Forget Disney’s “Frozen”; Watch “Foodfight!”

It doesn’t take a whole lot of searching to see that college-aged students love children’s animated films. Scroll down your Facebook newsfeed on a given day, and you’re bound to stumble upon some turkey posting the results from his/her insipid “Which Character From Disney’s Frozen Are You?” Buzzfeed quiz. (Hint: You are none of them, because they aren’t real.)

The cross-generational appeal and monster success of a film like Frozen is actually pretty easy to parse out when you think about it: The movie tells a simple story, with a message devoid of the cynicism or irony that plagues so much of pop culture today; the visuals are crisp and look great on your new HD TV; some of the songs are actually kind of catchy, to the point of being grating.

Strange, then, that all of these qualities are noticeably absent from the far superior film Foodfight!, which stands as one of the greatest children’s entertainments ever spawned by the Hollywood-Industrial Complex. Ignore the movie’s 2.5 out of 10 rating on IMDB, because IMDB is run by a bunch of knuckle-dragging dinguses who wouldn’t know true art if it took a hot, meaty dump on their front porch.

Reportedly made on a budget of forty-five million US dollars, Foodfight! stars

The Netflix Treatment: Which Other Shows Should Be Resurrected?

Arrested Development caused more of an uproar this weekend than an Apache-themed party at the Arizona capitol building, making every social media account the dumping ground for half-assed references to the banana stands and one-armed men. It’s nice to know that everyone can spoil the fun at the same time! Binge-watching is the new hip thing like moms in bell-bottom jeans or Hillary Duff’s clothing line at Kohl’s. It’s has the fun addictive properties of cocaine and the similar benefits of alienation from friends.

With Ronald Reagan out of the White House and his crack battle long over, there’s no stopping this infectious streaming disease. Plus Barry dug the shit out

World’s Worst: Animal Species

Do NOT, under any circumstances, give this animal “Bill Clinton sex.”

If there is a God, why didn’t He command Noah to throw these assholes overboard?

Dolphins
It is a well-known fact that dolphins are smart motherfuckers. This is what makes them so awful. Evolutionary theorists claim that all mammals, including dolphins, evolved as land-dwelling creatures, but dolphins were evicted back to the sea after they organized and attempted to “eliminate the Koala Problem.”  Dolphins are also responsible for 10% of drownings of children under twelve. They have been known to put on Bill Clinton masks and pose as mermaids to small girls, who immediately either choke on whatever saltwater they’re swimming in or instinctively stop treading water to tightly cross their legs.

50 Shades of Purple, Chapter One

For Morty, the master of my universe

I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair — it just won’t behave, and damn that Beverly Brooke for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams, which are next week, yet here I am trying to brush my hair into submission. Ugh. FML. I’m suuuuch a Medilldo.

I must not sleep with it wet. I must not sleep with it wet. That’s what she said. Reciting this mantra several times, I attempt, once more, to bring it under control with the brush. I roll my eyes in exasperation and gaze at the pale, brown-haired girl with blue eyes too big for her face staring back at me, and give up. My only option is to restrain my wayward hair in a ponytail and hope that I look semi presentable.

Beave is my roommate, and she has chosen today of all days to succumb to the flu. Therefore, she cannot attend the interview she’d arranged to do, with some mega-brill-brill engineer I’ve never heard of, for The Daily. So I have volunteered. I have finals to complain about, one 500-word article to fabricate, but no — today I have to walk all the way from Pi Phi all the way up to fucking Slivka in order to meet this enigmatic nerd. As an exceptional engineer and son of major Northwestern benefactors, his time is extraordinarily precious — much more precious than mine — but he has granted Beave an interview. A real coup, she tells me. Damn her extra-curricular activities. What is ASG anyways?

“Does, like, vodka and gatorade get rid of the flu?” Beverly asks.

“Sure it does. It’s a disinfectant,” I answer.

Gathering my Steve Madden bag, I smile at her and head out the door. She’ll make an exceptional journalist for Chillicothe Times-Bulletin one day. She’s got talent.

———————————————————

I knock on the door in Slivka. It slowly opens as a tremendous cloud of weed-smoke funnels out.

“Mr. Packingham is out at the moment,” says my interviewee’s roommate, a man who presumably served two years in the Singapore army and is double-majoring in chemistry and K-Pop Studies. “But feel free to come in.”

I check out Packingham’s room. It looks like a cross between an adolescent’s wet dream and Charlie Sheen’s Tuesday morning. Kate Upton and Pippa Middleton adorn walls streaked with what I can only assume is Dmitri vodka and CVS Gold Brand grape soda. An exotic aroma hits my nose, an exquisite fusion of BK, Busch Light, and man musk. Must be a Comm major. I think I need to sit down.

And then, a man enters.

“Excuse me. I’m looking for a Beave. Have you seen one?”

Oh God. Packingham’s a tool. He’s smiling like a Freshman who just got into The Keg.

“Um. Actually–” I mutter. But such a handsome tool.

“Miss Brooke is indisposed, so she sent me. I hope you don’t mind, Mr. Packingham.” Eyes like Bill Murray. Complexion like Drake. Body like John Shurna. And, most importantly, a beard like Morty’s.

“And you are?” His voice is warm, possibly amused, definitely slurred a bit. I can’t help but notice the portable beer pong table near his bed.

“Carla Rossi. I’m studying magazine journalism with Beave, um… Miss Brooke in Medill.”

“I see,” he says simply. I can’t help but notice he’s wearing a Sig Nu hoodie. That’s… unexpected.

“Would you like to sit?” He waves me toward a green bean bag chair prominently featuring several suspicious stains.

“I have some questions for you,” I say, catching him looking down my shirt.

“I though you might Carla,” he deadpans.

“Well, let’s get started. I’d like to know what you make of allegations that your father’s donations are the reason Northwestern starts so ungodly late in the calendar year.”

“Bullshit,” Packingham replies.

“Okay, how about suggestions that you once banged Mayor Tisdahl on the roof of Swift?” I try.

“I wish,” the swashbuckling sultan of swag replies.

“Do you have any hobbies?” Butter them up with some puff questions. Medill’s taught me well.

“You know, the usual. Chill with my bros. Drunken Sporcle. Skinny dipping in Lake Michigan with my biddies. Hey Carla, did you know that I’m the reason Selena Gomez decided against becoming a Wildcat? Let’s just say she’s no big fan of the hot cookie bar, if you know what I mean. How about you?”

“Me!?” I ask, surprised. “I mostly complain about how sketch the el is on my way to my internship. I just love the city.”

He smiles, seeming to sense something flutter inside me. Shit! Could he possibly have realized that I can name all 151 original Pokémon in alphabetical order? I thought I had kept that hidden since the Kappa rush debacle of 2011.

“Fine. Last question. Can you comment on the prevailing rumors that you are the man responsible for the invention of the fucksaw—”

“I can’t comment on pending litigation,” he cuts me off, quicker than I awkwardly end conversations on Sheridan.

“Dude, want to play the National Treasure 2 drinking game?” His roommate interrupts.

“Yes, yes I do,” he answers. “Carla,” he says as a farewell.

“Ross,” I reply. And the door, Adele poster and all, comes to a close.

Interviews: A Zombie

Turns out, zombies are real. And we have one in captivity.

Mr. Nibbles struggles with a brain addiction and chronic back pain

This is an interview with an actual zombie, who was born, raised, died, and raised in Haiti. On Sherman Avenue’s latest manatee-hunting excursion, we found a zombie, named him Mr. Nibbles, and took him home to be our new pet. This interview was conducted through the bars of his cage (in the bedroom of Sir Edward Twattingworth III), as we fed him centipede brains from Plex and Cheerios from Hinman.

Sherman Ave: Tell us, Mr. Nibbles, how did you become a zombie?

Nibbles: Well, it started out when I went to the Bokor to get some pot.

SA: What’s a Bokor?

Nibbles: Our resident witch doctor. You know how whenever American thugs want to cut a bitch, they cut the bitch? Haitians just go see the Bokor and he curses the bitch. He also deals things.

SA: So what was different when you went to buy from him this time?

Nibbles: Well, I told him that my last trip had been more painful than teaching wildcats to play sports. So he gave me something new to try. Said it came from pufferfish.

SA: What did the pufferfish stuff do?

Nibbles: It knocked me out. I apparently looked pretty dead.

SA: How long did this go on?

Nibbles: Long enough to be buried alive. Can I have some more Cheerios?

SA: Not until you’re done with the interview. What was being dead like?

Nibbles: I wasn’t dead, I was just unresponsive.* When I eventually came to, I felt worse than freshmen sorostitutes on a post-Keg Tuesday morning, and I had a mad case of the munchies. Basically, the Bokor had knocked me out and then given me a dose of datura, which is just your run-of-the-mill potentially toxic hallucinogen.

SA: Can you describe the effects of datura?

Nibbles: Well, it walks a foggy, fucked-up line somewhere between hallucinogen and near-death experience. I’d done it before I was zombified on it. You kinda mumble around tripping massive crusty balls. Side effects are extreme suggestibility, amnesia, diaphragm paralysis, and sometimes aggression. There are Youtube videos of state school Motherfuckers immortalizing each other’s bad decisions on datura. But essentially, you’ve just been roofied by the Bokor.

SA: So in a stereotypical zombie, the drooling, moaning, slurring, limping, and aggression is probably because of the datura.

Nibbles: Exactly. And because zombies are pretty complacent most of the time, they usually get put to work in the field. But I’m sure there are Bokors who get more creative with their zombie slaves.**

SA: Do you identify with the common stereotype of a zombie?

Nibbles: I mean, in some ways. I definitely lost a lot of brains due to asphyxiation while I was buried alive, as a lot of zombies do. I think that oftentimes that disappointment that you’ve just died a little on the inside manifests itself in the aggression caused by the datura. You just want your brains back in whatever way you can, and you end up trying to nom on anyone normal in the area.

A huge part of zombification is the mental adjustment. When you’ve been buried alive and you wake up feeling more fucked up than the lovechild of Tom Cruise and Charlie Sheen, a common question to ask is, “What’s wrong with me?” But the question never comes out right. You end up with something like, “Hn wclch trchk blm nnnnng?” And when the answer from your friends and family is “HOLY FLYING FUCK, I THOUGHT YOU DIED,” at some point you do start believing you’re a zombie. It’s like your crotchety black uncle who’s convinced he’s a Democrat because he’s a minority, despite his right-wing stance on every fucking issue on the platform. It’s like having anorexia and participating in the Stanford prison experiment. There’s this impossibly perfect standard of what a zombie should be, and you have zombies becoming someone else to try to fit into those roles.

SA: So what you’re saying is that you felt pressured by the cultural expectations of zombies.

Nibbles: Yeah. I started hanging around graveyards, I lumbered around slower than the frustrating Motherfucker in the dining hall who’s obliviously in your way when you’re hauling ass to the cookie bar line, I didn’t say anything but “NNNNNGGG” for a year or two. I mean, what kind of a word is “Ng”? The stereotyping and idealization of zombies in the media is a dangerous cultural phenomenon, and it goes unquestioned and unreported. Every time you watch a George Romero film, I beg you to please remember that not every zombie can tear the limbs off of a pair of dumbass lovers trying to make a kamikaze run for their lives. And not every zombie wants to.

SA: Are there any portrayals of zombies in movies that you’d like our readers to watch?

Nibbles: Yeah. There’s a Spanish foreign film*** called Rec, off of which the American piece of shit Quarantine was based. If you’re going to watch a zombie movie, Rec is significantly more heinous. Please honor Latin America with the concession that this movie might be the one thing we don’t do as well. Also, Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island. Hanna-Barbera gets enough zombie facts right to be legit.

SA: Thank you. Nibbles, I think this concludes our interview. We really appreciate your input on the subject. It’s been a heinous time.

——————————————————————————————————————————
*Like the side door of Annenberg.
**Interactive question for readers: What would YOU do with a zombie slave?
***There are subtitles. Get over it, you’re reading things right now. But apparently they mistranslate the foul language, so whenever you hear the word “mierda” you’ll have to either get off your lazy ass and onto Spanishdictionary.com, or rely on whatever AP Spanish remains accessible behind the stacks of quotable South Park episodes in your brain. See? You knew being bilingual was good for something. You can power trip over your ability to point out inconsistencies in the translation of profanity.