them apart with a megaload of electricity succeeds in splitting them back into two entities.

Taylor Swift releases a hit song about her breakup with Justin Bieber.

The megaload of electricity causes power outages across the Eastern Seaboard that last for days. Weeks, in South Hills.

Kim Jung Un is identified as “Dick Tater” in an on-screen graphic on a major cable news channel. Timmy Johnson, age 10, is banned for life from FOX News.

March

Dogs gain the ability to speak. Once they explain in great detail why they sniff each other’s butts, science mobilizes to find a way to take away their ability to speak. Luckily this had nothing to do with the time they learned to talk in 2012.

Karl Rove finally admits that he was just in it for the money and doesn’t really believe any of that crap he said on FOX News.

After an exhaustive nationwide search, the West Virginia Board of Education decided that the best candidate for the position of State Superintendent of Schools is a sub-literate gym teacher from Elkins who doesn’t know what a no-bid contract is.

It turns out that the Ides of March make your butt itch. Beware.

William Praise becomes the center of controversy when he opens a gourmet cheese shop in Nitro. Some people misunderstand why he named his shop “Praise Cheeses.”

It turns out there was this little dude on the moon all along.

April

Mayor Jones accidentally issues an order to shut down Kanawha Boulevard when a Hot Wheels collectors convention comes to town.

Melvin “Burger Boy Foodarama” Nebulous strikes out 27 batters in a pre-season baseball game for the Cleveland Indians. He is never heard from again.

Shelly Moore Capito requests funding from the president for new highway construction in the state. President Obama returns the bucket of coal she sent him for Christmas with the note, “Here, squeeze these into diamonds.”

Baseball season begins. This was the historic year that the New York Yankees went undefeated.

Just when things calmed down in Nitro, a new Italian restaurant with a military theme opens next door to William Praises’ cheese shop. People were not ready for Praise Cheeses and Pasta Ammunition.

May

An angelic, glowing figure with long hair and a beard appears walking down the street in a suburb of Los Angeles. Though many people think that it is the second coming of Jesus, it turns out to be the ghost of Frank Zappa, who’s returned for his favorite bathrobe that he wants to wear when hanging out with Jack Kirby and Art Clokey in Heaven’s rec room. This incident happens, of course, on Mother’s Day.

Cats do not develop the ability to speak, but they do learn to do Algebra, and they’re really smug about it.

When it is learned that Soylant Green is people, nobody seems phazed by the news. However, when it comes out that Soylent Green is people mixed with mayonnaise, riots break out worldwide.

After O.J. Simpson is cleared of murdering his ex-wife and
Ron Goldman in 1994, he refuses to accept the verdict and dedicates his life to proving his own guilt.

Following the death of Hugo Ceasar Chavez, Venezeula elects The Great Gazoo as their new president.

June

West Virginia turns 150 years old. The  Sesquicentennial, is observed with a series of parades where Civil War reenactors spill out of clown cars. Sadly, a pall is cast over the celebrations when 72 reenactors are killed in a single-car accident on a slick road.

As announced last year, Radio Free Charleston skips covering FestivAll in June. This was entirely due to the producer wanting to take a year off to enjoy FestivAll without the responsibility of video-taping everything and had nothing to do with the Marx Toy Convention in Wheeling, which started the same day.

Cryptozoologists discovered a real Bigfoot living amongst us. He’s huge, ugly and has to shave his entire body twice a day just to pass for human.

After searching in the wilderness for years, they finally discovered this beast hiding in a series of Dutch Miller Kia television commercials.

July

On July 1, West Virginia was struck by a “Tarendrerero,” a rare and powerful type of wind storm. There was no damage from this storm, but for six hours the wind loudly whistled theme songs from old TV shows like “Rawhide,” “Night Gallery,” “NBC Mystery Theater,” and “The Andy Griffith Show.” Power was knocked out in South Hills for over a week.

Fourth of July festivities all over the country were marred when computerized displays were hacked to spell out rude words and phrases. Timmy Johnson, age 10, was reported missing.

Once again, July 17 was a perfect day, where nothing went wrong, nobody was stressed out, and everyone had a nice time.

Radio Free Charleston marked seven years as a video webshow with a one-hour special that consisted of host, Rudy Panucci, explaining that it’s really not a radio program, but is a video show on the web, and it’s only named after his old radio show. Musicians responded by mistakenly calling him “Randy” and asking if he could play their song on his radio show.

August

“Two Other Guys Painting A Different Dog” turned out to be a huge box-office flop. With a $600 million price tag, this Michael Bay-directed flick sets a new standard for Hollywood flushing money down the toilet, particularly in the twenty-minute “flushing money down the toilet” sequence, which ended with the toilet being shot into space and exploded.

Multiple UFO sightings across the country indicate that some sort of high-altitude flying platform is moving around the country and evading detection from military and FAA authorities. People reported seeing wild lights and hearing what one witness described as a “whoopee cushion sound.”

Rick Perry finally came up with the third department of the government that he was going to mention eliminating in a 2010 Republican presidential debate. Sadly, “The Department Of Crazy Liberal Stuff” is not a real cabinet-level position. Perry is deemed too stupid for a television pundit role, even on FOX. However he is hired by the Game Show Network to host a new version of “Truth or Consequences.”

After seeing Black Diamond perform for the first time, Neil Diamond changes his name to “White Diamond.” Plans for the two to go on an “Ebony and Ivory” tour come to a halt when the estate of Elizabeth Taylor files a trademark infringement suit.

Scandal erupts at a No Pants Players show when one of the troupe members accidentally walks on stage wearing pants.

September

The ghost of Ty Cobb is seen crying, trying to make up with the Lincoln Walks At Midnight statue on the grounds of the state capitol.

Disney stunned the world when they bought The US Postal Service.

Spy satellites capture the first detailed images of the flying platform that was seen all over North America. It was a large white aircraft, with “Timmy Is King Of Teh World” spray-painted on it. There was also a crude drawing of a human rear-end, apparently expelling gas.

Timmy Johnson, now aged 11, already the subject of a worldwide manhunt, is barred from coming within 500 miles of Area 51.

A wrestling fan criticizes mixed martial arts as being “too fake.” This causes an overload, and for more than a month, Irony is broken.

October

A scientist in Duluth, Michigan, develops a procedure to cure cancer by simply having the patient play a game of Checkers against a trained Rooster. Sadly, this 100% effective, non-invasive treatment is not widely used due to the inability of most Oncologists to maintain their composure when they tell a dying patient, “You need to play Chicken Pecker Checkers.”

The undefeated Yankees sweep the World Series.

New Captain Action uniform sets for Superman and Batman actually make people 40 years younger. Driving becomes difficult.

This year’s HallowEast Zombie Walk took an unexpected turn as every person who showed up for the walk brought with them a piece of wicker furniture. Thus, the walk was renamed the “Rattan Death March.”

Your PopCulteer was injured when he was pelted with wicker furniture and baskets by zombies for coming up with that pun.

November

With no elections this year, television was surprisingly watchable.

An experimental aircraft, missing from a government facility since summer, is found in Washington DC, impaled on the Washington Monument. A close inspection revealed a crudely-drawn human posterior on the aircraft, right at the point where the Monument entered the craft. The phrase “Yay, Buttsex!” was spray-painted on the monument itself.

 

Timmy Johnson, age 11, became the youngest person to ever make the top spot on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

Tony The Tiger is tragically killed while on a hunting trip with Wayne LaPierre and former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The National Cornhole Tournament organization admits that they changed their name from “Bean Bag Toss” because they thought their old name was too embarrassing.

December

Someone creates an internet meme e-Card that combines a sarcastic comment with a picture of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, a saying about how tough Chuck Norris is, a cute cat that talks funny, a sour-looking cat, the “Ermagherd” girl, a photo of bacon and misinformation about something political. George Takei immediately re-posts it without attribution.

Santa Claus conquers The Martins, a popular gospel singing group.

Vladimir Putin cedes control of Russia to the mysterious “Comrade Timmy,” who is declared “The New Tsar,” and rules the government from the shadows, never being seen in public. He is closely guarded by an elite cadre of loyal guards that he calls, “Poopa Troopers.”

Your PopCulteer makes a joke about “Quasi at the Kwanzadero” that only four people in the world could possibly get. This is not the first time that happened.

Following a second year of a player lock-out, The National Hockey League is replaced by The National Curling League. Television ratings double.

The year ended with Congress facing yet another artificial deadline that they had plenty of time to deal with, but didn’t. The country realizes that Congress is now acting like a high school student with six month’s notice that they have to do a term paper.

Thus ends PopCult’s look back at the year to come. Check back all year long to see if any of this actually happens.