I am a collector of fun t-shirts – mainly the kind found on sites like Threadless, Woot, or 80’s Tees.  Most of the time, the shirts I find on these sites are awesome – they form a picture that plays off of a clever phrase or idea very well.  But for as fantastic as some of these designs are, there are others that seem to fail miserably.  This seems especially prevalent when it comes to the designs based on characters from years past.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell which is worse: the current reincarnation (and arguably, destruction) of some of the best ‘80’s cartoons and toys, or the cheesy shirts depicting them.  Now, don’t get me wrong – I own three Barbie shirts, a handful of Disney character shirts, and a couple with Rainbow Brite and She-Ra.  I love sportin’ old school characters.  However… some of these shirts go beyond that old charm and enter that rather awkward zone.

For example, this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shirt sports the classic and health-conscious slogan, “Drug free, the way to be.”  It’s catchy, it sends a good message to young passers-by, and it brings back memories of the Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue TV special.  I’d definitely wear a shirt like this.  But a Ninja Turtles shirt mixed with the words “Smells like teen spirit” is another story entirely.  Somehow, I just can’t wrap my mind around teen spirit smelling like cheese pizza – especially considering a typical TMNT pizza also contains things like marshmallows and other odd toppings.

Then there’s this ThunderCats shirt, which seems to have fallen prey to the evils of incompatible words and pictures.  Lion-O’s catchphrase, “ThunderCats ho!” is a classic, but… when these words are joined by Cheetara’s picture, the meaning of the phrase changes significantly.  No lady appreciates such language – even if they are part cat.  If Cheetara were real, I’m sure such a marketing mistake would cause the designer to become her new scratching post.

I hardly think I need to explain this Strawberry Shortcake one.  “Strawberry fields forever?”  I don’t remember new or old Strawberry Shortcake episodes including drug use – or featuring Strawberry covering old Beatles songs for that matter.  Somehow, I picture the Peculiar Purple Pie Man being more likely to do both of the aforementioned activities than Ms. Shortcake.

I’m sure the design concept brainstorm for this Cookie Monster t-shirt was amusing…

“I did it all for the cookie, for the cookie, so you can ta-“

“Dude, stop.  It’s ‘nookie,’ not ‘cookie.’”

“… Seriously?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“……   DUUUUDE!  I just got the BEST idea for a shirt!”

Yeah…

But above all, this Full House shirt makes me want to facepalm like no other.  Besides the fact that the phrase “in da house” hasn’t been popular in at least a decade, the idea of playing with the dual use of “DJ” to mean “Donna Jo” and “Disc Jockey,” and placing her behind turntables is just a bit much.  Maybe it’s because it’s hard to picture a Full House character playing anything harder than “Jesse and the Rippers’s” brand of love ballad.  Or it could be because Everywhere You Look is probably impossible to remix well.

So there you have it.  Just a small sampling of t-shirt fail.  If you come across anything akin to these cotton catastrophes, by all means, share them!  Wearable they may not be, but amusing or at least worth a good shake of the head?  Definitely.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 2:31 am and is filed under Ack!, Fandom, Jennifer Eatherly, Random, WTF?, toys. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.