Written by brainz.org

Dumb laws: not the merely annoying or restrictive, but the truly stupid, have long been fodder for late-night comedians, bored people on the Internet and compulsive trivia-seekers. Most are apocryphal or no longer on the books; some, though, do persist, producing great snickering sounds from those needing distraction. Here’s a look at 15 of the verifiable ones from across this great land, on all levels: state, city and county.

1. West Virginia: Roadkill may be taken home for supper.

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Yes, it’s true. If you’re having trouble scraping up enough food to keep your family warm and healthy — and, in these hard times, who isn’t? — you’re legally permitted to scrape up any unfortunate animals from the road to turn into a tasty stew, fricassee or whatever you like. The law’s intentions are solid: the Department of Transportation can’t afford to regularly clean every single one, so this kind of ad hoc road maintenance not only helps keep the roads clean, but lowers the cost of maintenance as well.

2. Pinal County, Arizona: No outdoor dancing

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Libertarian and anti-government cranks everywhere got a new hobbyhorse to ride over the San Tan Flat, an all-purpose restaurant with a large outdoor area in Pinal County, Arizona. For obscure reasons of their own, county officials decided to harp on a law from 1962 prohibiting outdoor dance halls, bowling alleys, penny arcades and so forth. With outdoor dancing very much part of the restaurant’s appeal, the owners were none too amused at being fined $700 every day for the silly violation. After national attention — Drew Carey did a segment about the problem for libertarian website Reason and George Will got a column out of it — the restaurant won in court. The law’s still on the books, ready to ruin any small business owner’s life whenever Pinal County feels like it.

3. Washington: Report your crimes ahead of time.

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A strangely despairing law on the Washington books instructs prospective criminals to have the basic courtesy to, when they arrive at city limits, “telephone the chief of police" and inform him or her of what’s about to happen. The idea was to cut down on a spiraling crime rate. Needless to say, no potential criminal was ever dumb enough to actually do it.

4. Utah: No hunting whales

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Not that there are any whales to hunt in Utah to begin with… It’s not clear why this law exists. It did, however, provide the capstone for one Richard Smith of Cornwall, who resolved to set out across America in July 2005 to systematically break as many arcane and downright silly laws as he could. In Utah, he planned to rent a boat and attempt, at least, to hunt a whale. Sadly, unlike, say the expeditions of Sir Richard Burton or Sir Edmund Hilary, history doesn’t record what became of this intrepid Brit.

5. Austin, Texas: You may not carry wire cutters in your back pocket.

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Austin, Texas is a city with a large university population and plenty of computer money floating around, with a lively downtown area. It’s the 15th-biggest city in America. Despite that, it has a lawdating back to the frontier days, when fence cutting and cattle stealing was a big deal. For that reason, don’t carry wire cutters in your pocket, though admittedly the situation is unlikely to come up; it’s a real city, not a rural area. The law is unlikely to cause any real hindrance.

6. Tennessee: You may not bring a skunk with you into the state.

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This one sounds stupid, but it actually makes sense. Rabies are a problem in Tennessee, and skunks are big carriers of rabies, so it’s not a terribly random law (aside from the vexing question of what kind of person wants to adopt a skunk in the first place; zoos and scientists are, of course, exempt). Mostly the law attracts attention because skunks are funny. Fair enough.

7. North Carolina: No costume meetings

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There is, of course, a perfectly good reason that North Carolina has stipulated that "no person or persons at least 16 years of age shall while wearing a mask, hood or device whereby the person, face or voice is disguised so as to conceal the identity of the wearer, hold any manner of meeting." The image raises to mind the law’s intended purpose: to prevent the KKK from gathering together and doing their nefarious thing. The problem here is that the law’s language doesn’t explicitly say the KKK is prohibited from gathering, which all things considered would seem to be the simplest way to go about it; instead, it inadvertently bans Halloween parties. Which is silly.

8. New Jersey: You may not pump your own gas

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Life is hard in New Jersey, the nation’s butt of all jokes about filthy chemical waste and government corruption. One bright spot, perhaps: since 1949, it’s been impossible to pump your own gas in New Jersey. Instead, someone will come and pump it for you. The only other state with this law is Oregon. Five years ago, then governor John Corzine experimented with letting people pump their own gas on the New Jersey Turnpike, but no dice: the good people of New Jersey do not want to get out of their car or get gas on their clothing, even if it’ll save them five cents a gallon. Because after all, finding gainful employment is hard, and creating an essentially subsidized job position is a big help if you can’t actually get out of the garden state.

9. New Orleans: No cursing the fireman while he’s working.

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It’s unclear what kind of terrible person would actually curse at a fireman risking life and limb while the fireman’s actually working. Apparently, though, this happens, so in New Orleans it’s illegal to curse at a fireman while they’re in the pursuit of their official duties. Off-duty, however, you are free to be totally rude to someone who’s only trying to help, if that’s your kind of thing.

10. Kennesaw, Georgia: You must own a gun

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Since 1982, all heads of household in this small Southern town have been required to own a gun, though there’s no apparent penalty for not complying. The law was passed in response to a gun ban in Morton Grove, Illinois; the citizens here (whose population swelled exponentially since the law’s passage, from 5,000 to 30,000) take the usual kind of Southern pride in asserting their God-given Second Amendment rights in the most uselessly symbolic fashion possible, making sure the always shaky rights of white family men aren’t suppressed. Still, crime hasn’t risen, so no harm done.

11. Seaside, Florida: Every house must have a white picket fence and two-story porch.

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Still, if you want to see legislated creepy conformity at its most innocuous yet annoying, Seaside, Florida has Kennesaw beat. Seaside is a planned community, and if you truly desire to live among people with similar priorities then this is the place to be. Here, every house has to have a white picket fence and two-story porch, and if that gives you the suburban creeps you probably don’t belong in Seaside.

12. Southington, Connecticut: The sale of Silly String is banned.

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In 1996, the good citizens of this small Connecticut town underwent a minor furor when a festival was disrupted by pranksters who silly stringed motorcycle police, marching band members and cheerleaders. Most people would respond to this by just chasing down and beating the ever-living crap out of the perpetrators (or just responding in kind), but Southington spazzed, passing legislation to ban the sale of Silly String in the community and thereby dealing a permanent death-blow to graduation ceremonies everywhere.

13. Boulder, Colorado: No couches on the porch.

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Sometimes stupid laws are the only logical response to stupid people, as with the fun-lovingcollege students of Boulder. The University of Colorado at Boulder is, er, “renowned" as a party school, and its dedicated academic undergraduates enjoy unwinding after major events (such as a college football victory, whose earthshaking importance is understood by most Americans) by burning couches. To discourage such unruly and potentially dangerous pyromaniac moments, no couches are allowed on the porches of Boulder… A sad discouragement for transplanted Southerners who enjoy porch life.

14. Los Angeles, California: No toad licking

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It’s unclear what’s dumber: the ever-inefficient war on drugs, or the kind of person who really wants to lick toad secretions in search of the ultimate high. Yes, if you want to actually take a crap shooton the cane toad and see what happens, that option is sadly legally prohibited in Los Angeles. Stupid people, as ever, lead to stupid laws, and in any case the toads are a nuisance: the poison they excrete can get you high, but it can also kill your dog if you’re not paying close attention.

15. Tennessee: Atheists and preachers may not serve in public office.

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Technically, this law exists: both ends of the religious spectrum are prohibited from serving in public office in Tennessee, which presumably means only mild-mannered believers are allowed to run for office. The law’s doubly dumb: not only does it make no sense, it’s also unconstitutional, meaning it’s unenforceable, meaning it’s pointless. But hey! Symbolic gestures for everybody!

Bonus: Human Patch v1.1

Written by Cowboy

Sick of the crap that kids are expected to watch on television now? Feeling nostalgic for the good ol’ days of Nickelodeon, the golden age when cartoons were still hand-drawn, and your favorite characters were wearing spandex, over-sized T-shirts, and mullets? Well, dig out your Walkmans and Gak, because here are the 15 best shows that Nickelodeon brought to the 90?s.

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

“One thing gathers us together: the dark.”

Who didn’t want to be a member of the Midnight Society? The arc of this show revolved around a group of stereotypical 90?s kids that met one night a week at a secret location in the woods, to share PG-rated scary stories.

The stories were usually adaptations of fairy tales, urban legends, and scary stories that were in the public domain. Seen now, most of the tales aren’t so scary, and they probably weren’t at the time either. But Are You Afraid of the Dark was still the highlight of each SNICK lineup. Even with the cheese factor, they’re still worth watching as an adult.

Salute Your Shorts

Donkey Lips. Budnik. Sponge. Ug. Summer camp was never nearly as interesting as Camp Anawanna was, and nobody ever had such awesome nicknames. Salute Your Shorts is to this day the only American television show to include the word “fart” in its opening theme, which automatically elevates it to “freaking awesome” status to most 9-year-olds. Despite the terrible child actors, Salute Your Shorts actually manages to retain a portion of its humor for grown-ups, so long as they aren’t looking for anything highbrow.

Ren & Stimpy

Ren and Stimpy. The very words conjure up memories of anthropomorphic farts, nose goblins, and terrifying Star Trek spoofs. Is there anyone between the ages of 18-35 who can’t recite “The Log Song” or “Happy Happy Joy Joy?” Love it or hate it, Ren and Stimpy had a serious impact on American television and animation.

Starring Ren Höek, a psychotic chihuahua, and Stimpson “Stimpy” J. Cat, the show was a parade of gross-out humor tinged with the bizarre. The show quickly became a target for censorship, due to the extreme violence and out-and-out nastiness. Nickelodeon fired the creator and original director, John Kricfalusi, after two seasons.

Kricfalusi later teamed up with Spike TV to reboot the series for an adult audience, but production halted after three episodes. Everyone was unsettled by the new series, audiences and critics alike.  When Spike TV – the network that airs 1001 Ways to Die – says your show is too crazy, your show is seriously crazy.

Rocko’s Modern Life

Rocko’s Modern Life rode in on the same wave of bizarre gross-out humor that Ren & Stimpy did. Starring a pant-less wallaby named Rocko, his dog Spunky, and a supporting cast of various kinds of animals, it was the kind of show that wrung the potty humor from every possible situation. We’re not particularly squeamish, but watching a frog shave its tongue kind of loses its appeal after puberty. It doesn’t have the edginess of Ren and Stimpy, or the snappy dialogue of Angry Beavers, but It’s gross and weird and… why is there a moose in that refrigerator?

Okay, Rocko’s Modern Life is worth watching just for the sheer WTF factor.

Wild and Crazy Kids

Wild and Crazy Kids functioned on two guiding principles: 1.) Kids want to watch other kids doing things they dream of doing, and 2.) Pies to the face are always, always funny. It was a winning formula. It’s still a winning formula, with the added bonus of being able to make fun of the terrible shirts that Omar Gooding and Donnie Jeffcoat wore.

Double Dare

Now that we think about, Nickelodeon implemented their Pie = Awesome and Wacky Stunts = Ratings formula elsewhere. Double Dare, hosted by Marc Summers, was one of the longer running Nickelodeon shows, beginning in 1986 and sticking around until 1993, and was even revamped as in January of 2000. Besides the requisite pies-in-the-face, contestants regularly got soaked with water, milk, and Nickelodeon’s trademarked slime, and — best of all — go through an obstacle course.

The show put Nickelodeon – still a fledgling network at that point – on the map.

Legends of the Hidden Temple

Legends of the Hidden Temple was another of Nickelodeon’s game shows. Competing teams of kids took orders from a giant, animatronic head named Olmec, answered questions about half-bogus legend, and then ran through an obstacle course.

(Seriously, why are there no more obstacle courses on television anymore? Why are we only stuck with shows like Survivor for nine million seasons?)

The show was part Indiana Jones and part American Gladiator, with all the historical inaccuracies of the first mixed with the hilarious physical challenges of the second. A seriously winning combination.

Angry Beavers

Though not as creepy as Rocko’s Modern Life or straight-up weird as Ren and Stimpy, Angry Beavers was memorable for having the best dialogue in a kid’s show ever. Much of it, of course, is a hell of a lot funnier if you’re an adult. Here are some examples from theAngry Beavers IMDB page.

• “Urethra! I found something!”
• “Where in the name of deus ex machina did that T-Rex come from?”
• “Desperate times call for desperate desperateness.”
• “Die, spooty thing, die!”
• “What in the name of Aunt Eileen’s cabbageless coleslaw is going on?”

Comedy gold..

Aaah! Real Monsters!

Aaah! Real Monsters! was like Freaks and Geeks crossed with Monsters Inc. Its three protagonists, Ickis, Oblina, and Krumm, were adolescent monsters and were forced to deal with all the normal pains of growing up (peer pressure, school, parents), but with the added bonuses of living under a dump, scaring humans every day, and having a teacher who looked like Dr. Frankenfurter.

If that isn’t enough to convince you of the show’s awesomeness, the animation has a lot of similarities to Yellow Submarine, which is a breath of fresh air if you’re sick of all dubbed anime and crap CGI cartoons.

Pete and Pete

Pete and Pete originally aired as a series of Nickelodeon shorts. Due to their popularity, they were eventually produced into full-fledged series that lasted for three seasons.

Pete and Pete was a prototype of the hipster movement. Don’t believe us? Look at the glasses, the flannel hats, the irony and whimsy.  Look at little Pete’s tattoo, Petunia. Artie (the strongest man in the world) looks like he just rode his fixed-gear bike from a local cafe/bookstore in Portland.

All that aside, Pete and Pete is a sweet ode to suburban ridiculousness. It manages to satirize silly middle-class values without ever getting too cynical or saccharine. Pretty rare for a kid’s show.

Secret World of Alex Mack

Anyone remember Alex Mack, superhero, mutant, and 90?s fashionista? With a premise that was lifted pretty much entirely from any superhero comic, plus standard kids’ show plots, Alex Mack is like the offspring of Daredevil and Degrassi. After accidentally getting drenched in a secret chemical goo, Alexandra Mack has the ability to shoot electricity out of her fingertips, morph into a silver puddle, and move things with her minds. With these awesome powers she… experiences teenage drama. Well, points for trying, Nickelodeon.

On the other hand, it is fun watching Alex Mack develop a serious hat fetish is kind of fun.

Clarissa Explains It All

There’s probably not a single woman under 30 who didn’t want to be Clarissa Darling when she was growing up. She had it all: wit, a superfly best friend, and a sweet computer (for 1992). She was the original geek girl hipster, and she had the best wardrobe ever.

Clarissa Explains It All is still worth watching, mostly for the ridiculous computer simulations that Clarissa designs in each episode, most of them focusing on how to torture her Young Republican brother Ferguson. How much do you want to bet that Clarissa got rich in the dotcom boom, moved to Seattle, and lives in a commune with Sam?

Doug

(No actual video available, because Disney has Doug locked down tight.)

Doug was one of Nickelodeon’s first Nicktoons, premiering at the same time as Rugratsand Ren and Stimpy. The main character was Doug Funnie, who detailed his days in the town of Bluffington in his diary. Like many of Nickelodeon’s programming, many of the plots dealt with humdrum issues like peer pressure and crushes on girls, but it spiced things up with forays into Doug’s imagination: who could forget Quail Man, or (WA-NA-NA!) Jack Bandit?

Doug was bought by Disney in 1996. The company gave Doug a makeover and produced three more seasons and a full-length movie before shutting the franchise down. Since then,Doug has run afoul of Youtube users who enjoy ruining others’ childhoods. Awesome.

Roundhouse

Before there was All That, there was Roundhouse. And it was awesome.

Performed before a live audience, and using minimal props and sets, Roundhouse was a fast-paced sketch show, making use of its multi-racial cast’s dancing and singing talents as well as their comedic ability. It was like In Living Color for kids. (Not that we didn’t watchIn Living Color as kids, but still.)

Awesome! But also, ew.

All That

The most successful of all of Nickelodeon’s live-action shows, All That ran for ten seasons, from 1995-2005. It gave birth to 5 spinoff shows, and started the careers of Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell.  Some of their best sketches included:

Bonus?Is This Real Life?