Creepiosity: A Hilarious Guide to the Unintentionally Creepy
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CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.14
Even worse are the red-ass sea monkeys.
OLD-TYME PORN
As you, above anyone else, know, there are all kinds of different porn on the Internet for every different taste: young, old, black, white, midget, nonmidget, etc. Among the most interesting is the porn from the silent movie era. Just imagine, you could be beating off to the exact same porn that Babe Ruth did. As a baseball fan, that’s pretty damn cool.
But before you finish the job, there are two things to remember about what you’re watching:
1. Everyone in it is dead. Slightly arousing? Sure. But also a little creepy.
And, more important…
2. That’s someone’s grandma doing the Victrola repair man!
Think about it: Somebody is out there watching these films on the Internet, squinting at it, and saying to themselves: “Is that my Ya Ya?”
Pretty disturbing.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 6.87
Enough foreplay, let’s fast-forward to the money shot.
THIS GUY
He was in every movie in the ′80s, yet you don’t know his name.
What did you call him?
That Creepy Guy.
Nuff said.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 9.15
The face that launched a thousand shits.
AGED-UP LOST KID PICTURES
Don’t get me wrong; it’s a tragedy when a kid goes missing. Probably the worst suffering a parent can endure, unless, of course, the kid was a pain in the ass, then maybe a little less so. But we can all agree, it’s not a great scene.
Unfortunately, though, to make a bad situation worse, someone came up with the technology to “age up” the picture of the missing four-year-old so we can see what he looks like today, at age twenty. And you know what he looks like? A damn four-year-old with jowls and a mustache!
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 9.27
Honestly, if the kid is still out there and he looks like that, he’s got bigger problems than just missing his mommy and daddy.
TONY RANDALL DADS
Here’s the deal: I think it’s awesome that you’re still shtupping your much younger wife into your seventies, I really do. But for the love of Pete, take some precaution not to knock her up, OK?
A lot can and has been said on this subject (“Hey, you and the baby have a lot in common—you both wear diapers!”), but the creepiness of the situation can be summed up like this:
“Hey Jimmy, how did you spend your ninth birthday?”
“I went to my dad’s funeral.”
I guess what I’m saying is, keep it in your pants, Larry King.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.14
Julius hopes to live long enough to see Aidan graduate kindergarten.
PEOPLE WHO HOLD THE HANDSHAKE TOO LONG
It’s actually a pretty simple enterprise:
Clasp hands.
Pump twice.
Release.
If it’s your dad or someone you haven’t seen since you were a kid, you can pump thrice, but that’s it. Let go.
I was in a business meeting a few years ago and it went like this:
Clasp hands.
Pump twice.
Hold.
Pump twice more.
Hold.
Hold more.
He was the alpha shaker, so I was really at his mercy, and when the dust settled (and this is true, I swear to God), he did not let go of my hand for a full minute.
Now when I know I’m going to see this guy I always have to make sure I have something in my right hand before I approach to avoid the shake altogether. (“Hey Pete, can’t shake, busy pulling my pork!”)
See also: Too-Long Man Hugs.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 6.91
All Bill wants is for Cliff to let go so he can get a falafel.
LITTLE KIDS WITH OLD-PEOPLE NAMES
Sure, child abuse in the form of beatings and basement imprisonment grabs the headlines, but there’s a wider spreading form of child abuse going on all around us: the parents who saddle their kids with old-people names.
Hey, hip, cosmopolitan mom, do you really believe your six-year-old girl is happy to be named Blanche? You didn’t think there was any chance your fourth grader might get beaten up because his name is Herbert? They’re not “so square they’re hip,” people—they’re just square.
And creepy. Just ask my daughter Gertrude.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 6.45
(From top left, clockwise): Woodrow, Milton, Bertha, and Adolf.
THE OTHER PEOPLE IN THE DOCTOR’S WAITING ROOM
Sure, whatever I have is bad. But what they all have is a nightmare.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 9.00
SARS and leprosy, respectively.
SQUIRRELS THAT LOOK AT YOU A BIT TOO LONG
You’re getting some stuff out of the trunk of your car and you feel it—someone is staring at you. You turn around to discover that it’s a squirrel. Your eyes meet. Feeling uncomfortable, you turn your glance away but he doesn’t. He’s locked in. What’s his game? Is he going to charge you?
Why shouldn’t he? You’ve run over dozens of his relatives over the years. And even if he dies attacking you, he’s probably thinking, “What do I have to lose? I’m a goddamn squirrel.”
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 9.11
Basically a rat with a great PR person.
GROWN-UPS WITH PIGTAILS
It’s adorable on little girls and can even be kind of cute on a hot twenty-year-old coed. But when you’re sixty, it’s just plain creepy.
I’m looking right at you, lady who played Elly May on The Beverly Hillbillies.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.61
Jethro likes to call them her “love handles.”
“CAN YOU READ MY MIND?”
For me, the 1978 Superman movie was a dream come true. Cool special effects, funny bits, the perfect—perfect—Superman. For the first half hour I had a smile on my face General Zod couldn’t knock off. And then … it happened.
There’s a real fun scene on Lois Lane’s terrace. She’s interviewing him, he’s peeking at her undies—joyous. He scoops her up and takes her flying around the world. Swoon. But then, all of a sudden—without warning!—she starts talking but her lips aren’t moving. And it’s not really talking, it’s kind of singing. But more like talking.
And it goddamn rhymes!
For some reason, we’re privy to Lois Lane’s thoughts and what she’s thinking is a dumb-ass poem about Superman reading her mind!
I know one thing for sure, Miss Lane: If he could read your mind and he heard that crazy-ass mumbo jumbo, there’s no way he isn’t dropping you into the Metropolis River.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 8.87
Margot is contemplating putting her hair in pigtails.
PICTURES OF THE DISHES ON THE WALL AT THE CHINESE TAKEOUT JOINT
The photo of the shrimp with lobster sauce has a small burn mark on the side; somebody has scrawled something pornographic on the barbecued spareribs; the picture of General Tso’s chicken has been there since General Tso was actually in power. No matter what, we can all agree that these faded, dirty pictures aren’t helping sell any Chinese food; all they’re doing is giving customers the creeps.
The calendar with the hot Chinese girls can stay, though.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 6.25
Looks more like egg foo old, you know what I’m saying?
TOY TRAIN AFICIONADOS
They’re like urban legends—we all have a friend who has a friend who has an entire miniature town set up in his basement. With hundreds of little trees and tiny people, all of which would be very disturbing even if they didn’t have some strange dude as their god.
And sometimes, lord help us all, he wears the engineer’s hat.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.71
Perry never did understand that people don’t like a show-off.
PEOPLE WHO DRIVE REALLY OLD CARS
Here’s the scene: You just got a call from, say, your buddy wh
o knows a jockey who has a sure thing on race number five at Belmont, which goes off in fifteen minutes (you can sub out “your wife is in labor” for a less colorful reason to be in a mad rush). Point is, every second counts. And in front of you, on this one-lane road, is a dude driving a damn 1906 Model K Ford. He’s gunning it, going a breezy eight miles an hour. And if he’s driving that car, there’s always a chance he’s dressed for the part, which means goggles and a leather helmet. It was cute on Penelope Pitstop, not so cute on him.
Look, being nostalgic for stuff from when you were a kid is cool. You found a vintage Rock ′Em Sock ′Em Robots on eBay? Hats off to you. But when you hanker for something that was in vogue when your great-grandpa was rubbing one out to daguerreotypes of Mary Todd Lincoln—liiiiiitle creepy.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 6.71
Jay is back on the road after replacing the candle in his right headlight.
THE NURSE’S OFFICE AT SCHOOL
The wall was littered with posters of teeth with faces and food pyramids and warnings about taking rides from strangers—all from thirty years ago. (That pedophile offering the candy to that little girl is driving a ′72 Hornet, for crying out loud. Let’s stay with the times!)
And then there was the nurse herself, who was usually trained only to apply a Band-Aid or check for lice. (Lice-Checking Chopsticks Creepiosity Index: 7.40.) This was not the place you wanted to be at any point during the school day.
And yet it was still a thousand times better than the boys’ bathroom.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 8.28
Sheila sometimes wishes she were the lunch lady.
MR. ROGERS’ NEIGHBORHOOD
Sure, it has the reputation of a beloved children’s program, but was it really, or is that some Kool-Aid we were encouraged to drink?
The fact of the matter is, this was a very unnerving show: Mr. Rogers changing his clothes on camera every episode, that mailman who enjoyed kids a bit too much, those puppets who didn’t have moving mouths, just bobbing heads?
Some might say that Teletubbies is the most disturbing thing to hit children’s television, and that’s hard to argue with. But you can be sure that there wouldn’t be that baby-head sun and those giggling creatures with nonworking mouths on PBS if Fred Rogers hadn’t broken down those creepy doors a generation earlier.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 9.10
King Friday loves it when Fred’s hand is up there.
LIPSTICK ON ANYTHING BESIDES A WOMAN’S LIPS
I’m not sure if we had a lousy dishwasher when I was growing up or if my mom was a bad homemaker (probably both), but any time Judy Goldblatt came over for mah-jongg (Mah-jongg Creepiosity Index: 8.76), it was a sure bet that we would not only find lipstick-stained cigarettes all over the place (Judy Goldblatt Creepiosity Index: 8.31), but also a coffee mug stained with the stuff for days after.
As a result, to this day I never smoke, drink coffee, or wear anything but smear-proof lipstick.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 8.02
Note to self: Buy Mom some Cascade.
STRIPPERS/PORN STARS WITH BLACK-AND-BLUE MARKS
If I had a daughter, I’d give her this advice from a very early age:
If you’re going to exhibit your body professionally, it should generally be free of bruises, cuts, wounds, scars, and abrasions. If you need to put a Band-Aid on your body, maybe you should take a day off.
Furthermore, if you have a large birthmark, you might want to look into a different vocation.
Love,
Papa
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.89
At least Savannah has the courtesy to cover up the burn marks on her ears.
BRUCE JENNER’S FACE
There’s something that happens to a man’s face when he gets plastic surgery—he starts to look like a woman. Kenny Rogers, Burt Reynolds, Donny Osmond—they’re almost unrecognizable as the men they once were and now, instead, they all resemble chicks.
Creepy, creepy, chicks.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 8.10
I still own her Wheaties box.
MOM-AND-POP SUPERMARKETS
First of all, let me just say three cheers to them for not buckling to the corporate fat cats. That’s something to be admired.
That said, the whole experience—the wooden floors, the small variety of (dusty) food, the cash register that may or may not have that “no sale” key—all pretty creepy.
Give me a sterile environment and seventy kinds of corn flakes and the sweet carcinogenic hum of fluorescent lights, and I’m a happy man.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 6.70
How much paste do they sell that they need to put it on the aisle sign?
THE GUY ON THE STREET WALKING FAST AND CARRYING A BACKPACK
Doesn’t matter if there isn’t a hooker’s head in there, we all assume there is.
Slow down, Chief, you’re giving us all the creeps.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 8.98
Mike just bought some sause at the mom-and-pop supermarket.
SID AND MARTY KROFFT
H.R. Pufnstuf, Lidsville, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Land of the Lost. These people terrorized us when we were kids, and do we hold it against them? No, we treat them like heroes.
You should thank the heavens that I have the guts to say it out loud: That was some creepy shit.*
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 9.04
* Although I have to admit that I do enjoy these shows tremendously when I’m hopped up on my magic mushrooms.
Camden watched, secretly hoping for a Witchiepoo nip-slip.
BINGO ZEALOTS
This is America, and that means people have the right to express themselves however they see fit. For some, it’s denouncing the country and its policies and citizens; for others, it’s marching while shouting racial epithets and burning effigies. But far creepier than either of these is the Bingo Zealot.
Let me start by saying I think it’s great that the weak-minded have a game they can enjoy. My grandmother loved it, even though toward the end she seemed to think the plastic bingo chips were mints because a lot of them went missing when she played (and, by the way, it never helped her herring breath).
But even though my Ya Ya loved the game, she didn’t love it so much that she felt the need to advertise that fact. Did she wear a sweater that bragged “Bingo night for me … TV dinner night for you!”? No, she didn’t. Did she carry around a seat cushion that made it comically clear that she played bingo only on “days that end in Y”? Never once. Did she ever sport hilarious “069” earrings? OK, that she did do, but only because I gave them to her and she had no idea about the double entendre (and it should be noted that she ultimately ate them thinking they were gum balls).
It’s OK to enjoy something—nay, it’s great to enjoy something—but to brag that much about loving something that is so (and this may sound snobbish) moronic… that’s a little creepy.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.40
Grandma’s favorite snack.
POPEYE
Here’s the basic premise of every episode of Popeye:
Popeye has to rescue Olive Oyl from being raped by Bluto.
That’s not creepy at all, is it kids?
Throw in the fact that the guy mumbled like a mental patient, he liked punching cows so hard that they flew up in the air and turned into a butcher shop, and he had three identical “nephews” and yet had no discernable siblings, and the whole thing is quite disturbing.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.97
“Well, blow me up!”
HBO’S REAL SEX
This is a show that’s on HBO a lot, and it’s almost impossible to watch without cringing.
Listen, I respect other people’s quirks and peccadilloes and fetishes,* but that doesn’t mean I need to see it on TV.
If elderly masturbation parties, sex with stuffed animals, and role play in which someone is a horse and someone is a jockey is something that turns you on, I say God bless,† but for the rest of us, this be creepy.
CREEPIOSITY IN
DEX: 7.77
Paul is enjoying getting “elfed.”
* I actually don’t.
† I am, in fact, judging you pretty harshly.
ANDY ROONEY’S EYEBROWS