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’80s Cartoon Haiku: And the Winners Are…


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?Let’s start with who the winners aren’t: Not me. Not me.

Yes, I asked for you Topless Roboteers to see if you could manage to get to 1,000 comments (not entries, necessarily, but comments). And yes, you all were cool enough to do that. But then… then you kept going. And going, and going, and going, and holy shit there were 2100 comments in last weekend’s TR contest.

And many entries contained more than one haiku (one entry in particular had 250, but we’ll get to that), of course. Sure, not every comment contained a haiku or limerick about ’80s cartoons, almost all of them were written in haiku anyways. People were having whole conversations — about the contest, about Smurf sex, about the power of breasts, about anything — in haiku. It was truly amazing… and totally awful, since I had to read them all.

After trying to ignore the contest all day Tuesday with booze, I finally finished judging the results at about 1:30 am last night. As promised, there will be extra shirts awarded, but be warned — with so many entries, I had to be insanely picky, or else it would have taken even longer to judge. There’s a lot of awesome shit that couldn’t make the cut. Also, there’s probably some awesome stuff I missed, again, because 2100 entries, dammit. With that caveat, let’s start the Honorable Mentioning. (Also, thanks to Greggory for the improved pic!)


Xvi said:

Come on, time to go.
Swing your arms from side to side.
Do the Mario!


The Man With Two Brains said:

There was a transformer named ‘Potimus’ Prime
His foe ‘Egatro’ was a complete ball of slime
Sold him to Jabba the Hutt
Who had him enact smut
And his ass gave Artoo a good time!


Abraxas said:

a love poem from Panthro to the Thunder Tank:
I like to see you lap the miles,
Running over Wollows in piles.
I love the feel of your crankshaft turning,
And the sound of your engine purring
Send my loins reeling, burning.

Bumblebee’s front seat
is perfumed by the fragrance
of witwicky ass

WileyKat and Kit were a pair
who carried their incest with flair
they’d do both sixty-nine
and doggy-style fine
and blew snarf like they just didn’t care

Abraxas went above and beyond in the contest, and then immediately down into the sewers with the filth and depravity. Most of it was horrible things about the Thundercats and Sam and Bumblebee, but there was plenty of haiku about me fucking and getting fucked by a variety of cartoon characters in socially unacceptable ways.


skrag2112 said:

Do a lot of coke
And vote for Ronald Reagan
Then watch some Ducktales


Hachiko said:

Sleek, lithe Cheetara
Naked in episode 1.
Where are your nipples?


MattK said:

There once was a decade called ‘eighties’
With ‘toons we would watch straight to Hades.
But now grown up are we
Good times just a mem’ry
And we’re no good at all with the ladies


Neural Khan said:

His name is Cobra Commander
With a head like a salamander
He was once a man
Hides his face in a can
So no one will take a gander.


DCD said:

Ma ma ma mask! MASK!
Tracker will lead the mission
Fly away, lasers

The Ever Living
We keep watch over Third Earth
With sight beyond sight

I’m O.G. Readmore!
This week: Motorcycle Mouse!
Just like last week! Aaaaaah!

Noble Samurai
His legs are a tornado
His pants were destroyed

Okay, fun’s over
First the local news at noon
Then time for Soul Train


The Monkey Machine said:

Back in the day, the 80’s some say,
The T.V.’s had knobs and three channels.
On Saturday morn, the screens did adorn,
with cartoons inside those wood panels.
A week of distress, schools,bullies,duress,
At last a moment of bliss.
With characters,plots, some have,some nots,
All wrapped in animations sweet kiss.
From muscle bound clad,and meglomaniacs mad,
To robots,armies and wars.
With whiney voice foes, or undefeatable bros,
And sometimes just one season bores.
Our minds were bent, with full intent,
On selling our parents their plastic.
We learned about greed,and screamed WE NEED,
And imagined our plights so drastic.
Our memories burned, still we turned,
Into adults that remember those ways.
In fondness we recall, and honor it all,
With a T-shirt we wear on Saturdays.


Nostromo’s Second Android said:

Oh Lord in heaven
please forgive sexual thoughts
of striped green stockings.


TrapJaw said:

“Furry nincompoop!”
“Bungling flea-bitten fool!”
Insides, Beastman cries.

Thunder, a thunder
Ho! An eye shines in the sky,
calling all brave cats.

The dread of robeasts,
a union of great lions.
A blazing sword sings.


realjcastro said:

Robotech is awesome
but I hear the school bus
I always miss the end


Paige said:

Meddling kids foiled theives, ghosts, and plotters.
Under masks, janitors or old squatters
All save for Scrappy
Who made the show crappy
Plus Don Knotts and the Harlem Globetrotters

Speed and the Mach 5 racked up big wins.
Why are all these damn races through mountains?
Everyone tries to cheat
But they’ll soon be beat
When Racer X takes down the assassins.


Ace of Knaves said:

I watched Ducktales all afternoon long,
and I liked it, don’t get me wrong.
But if Scrooge McDuck
was so great why the fuck
can’t I remember a thing but the song?

I root for the sorcerer more
in the endless smurf/Gargamel war,
because we mustn’t forget
that he made Smurfette:
Everyone’s favorite blue whore.


TechBender said:

Grimlock not stupid!
Me am strongest Autobot!
Me should be leader!


pumpkinguts said:

Richest duck of all
Let’s swim in my money bin
Reaganomics works!


operations said:

in the mornings of
our lost years behind us all
we were happy then


GroovyGeekyGirl said:

Not just a rock star
Jem, a business owner too
Truly outrageous.


Mordrun said:

Rainbow milk in bowl
Sugar coated nerves run wild
Kungfu action grip


MostlyDifferent said:

Creepy purple man
Wants young girl’s strawberry pie.
Call Chris Hansen now!

Strange in retrospect
All these 80s cartoon chicks
Seem like lesbians

You have the power.
Yes, you’ve told us many times.
Keep it in your pants.

You know what they say
About guys who drive big cats
Hey, I’m just sayin


Shgubgub said:

I once met a smurf from Smurf Village
Where I was headed to pillage
He said “Smurf Smurfette,
She’ll get you wet”
Now their town is drowned with my spillage!


Ian said:

Centurions rule
Unless villian far from sea
Stupid water guy


WolverineBurger said:

Voltron at sunrise –
Cereal: soggy in milk.
Mother says “QUIET!”

More mentions on the next page.

—-

KaiSen said:

There was a show called Beverly Hills Teens
Of which Bianca was the queen of all scenes.
She planned and she schemed,
And yet I still dreamed
Of an episode where she wore cut-off jeans.


fishman2020 said:

The faint stench of onion.
In the woods, past the mushrooms.
It is Gargamel.

There was young lad from Naperville, Illinois…
Who entered a contest to create a MOTU toy.
He was shocked when he won…
But Mattel chose to shun,
and Fearless Photog was the bane of this boy.


Greggory said:

A Mummy Calls Out
“Ancient Spirits of Disco!”
Holding his arms high

He begs his masters
“Transform this defunked form y’all”
He pleads to the night

“Up into MUMM RA”
Voice reaching a fever pitch
“THE EVER PIMPIN!”


Unemployed in Greenland said:

Your car once had an eight-track,
It couldn’t Transform or attack,
T’was still a great time,
Now remembered online,
By the Robot who shows off his rack.

Umemployed in Greenland also had a massive Transformers-themed rap set to Eminem’s “Rabbit Run.” It’s too long to post here, but very much worth checking out — just do a search for Greenland on the contest page.


tredlow said:

Don’t patronize me,
Goddamn pup named Scooby-Doo
The clue’s obvious


Edge said:

Oh David the Gnome,
Stealing underpants all night,
You will make profit.


JR Linton said:

Your white cab let me
pretend prime was a ghost but
your blue parts always broke


CodeOuch said:

Everything’s a joke.
Burn Itty Bitty City!
Laugh as the clowns weep.


Tentacore said:

Little helpful boy
Prince of a lonely kingdom
From a tiny planet


chapka said:

A Haiku About Cartoons from the ’80s
Loved it as a kid;
Now, it seems kinda cheesy —
And the movie sucked.

I don’t understand.
If this is still Robotech,
What happened to Rick?


supermoose said:

“Scarlett loves Duke lots”
A stark carving on a tree
Snake Eyes says nothing


Greg said:

Potimus prime is
leader of teh autoboys
penetrate leah


The_Shrubbery said:

There once was a robot from Cybertron
Who, with piston and sleeve gained a hard-on
Creatures crawled in his ass
Spotting Primes that were past
Then Leia joined in the fun with no top on


J M said:

The Last Unicorn
see the boobs on that tree.
tale of my first wood?

pound puppies, they have
puppy power? bunch of
dog supremacists


rickicker said:

Sweet Gadget Hackwrench
Cocktease to both nerds and ‘munks
Side job as Goddess


LJSLarsson said:

If this entry wins
I give the prize to my wife.
She smells like She-Ra.


Vaschon said:

There once was a boy named Scott.
He had a transforming robot.
The boy was a slacker,
His father, Matt Tracker.
That boy pissed me off quite a lot.


Night Fowl said:

I think it’s pretty fair to say
I really do love animation
But from the 80’s I cry nay
I love the 90’s cartoon nation
I never watched shows about
Robotic civil war
But I crime fighting duck I’ll tell you what
I loved it all the more
I never did watch Care Bears
He-Man or My Little Pony
But Batman and other hero fare
Never left me lonely
I also watched some imports
From across oceans far and wide
My days were filled with Digimon
And Cardcaptors I can’t hide
I’m sure many of you protest
For these cartoons weren’t from your day
But please give me a chance
To say what I have to say
We as a group are widely known
For our hatred and our bile
If a cartoon was not our own
We may not give it it’s chance to smile
Soon there will come a time
Many years from now
When people will look back and say
Bakuman was great, and how
I will not laugh but remember my roots
Because I’m pretty sure at the time
Someone was saying Rugrats was lame
And I thought it was just fine
It doesn’t really matter which decade comes to mind
Cartoons hold out a grand invitation
So future generations will find
The Glory of the cartoon nation


Indil said:

Despite being the
Masters of the Universe,
Sperm count very low.


MattK said:

And like the eighties,
The contest ends. In our hearts,
Both will still live on.
(Posted 09/06/2010 at 11:59:57 pm)

Nice timing, MattK. Winners are on the next page.

—-

Before I get to the winners, I need to make some Special Mentions. There’s absolutely no way that this contest would have gotten to 1,000 comments, let alone 2,000, without a group who have dubbed themselves the Topless Robot Superfriends. Again, these are people who had whole conversations entirely in haiku, padding out the comment count, but also exhorting other Topless Roboteers to reach this lofty, insane goal. These include DoctorSmashy, Scooter Atreides, Abraxas, Mostly Different, Jedisilk, Ttoplessnerd and ThePirateStar.

All of these guys already have shirts, with the exception of the lady trio of Jedisilk, Ttoplessnerd and ThePirateStar, who I’m now dubbing Rob’s Angels (yes, I will have them performing bizarre missions for me in ludicrous outfits beginning next Monday). Additionally, Jedisilk and ThePirateStar did manage gems like these:

ThePirateStar said:

Powerglide my love
Taught me everything I know
Robosexual

Jedisilk said:

Look up! A Rainbow
Care Bear stomachs shot great light.
Such drugs were taken.

Care bears love children.
Care Bear Cousins love them too.
“Love” ran down their legs

…along with conversations like these.

ThePirateStar said:
We really are one
weird generation, wonder
how we’ll run the world


Jedisilk replied to ThePirateStar:

We will run the world
like we run everything else:
from our computers.


ThePirateStar replied to Jedisilk:

There is so much truth
In that one haiku reply
I am enlightened

For their cleverness and shockingly hard work, I’m awarding them shirts. Unfortunately, Ttoplessnerd didn’t manage to write any haiku about the subject matter, although she did post several hundred haiku in conversation. You guys can tell me whether you think that deserves a shirt or not.

Of course, I’m not just awarding shirts for effort or being sexxxy ladies. Besides those two, I’m awarding three more shirts (and if you think that I’m not playing fair, again, without Jedisilk and ThePirateStar, we probably wouldn’t have gotten to 1,000 in the first place). The first goes to rhinobaby, who wrote 100 haiku, almost all of which were phenomenal. A small sampling:

rhinobaby said:

God dammit you guys
His name isn’t G.I. Joe
It’s Duke. Fucking Duke.

Mom and dad were poor
So I got one he man toy
I love you King Hiss

If you live in space
with Stargazer and Bluegrass
there’s still math homework

Mom, what use is the
Captain Power video
without a damned gun?

Let’s just say Mommy
and Daddy lost your My Pet
Monster’s orange handcuffs.

…and then Bill Murray
ended up voicing Garfield
circle is complete.

We are Flintstone Kids
Ten million strong, and growing
It sounds creepy now

Congratulations
Carmen is in Africa
Consolation prize

Which are you, Heathcliff?
Hotrod drivin’ Junkyard cat,
or Garfield ripoff?

Broken Promises:
“I’ll get you next time, Gadget!”
Claw can’t deliver.

They made a cartoon
of that John Ritter movie
with the ginger boy?

I opened up the contest to limericks this time, and two things surprised me: 1) that many of you were thrilled to write limericks instead of haiku, and 2) I’d kind of forgotten 95% of all limericks are filthy. It wasn’t just Abraxas who wallowed in the mire of rhyming perversity, but pretty much everybody. Still, the king of limericks was Hellhound, who was equally depraved, clever and had the best rhymes.

Hellhound said:

There once was a big man named Thundarr
Whose semen was so sticky like tar
He saw Ookla the Mok
So he whipped out his cock
And shot a pearl necklace from afar

Have you all heard about Rainbow Bright
Whose beaver was so very tight
She tried to bang Starlight
But he put up a fight
Says his penis will never be right

There once was a duck named McDuck
Who desperately needed a good fuck
Said a whore isn’t free
But I won’t pay their fee
‘Cause I can’t talk them down to a buck

There once was a duck named McQuack
Who had a such a prodigious nut sack
Said they’re quite fun in bed
But they cause me such dread
‘Cause they throw my landings out of whack

There once was a blue monkey named Gleek
A very well known sexual freak
Having threesomes with twins
Was the least of his sins
His sick sexploits were not for the meek

And last but certainly not least, we come to the final winner. If you managed to read all 2100 entries, you know that Glitchy Goblin did his best to help put TR over the 2,000-mark, penning 250(!!!!!!) haiku. For some reason, the TR commenting system didn’t allow him to post more than 35 individually before preventing him from posting. Most people would have quit, but instead, Glitchy Goblin managed to sneak in one more comment WITH ALL 250 HAIKU. That’s commitment, folks. Here are just a few.


Glitchy Goblin said:

4 A.M. Cartoons
Ushered back to bed so fast
By my groggy dad

In my batman cape
With a bowl of cereal
Sitting on the rug

One day, war did come
Killing Babar’s family
For their Ivory

The reason I’m only running three of his 250 haiku is because I honestly can’t think of a better way to end this post and this insane contest experience and the crazy TR community-builder this ended up being than with Glitchy’s wonderful post-contest epilogue. Thanks to everyone for entering. And I’d expect today’s contest to be something like “Guess a number between 1 and 10,000” or something hideously simple like that.


Glitchy Goblin said:

Well, to all my friends
our time came and went so fast
Now the Contest ends.
With scores of haiku
from us all, from me and you
we have reached out goal
and now we must thank
Rob for giving us a goal
for our lazy days
through the thick and thin
through errors and ticking clocks
we have persevered
so now friends, stand tall
top our monument to geeks
built with haiku bricks
Hopefully now, Rob
you will see how much TR
truly means to us.
Thank you for your work
keeping us as up to date
more than all others
Thus we raise our cups
celebrating our one truth
that burns in our hearts:
Outcasts, nerds, and geeks
coming from all walks of life
sheltered here, online
find common heartbeats
share laughter, musings and time
and we’re not alone.
Sanctuary, sir.
In this web page, in this cause
we all stand as one
through awful remakes
raging fits and tear-stained shirts
we can endure all.
So, I raise my glass
with this farewell to you all
Long Live We, The Geeks.
Thank you TR. thank you fellow commentators, haiku writers and chatters.
This has truly been an epic undertaking. Good eve to you all.