Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Ben and Me



The merry, merry douchebags over there at Cracked have posted "The 5 Most Ridiculous Lies You Were Taught In History Class", covering some noteable whoppers culled from the annals of time. Among them, the famous Ben Franklin kite experiment. From the blog:

"It's certainly true that Franklin at least proposed a kite experiment. Less certain, however, is whether or not he ever actually got around to performing it, and some sources suggest he did not. What is certain is that the experiment had nothing to do with lightning. If someone flew a kite into a storm, and it was struck by lightning, there's a good chance that person would be utterly destroyed. In fact, everyone in the vicinity would at the least suffer from hairless-scalp syndrome.

Many people today who believe the amended story of Franklin's kite experiment grew up immersed in the revisionist history of Walt Disney, whose classic cartoon Ben and Me portrayed Franklin not only as having flown the kite in a thunderstorm, but also having been a complete fucking jerk."

Y'know, strapping an adorable mousy to a flying God's wrath bullseye does seem to be asshole territory to me. The Disney film Ben and Me was directed by Disney legend Hamilton Luske, who also directed one of my all time faves, "Mickey and the Beanstalk". Rawk.



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