A Look Back At 2011

The PopCulteer
January 7, 2011

It’s that time of the year again. Time for our annual look back at the year that hasn’t happened yet. 2011 was a real roller coaster ride, with strange phenomena, political hijinks, and truly great individual achievements. Let’s look back, month-by-month, at the year 2011.

January

During the Legislative Session, the infamous party tent on the State Capitol grounds is burned down. An exhaustive search and investigation fails to narrow the list of suspects to less than 50,000 people. A commemorative plaque is erected, honoring “The Unknown Arsonist.”

“Two Guys Painting A Dog” gets snubbed when the OSCAR nominations are announced.

Lindsay Lohan (seen in her mug shot, left) goes on a spree, robbing banks and planting bombs all over Los Angeles. As a result, I have to re-write the sequel to “Jazz From Hell.”

“Jazz From Hell” resumes production, with a planned premiere date sometime before we start working on the sequel full-time.

February

The mystery of the dead birds continues. At a Tea Party rally starring Sarah Palin, someone yells, “Look at all the dead birds!” The crowd, in unison, looks up.

An archeological dig near the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found yields an amazing discovery: Clay pots, dating back nearly five-thousand years contain papyrus that tell the story of a messiah-like figure who travels to our world to save us. This figure predates Mithmas by nearly a thousand years, and predates the story of Jesus by three-thousand years. Though there are similarities, this messiah is called “Kal El” and is sent from the heavens, or “Krypton” by a God-like figure known as “Marlon Brando.”

Hollywood rejects the idea of building a multi-million-dollar movie franchise around the cartoons that Sergio Aragones draws in the margins of Mad Magazine, because they feel that the plots are too complex for today’s audiences.

March

Dead birds continue to fall from the sky. In addition to blackbirds falling over Arkansas, Pelicans drop from the sky in Poughkeepsie, Cardinals drop in Columbus and Marlins fall over Manhattan.

Voters in Chicago, confused by a misprinted ballot, try to elect Rahm Emmanual as their new mayor, but accidentally elect ROM Spaceknight instead. He turns out to be one of the best mayors the city has ever had.

I manage to go an entire year without making any jokes about how disastrous *** ***** turned out to be in PopCult.

Dick Cheney makes a public plea for people to stop comparing him to Darth Vader because of his new mechanical heart pump that leaves him without a pulse. Instead, he asks that people call him “Emperor Palpatine, with balls.” FOX News immediately starts calling him that, and gives him his own theme music.

April

As the income tax deadline approaches, panic sets in for the wealthiest Americans, who fear that, in order to pay their tax bills, they may have to break a twenty.

Dead mice fall from the sky over the now-bankrupt Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. Fish kills continue all over the coastal regions. FOX News blames the Obama Administration.

Flubber Condoms are pulled from the market after one day due to numerous injuries.

May

Frightened by the continuing onslaught of dead animals falling from the sky, millions of people flock to new churches looking for answers. This leads to sectarian violence as The Worshipers Of Robot B 9 From Lost In Space clash with followers of The Church Of Metamorpho.

Apples unveils their newest product, an artificial form of life they call “iMan.” When it’s pointed out that this is just a doll of the Supermodel, Iman, who is married to David Bowie, Steve Jobs says, “It doesn’t matter. They’ll buy anything we put our name on now.” Then he throws an iBrick at the reporter.

Dead Jellyfish rain from the sky over Jacksonville, while Badgers fall on Boston.

Brad Nebulous, a minor-league baseball player from Toledo, sets a record when he hits 47 home-runs in one game. He is never heard from again.

June

Dead Orioles in Baltimore are unrelated to the other unexplained animal deaths. This is just part of the natural life cycle of The American League East.

Disaster strikes a performance of “Spider-man: The Musical” as, several weeks into the run, a performance comes off without a hitch, leaving the cast and director with nothing to blame for how bad it is.

Charleston residents panic when the Giant Dead Canary makes a return appearance at FestivAll. Construction of garages in town skyrockets.

President Obama awards the Congressional Medal Of Honor to an Air Force Major who was responsible for covering up all the UFO incidents last year. After putting the medal around his neck, the President looks at the cameras and says, “Oh crap. We were supposed to do this in secret.” Then he runs out of the room, whooping like Curly from The Three Stooges.

July

No dead birds fall from the sky during Fourth of July fireworks displays. This leads to speculation that there are no birds left.

One week after the Fourth, manatees start dropping from the sky over Kansas City.

Radio Free Charleston celebrates it’s fifth anniversary with a theme show devoted to yodeling.

At a track meet in Madrid, Chad Nebulous runs a mile in three minutes, six and two-tenths seconds. He is never heard from again.

The TV Batmobile is named “The Official Car Of Radio Free Charleston.” Sadly, this does not result in me getting one for free.

Paul McCartney releases his tenth live album/DVD in the last twelve years. Not to be outdone, The Who release their forty-second “Best Of” album.

Once again, July 17th is a perfect day, where nothing goes wrong, nobody is stressed out, and everyone just has a nice time.

James Cameron announces that the sequel to “Avatar” will be called “Ava ‘nother Tar.”

August

While staging a train wreck for a movie directed by Ron Howard, the trains collide, but instead of  resulting in the carnage of twisted metal and burning rubble, the cars fly up in the air and land, stacked neatly, by the track with hardly any damge done to them. The stunt coordinator, Phil Hardy, complains to the press, “This train wreck was an absolute train wreck!”

The Republican-controlled House, after running out of meaningless things about the president to hold hearings on, decide to subpoena the publishers of “Omaha The Cat Dancer” and the folks who own “Omaha Steaks.” According to House Speaker Boehner, “It’s close enough!” Then he started crying.

Rhesus Monkeys fall from the sky over Rhode Island.

Fred Nebulous throws eleven touchdown passes and runs for 600 yards in a pre-season game for the Detroit Lions. He is never heard from again.

PopCult turns six, which explains why its humor is at a first-grade level.

September

Hackers crack the code for Wii, and discover that, instead of computer chips and circuit boards, the Wii units actually contain tiny little people who act out all the gaming action. In the front of the unit sit two tiny men with binoculars who shout directions to the folks inside. Video of the two little guys, who speak like auctioneers, only with really high-pitched voices, becomes a huge hit on YouTube.

Nickels fall from the sky over New Hampshire. Secretary of The Interior Ken Salazar releases a statement: “Now this is just getting ridiculous!”

The price of gas reaches nearly seven Pogs per gallon.

“Soylant Green” is remade, starring Mel Gibson. McDonalds signs on to plug the film with a Happy Meal promotion. When told what the movie is about, a McDonalds spokesman says, “We know,” then start laughing maniacally.

A famed photographer is hospitalized for stress while attempting to photograph actual dogs playing poker. He’s able to get the dogs to sit around the poker table, but they turn out to be terrible players.

He has much better luck with his series of photographs of Poker players sniffing each other’s butts.

October

Ping Pong balls fall from the sky over Washington DC. Authorities feel they have a lead in what’s causing this, but are disappointed when they find out Captain Kangaroo has been dead for some time.

The Yankees win the World Series again, thus restoring order to the universe.

The Zombie Walk, part of Charleston’s HallowEast celebration, becomes a “Zombie Strut” when several of the participants suddenly be stylin’.

Thad Nebulous swims the English Channel (one way) in just under three hours. He is never heard from again.

Congressional Hearings are called to look into why Fas Chek sells Frankeberry and Boo Berry, but not Count Chocula.

“Bad Kitty,” the sequel to “Jazz From Hell,” premieres and becomes a huge underground hit. Morgan Spurlock is going to help us get a distribution deal!

November

Turkeys fall from the sky over Cincinnati.

Justin Bieber is mentioned in PopCult for the first, and only, time.

Putting Johnny West saddles and action figures on Chihuahuas is ruled by the courts to be animal cruelty.

Saban Productions announces that they will introduce a token gay Power Ranger into the new series of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. A stunned populace responds, “Token?”

A local play is cut short after five minutes when the lead actor forgets his lines, falls over and plays dead until the audience gets up and leaves.

December

Don Blankenship reveals how he’s been spending his time in the months since his retirement. He escorts a FOX News reporter around his property, and drives him to a reclaimed surface mine where Blankenship has constructed a mile-long catapult that can swivel 360 degrees. He’s also taken up taxidermy.

The hot gift for Christmas is Animal-strength Umbrellas.

Archeologists recant their findings of the rare papyrus, found near the site of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It turns out to be a 1948 issue of Superman. They are, however, excited to announce that it has a really nifty Jack Burnley cover. It’s graded 4.5 by CGC and sold at auction to Todd McFarlane, along with one of Brad Nebulous’ home-run balls, which turns out to be a fake.

Having accomplished nothing during the entire year, members of The House Of Representatives place the blame squarely on Jon Stewart, who didn’t take the time to shame them into action the way he did when the bill to take care of the 9 11 first responders stalled.

Well, that was the year that wasn’t yet.  Pretty wild, huh?  You can’t make this stuff up!  Come back next week as PopCult returns to whatever passes for normal around here.