Ed Ranks Royal Mistresses (Part I)

Here to have sex and tacitly rule empires.

I don’t remember how I initially came up with the idea of ranking royal mistresses, but when I did I assumed it would be something I could put together fairly quickly. I was wrong. First of all, there have been a lot of royal mistresses. Tons of them. That aside, I guessed only a few of them ever reached a status to become famous or notable. You know the ones.  Like Madame de Pompadour or Anne Boelyn (who was such a good mistress that she became queen).

But then I learned being a mistress was serious business. It wasn’t something where some horny king claimed his right to bed any cute young girl that he wanted (okay, it was that… but it was also much, much more). Mistresses often were more than just a lil’ side action that got hidden from the queen.
Did you know that “Maîtresse-en-titre” was an official title? Yeah. Being a mistress sometimes was an official to quasi-official title with a salary and job responsibilities (other than the obvious).  Some mistresses would become so powerful that they would sign documents on behalf of the king, or even manage the policy of the government on a day-to-day basis.  Parents often raised their little girls in the hope that they would one day become royal mistresses. It was crazy!

After I figured all of that out, I came to realize that in order to rank these women of power and influence, I’d need to do a lot more research than I thought. On par with some of the more complex multi-part ones I’ve done, like ranking monarchs themselves (or the Crusades). In ranking, I had to consider all sorts of things like notability (both at the time, as well as any enduring legacy), the power they wielded, the length of time in their position, their ultimate fate (some of these stories are obviously pretty rough, as history has been to women), and other factors.

These are the 20 most notable mistresses, ranked and divided into two parts (because this thing wound up becoming more of a novella than a ranking).

20. Lucy Walter

A Welsh-born woman, from the lower ranks of nobility, young Lucy met the future King Charles II (then the Prince of Wales) while he was an 18-year-old exile in the Hague. You’ll hear a lot more about this guy later. They hooked up and eventually Lucy got pregnant, giving birth to a boy named "James" that Charles would admit was his and recognize. The child would be given the title of “Duke of Monmouth.” At any rate, time moved on and Charles moved to Scotland. Later, Lucy would try to work her way back into Charles’s life but he wasn’t that interested. When she came to England to try to hook up with him again, she was even thrown in the Tower of London for a short while (suspected of being a spy) and banished. She continued to live it up in Europe and never saw her king boy toy again before her death. She wound up being more notable in her death than her life though. That's because that son of hers, James of Monmouth, would become a key figure in the "Exclusion Crisis," when Protestant factions of government tried to find various ways to exclude the Catholic James II from taking the throne, especially by claiming that Charles II and Lucy had been secretly wed. This would therefore make James the “legitimate” heir. It didn’t work but, you know, good try.

19. Agnès Sorel

Creepy. Yet I'd like to learn more about your religion.

Charles VII of France seemed pretty cool with the fact that his dad had a mistress (we’ll talk about that mistress soon), and decided that he’d get one too. Obviously. Because he’s a powerful guy and banging as many women as possible in a disproportionate power relationship is the general thing that powerful guys like to do. At age 20-ish, Agnes Sorel was introduced to Charles II and she quickly became his #1 mistress. Charles gave her the Château de Loches as a gift, with is a pretty big deal to Charles VII because that’s the place where Joan of Arc had persuaded him to be crowned king (I won’t go into this too much, but the throne didn’t pass immediately from Charles VI to Charles VII because the Treaty of Troyes. Maybe I’ll talk more about the awesomeness of the 100 Years War in another ranking). Sorel became both famous and scandalous, and stories say that she would wear super low-cut dresses that would expose one nipple. Want to know what that looks like? Well, you’re in luck because Renaissance Painter Jean Fouquet decided to use her, and her titty-out dress style, as his model for THE MOTHER OF THE LORD in his most famous work, the Melun Diptych.  Agnès would have four children with Charles, and would die giving birth to the fourth one. Supposedly, there is also a story that Agnès was poisoned by some political rival. An autopsy later would show signs of mercury poisoning it in, potentially validating the theory. But then again, people used mercury for all sorts of stupid shit back then. So who knows?  Charles VII was totally heartbroken by her death. Wait. Did I say “heartbroken?” What I meant to say is “he immediately moved on and replaced Agnès with her 14-year old cousin, Antoinette Maignelais.”

18. Mary Robinson

Since “Mary Robinson” is a pretty common name, the Wikipedia disambiguation page for this one politely calls her “Mary Robinson (Poet)” rather than, you know, “Mary Robinson (Actress / Prostitute Who Got Scammed by the Crown Prince).” Yeah, “scam” is actually a pretty good term to use here. The future King George IV had a lot of mistresses. His first public one was Mary. Already an established and popular actress, known for starring in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, the (married) Mary caught the eye of George in 1779 and he straight up offered to pay her twenty thousand pounds to become his mistress. She said yes, and the two were publicly a couple for two years, until George decided he was done with her in 1881. And did George actually pay the twenty thousand pounds? Nope. That fucking asshole totally gypped her and left her with nothing. Eventually, Mary pointed out that she had a bunch of seedy, sexy, and potentially publicly embarrassing love letters that George had sent her over the course of their relationship; and the crown reluctantly agreed to pay for the return of those. Some sources say she got five thousand pounds for the letters, while others note that she was supposed to get an annuity which the crown, again, rarely actually paid. Mary, already a poet, would score her biggest hit after her relationship with George, nicknamed “the English Sappo,” and would go one to be a popular celebrity who was painted by a lot of the famous English painters of the era. Alas, a bout of sickness would leave her partially paralyzed and she wound up dying in poverty at the age of 42. Damn.

17. Hortense Mancini

Nip slip, circa 1675. It happens.

Oh what could have been. Hortense Mancini was one of five daughters to an Italian aristocrat. All five daughters were supposedly knock-out beauties, and their uncle Cardinal Mazarin (the Chief Minister of France) cleverly pimped the beautiful girls out to important European aristocrats to raise the family’s power and influence. For Hortense, she received a marriage offer from thirsty-ass Charles II of England. You’d think that would be a definite “YES,” right? Well, this was the era of Cromwell and Charles II was living in exile at the time. People were skeptical as to Charles’s claim and if he would ever get his throne back. So Cardinal Mazarin rejected the offer. Guess what happened a few months later? Yep, Charles CLAIMED THE THRONE. The Dipshit Cardinal desperately tried to backtrack, but it was too late. Hortense eventually married the richest man in Europe--but he was an old, miserly, jealous dick; while she was a beautiful, young, popular rising socialite. She fled her husban, and various powerful dudes including King Louis XIV, were lining up to be her “protector.” After jumping around a few places, she wound up in the protection of Charles II, her once suitor. She was known for dressing as a man, and I guess that was Charles’s thing because she became his #1 gal. Which doesn’t simply mean that she had sex with the king a lot. Remember the whole “Maîtresse-en-titre” thing? Yeah, she had a position that included a £4,000 pension (and presumably, missionary). Apparently she was pretty promiscuous, supposedly also hooking up with Anne Lennard (the illegitimate daughter of Barbara Villiers, ANOTHER one of Charles’ many mistresses) in a hot, lesbian relationship, as well as the Prince of Monaco. This earned her the less-than-affectionate nickname of “The Italian Whore.” She eventually lost her role as Charles’s #1 mistress, although she’d remain at court with her power greatly reduced. After Charles’s death, she’s stick around for the reigns of James II and even William and Mary, with continually reduced pensions. She lived though, and her descendants include Albert II of Monaco (really, all the monarchs of Monaco).

16. Maria, Countess Walewska

You know how in a James Bond movie, Bond will have to sleep with some Russian spy and he says something jokingly like, “the things I do for Britain.”  He’s kidding, obviously. Because he wants that sex. Well, Maria Walewska wasn’t joking and it was a lot less funny. At 16, she was married to the 70-ish year old Count Walweska. Obviously that dude didn’t last forever, but her being married didn’t stop an asshole known as “Napoleon Bonaparte” from looking her up and being like, “Hey gurl.” She resisted the Frenchman, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. She said no and no again, until eventually she got him to make some commitments to allow for Poland’s independence as he was busy conquering all of Europe. Once those commitments were made, she relented and became his mistress in return for, oh, SAVING THE INDEPENDENCE OF HER ENTIRE COUNTRY. At the time, Napoleon had been married to his wife Josephine for some time and she had yet to have a child.  Napoleon quickly got Maria pregnant, and therefore decided (as men are wont) that everything was Josephine’s fault because his seed was still good.  In the end, this got Napoleon to divorce his wife and arrange a political marriage to Marie Louise of Austria. Marie Louise would give Napoleon an heir, and as soon Napoleon became committed to her, he discarding his mistress Maria. Which was probably okay with her, as she was able to get a divorce from her old husband and marry a new guy. Alas, that didn’t last long as she died at the young age of 31. She was a damn Polish hero though!

15. Odette de Champdivers

This 17-year-old (yeah, things were different back then, but this is hardly the worst) became the chief mistress of French King Charles VI.  Have you heard of Charles VI? Yeah, there were so many Charleses in France that it’s hard to keep them straight. But Charles VI is memorable because he reigned for a large 42 years of the 100 Years War with England and he’s also known as “Charles the Mad.” Oh, his peeps tried to nickname him Charles “the Beloved,” but that’s not what he’s really known by. Because when you think of people who claim to be Saint George, kill their own soldiers in fits of rage, refuse to bathe or change their clothes for five months, or believe that they are made out of glass… you usually don’t call those people “Beloved.” But this isn’t about Charles, it’s about Odette. She became Charles’s mistress and soon became known as the “Little Queen” for various reasons that range from her powerful influence at court to the fact that Charles was so batshit crazy he didn’t know the difference between his actual wife and his Mistress. Some sources say Odette was regularly beaten in place of the Queen in Charles’s fits of rage and Charles honestly didn’t know the difference. Which really sucks for her. Fortunately, he did eventually die (his last words were calling out her name) and the new King, Charles VII (remember him from the Agnès Sorel story?), was cool enough with his dad’s mistress that instead of banishing her, he assigned her to spy on Duke Philip III. Her cool spy skills even helped Charles VII maneuver his forces to avoid an attack on them that was being planned. She eventually vanished from the history books, probably dying in poverty somewhere. Oh well! It was fun while it lasted, Odette.

14. Alice Perrers

Alice was apparently 15-years-old when she caught the attention of King Edward III (eww), who was in his 50’s at the time (eww-er). Don’t worry about some nasty old man deflowering her though, as by the time she caught Ed’s attention she had already been married to some other old dude at age 12 (eww-est!). This was the 1300’s, just to make that clear. Alice became a lady in waiting for Edward III’s betrothed, Philippa of Hainault (throughout history, being a lady in waiting for the Queen has almost always been basically a “mistress internship”). Alice quickly rose high in power as the favored mistress of the king, and was criticized for telling parliament how to rule. An obviously biased account describes her as, “a shameless, impudent harlot, and of low birth, […] not attractive or beautiful.” Yikes, sounds like someone was jealous! She’d have three sons with Edward, a relationship that was supposedly a secret from the Queen Philippa.  The age difference of course meant that Ed III wouldn’t last forever, and after his death, Alice found herself unprotected and charged with being a woman who practices “maintenance,” e.g. I have no clue but it probably means a woman not knowing her role and being all uppity. In return, all her possessions were seized and she was banished from England. Well, that sucks.

13. Wallis Simpson

Wallis Simpson. One you’ve probably heard of. I mean she was a character on “The Crown,” right? Born in relative obscurity in Maryland. Twice divorced. Is it really fair to call her a “mistress?” Well, Edward, Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIII) wasn’t married. So it’s not like he was cheating on any wife or anything. She was married though, so this is a new 20th Century type of mistress! #feminism? Anyway, the term “mistress” is still applicable no matter what because she was a kept, secret woman to the crown prince. She wasn’t Edward’s first either. In fact, Edward was having a secret relationship with the married Thelma, Viscountess Furness, who introduced Wallis to Edward. When Thelma went away on a trip, Wallis snuck right in there and took that spot over. Thelma was an American too, as was another of Edward’s mistresses, Freda Dudley Ward (Edward obviously had an “American” thing). By the time their affair started, Wallis wasn’t quite “twice divorced” yet because she was still married to Mr. Simpson. Nobody was happy about the Wallis thing, except for Edward. She was American. She was a divorcee. She was deemed by tightwad-ass British society as totally unacceptable for the future king of England. When his dad George V died, he became king and the whole thing came to a boiling point.  In what SHOULD be an amazing, romantic story told for the ages about the power of true love (you know, if he wasn’t a Nazi), Edward VIII abdicated the throne in order to marry Wallis. So… happy ending? Maybe. She never got to be “Queen,” but it’s a happier ending than Anne Boleyn had when she went from mistress to King’s wife to a head shorter.

12. Nell Gwyn

Basically this is a Jailbait Pretty Woman.

A good rags-to-riches tale always makes people happy, right? So motivational! Someone comes from the bottom and rises to the top. Cinderella. Aladdin. My Fair Lady. Well, the story of Nell Gwyn is one of those inspirational stories! Except, well, with child prostitution. Sorry. But you gotta do what you gotta do. Accurate stories about Nell are hard to come by, as she became a romantic figure in her time with many legends about her.  The typical version of the story is that she was a poor, 15-year-old Welsh girl who was found selling oranges on the street. But she worked for a “bawdy house” run by a madam, so oranges weren’t the only thing she was selling. One of her fellow hooker friends got a license to sell oranges nearby a theater, where the privately-dressed jailbait orange-selling girl caught the eyes of many high-ups in the theater world. She became an actress and received the attention (and likely the wallets and STDs) of several English noblemen. Eventually, she got a pimp who hooked her up with the ultimate john – King “I have too many mistresses” Charles II. The pimp was actually the cousin of Charles II’s current #1 mistress, Barbara Villiers (see below), and Nell Gwyn quickly replaced Barbara. Which is a super, super, SUPER weird story. But then again this whole ranking is off-putting.  Everything worked out relatively okay for Nell (I mean, other than dying in her 30’s… but that was par for the course back in the day), as she had all her debts annulled and was given a “ho pension” after Charles II died.  As noted, she would capture the imagination of the English public and there have been countless mythologized stories, legends, plays, and books about her life. 

11. Lillie Langtry

Mistress. Author. Actress. Capitalist.

Emilie “Lillie” le Breton (supposedly a descendant of Richard le Breton, one of the assassins of Saint Thomas Becket) moved from the isle of Jersey to London and as a 20-year-old married a (rich) 30-year old widower, Edward Langtry. After that, she made her way around the circles of “cool, rich people” and paintings of her as “Jersey Lilly” distributed on postcards made her super popular. One admirer was the future King Edward VII, who arranged for her to sit next to him at a dinner while her husband was right fucking there across from them. Edward was so infatuated with her that he introduced her to Queen Victoria. We can assume Victoria was like, “Ed you stupid piece of shit, I do not need to meet your trap hos. We are not amused!” Oh, and he was already married and stuff too. What married man introduces his mistress to his mom… his mom, the QUEEN? The affair lasted for three years until she got pregnant. The father was probably some other dude, not Edward, but who knows? They might need to do some Ancestry DNA on that. She became friends with Oscar Wilde, became an actress and huge stage star. She’d go on to have affairs with others, and would eventually marry another man 19 years younger than her, move to Monaco, and write a tell-all book about her life and all the important dudes she banged that made her even more mad cash, yo. Good for you, and way to pretty much invent the salacious tell-all book!

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Well, that rounds out mistresses #20 to #11. Tune in next time to see what a TOP 10 royal mistress looks like! In the meantime, feel free to create your own royal mistress trading cards to ease the pain of not knowing who I will include on the ranking.

Ed Ranks Aquaman's Powers

Aquaman talks to fish. Yeah, we get it. It's a bit of a joke.  Everyone knows it, including DC comics. Which is why for many, many years DC Comics has been doing everything it can to make Aquaman less of a joke and more of a "badass."  That's why in the comics (and in the excellent Bruce Timm animated Justice League), Aquaman was given an awesome FISHHOOK ARM like the Candyman in order to be menacing. And it's why they decided that he should now be played by Khal Drogo rather than some pretty blonde boy in orange and green tights.

Still. Does DC Comics really need to do that much to make Aquaman more "badass?"  Let's discuss his superpowers to see if he was really badass all along!

12. Fish Necromancer - Okay. We're off to a bad start on this one.  Recently in the comics, Aquaman was shown to be able to summon some dead fish back to life to help him fight.  Let's not speak of this one again because it's just weird.  I don't need Arthur Curry to be some sort of maritime Lazarus. Or, more accurately, Maritime Herbert West.

11. Night Vision - He can see in the dark really, really well. Which makes sense, considering that under the ocean it gets pretty dark, pretty fast. This was displayed in the movie with his glowing cat eyes.  Although, speaking of that... yes... cats can see in the dark too. So does this make my cats superheroes too?  Because their only other superpower seems to be the ability to take dumps that seem to be much, much more than what they eat.

10. Healing - Super healing would be an awesome and top notch power like what Wolverine has. If it were more associated with Aquaman, I'd rank it higher. But this is a relatively newer ad-on to the Aquaman mythos, supposedly given to him by the Lady of the Lake from Arthurian (ha?) mythology. So I'll put it down here.

9. Heat / Pressure Resistance - In film, cartoons and comics, Aquaman has clearly been shown to be able to resist intense heat (e.g. laser beams shot at him by Black Manta and the like). Also, by mere fact that he lives deep under the sea, he can obviosly survive intense pressure. So that must be pretty cool, huh?

8. Superhuman Senses - This dude can hear really well (he probably has sonar, right?), can smell really well (the old sharks can smell blood a mile away story, which is totally an urban myth).  Heightened senses must be a pretty big plus for that whole crime-fighting thing.

Gritty Reboot Time!!!

7. Magical Trident - Okay, owning a magical trident is sort of a cheat. Because it's not really a power he has, but a power the trident has. Still. He owns a magical trident that he can do magic stuff with. That's got to count for something. At the very least his superpower is "he wields magic," even if he himself isn't magic. His trident is shown to be able to manipulate water, shoot out bolts of power, focus his existing energy and powers, etc.

6. Control Over Water - Speaking of the Trident, while sometimes they show Aquaman using it to do stuff like control the water, he's also been shown to be able to command the waves and do stuff like make tidal waves on his own, without the Trident. So while he can't control the weather like Thor or Storm, controlling the water is worth something. I'm pretty sure that makes him a Water Bender, right? That's a thing, I think. I didn't watch that Air Bender show, but I assume there were also Water Benders.

5. Flying (Or at the Very Least, Jumping Really Far) - Recently in the comics, Aquaman has been given the power to fly by Poseidon.  That's sort of obscure and not commonly associated with him, but even if you want to disregard the "flying" thing, you have to admit that he can at least jump super far. Remember him jumping out of the airplace in the Aquaman movie? That's worth something.

4. Breathing Under Water - Aquaman can't drown, which is a convenient plus. All he's got to do is lure land-based enemies to the water, and he's pretty much totally in advantage. A subset of the ability to breath under water is also the ability to talk under water. That's also pretty cool.

3. Super Speed - Once source in the comics says that Aquaman can travel about 3,000 meters per second, which is very fast.  So the next time you think of giving shit to Aquaman for talking to fish, remember that he has the exact same super power that The Flash does, only he also has eleven more superpowers that the Flash doesn't have. Seriously, forget the Flash. Twelve superpowers also means that he has twelve more superpowers than Batman. FWIW.

Coming to kill you, because Aquaman told him to.

2. "Talking to Fish" (AKA Telepathy and Compelling) - So let's break down that "talking to fish" joke. Yeah. It's actually pretty sweet if, instead of saying "talking to fish," you call it what it is - telepathy. He is telepathic. He can converse with fish (also, it's not just fish... it's all marine life) with the power of his mind. That doesn't just including speaking with them about mundane stuff. When Arthur Curry talks to fish, he doesn't ask how the coral is doing this week. Aquaman tells the fish what to do, and they obey.  The fish really never say "no."  Which means it's less "talking" and more "compelling." Aquaman doesn't "talk to fish," so much as he "can tell a shark to eat someone he is pissed off with, whenever he wants." When you put it like that, this is SUPER AWESOME.


1. Superhuman Strength - I mean yeah, he's super strong and tough. He can beat the hell out of other people and when people beat him up, he's barely hurt.  This is the LAZIEST super power of all time for a comic writer to create, but it's honestly still the best. Maybe he's not as super strong as Superman or Wonder Woman.

Ed Ranks Likable Things about Tom Brady

Pictured: Tom Brady

3. Uhh... at least he didn't abandon the second woman that he got pregnant. 

2. Sometimes he loses, which is funny. 

1. He hasn't murdered or raped anyone.*




* That we know about.

Ed Ranks GEICO Ad Campaigns

Finally I've sold out, because this article is 100% ads!

GEICO is a company that has way too many commercials, and way too many ad campaigns to promote their insurance.  I'd imagine their insurance would actually be four times cheaper if they stopped running multi-million dollar ad campaigns and just used that money for paying out insurance claims.

At any rate, there are about 4 trillion different GEICO ad campaigns, so there is no way I can rank them all. These are 16 of them.  If you think I'm missing one, I probably am.  Either that or the specific commercial you're thinking about falls as a sub-set of one of those campaigns (e.g. the Little Piggy Who Cried "Wee Wee Wee" isn't it's own campaign, it's part of the one of the larger campaigns. You'll see what I mean below.

16 Boring Insurance Salesman - GEICO always has flash commercials with flamboyant characters, as opposed to other insurance companies that have mundane, boring, middle-aged White men try to explain to you rates and quality of service. So GEICO actually had an ad campaign where they purposefully had a boring insurance salesman to make fun of their competition. It should be a funny, self-aware meta joke, right? It wasn't. It was totally forgettable. Do you remember this campaign? The boring guy who would try to be cool and say things like "da bomb?" I bet you do not.


15. So Easy, Even a Caveman Could Do It - These commercials were pretty much making fun of racism and discrimination, right?  I mean they picked a group of people who are, in actuality, no longer around (Cavemen) and then implied that they were super stupid and had Cavemen, who in the narrative of the commercials still exist, get super offended. What is the story here? GEICO: We're Racist! Is that it? Plus this got so overexposed that they tried to make a TV show out of it, which just makes them even more annoying.

14. Testimonial with "Celebrity" Endorsement - AKA the "Real Service, Real Savings" ad campaign that had "real" people give testimonials, followed up by a "celebrity" endorsement of the "real" person. The celebrities typically involved people like Don LaFontaine. Who is that? The voice-over guy who used to do the "In a WORLD...!" movie ads. Yeah, that's the types of celebrities we're talking about here.

13. Googley-Eyed Money (The Money You Could Be Saving) - These were just creepy. Stacks of dollar bills with Cookie Monster eyes would creepily stare at people. Uncomfortable!

12. Expect More - The theme was with GEICO, you can expect more. It typically had two people talking to each other, and every time they cut back to one of the two people, they kept changing more and more. e.g. A guy working out who gets insanely buff over the course of the conversation. 

11. Did You Know? - GEICO asks you if you knew something. And then it's something like "Old MacDonald was a bad speller," followed by Old MacDonald not knowing how to spell anything other than E-I-E-I-O. 

10. Nursery Rhymes - An ad campaign that told the "true story" behind nursery rhymes and how GEICO saved the day. Typical example: The Big Bad Wolf blows away the Little Pig's house made of straw, but he's able to get it replaced thanks to GEICO's homeowner insurance. There were a ton of these ads.

9. Unrelated Product Surprise / This is a GEICO Commercial - These are actually two different ad campaigns, but I'm going to throw them together. They were done years apart, but they sort of had the same theme of "breaking the fourth wall" to reveal that this was a GEICO commercial.  The first versions of the ads made it seem like they were ads for other products (Tide recently copycated this premise, remember?). The more recent simply has people becoming self aware that they are in a GEICO ad. A little different, but I'll lump them together as one because 17 rankings is just weird. 16 is nice and even.

What I think of when I hear banjos.

8. Happier than A... -  I'm sort of torn on this one. On the one hand, this was a pretty funny campaign that ran for a while with some great ads. The "Happier than a Camel on Wednesday" is probably the most famous of them, for the "HUMP DAY!" ad.  But this is also the campaign that had the shitty hipster bluegrass singers after everyone in the damn world was adding banjos to their music because of Mumford and Sons. Ugh. If I didn't remember those banjo boys, this could have easily been ranked #2. 

7. Surprising / Unexpected Coincidence - I'm not sure how to explain this concept better, but this was the ad campaign of "unexpected" coincidental stuff like Ice Tea running a lemonade stand, and Marco Polo playing Marco Polo in a pool.  I suppose they weren't all coincidences. Some of them were contradictions. Like the sumo wrestler who was fantastic at ice-skating.  This is one of those big campaigns that had a TON of different ads for it.

6. It's What You Do - This was another huge one.  This is the one which is like, "If you're an X, you do Y. It's What You Do."  Stuff like "If You're a Mom, you call at the worst time. It's what you do," followed up by her ruining the scene of an action movie by calling her son and revealing his stealthy actions in the middle of his attack.  If you went a movie theatre any time during the huge chunk of years where this campaign ran, you probably heard "If you're at the movie theater, you turn off your phone. It's what you do." 

5. As Long as X, You Can Count of GEICO - This one is basically saying something that always happens, and then saying that as long as that still happens, you can continue to count on GEICO.  The one of these that sticks out the most in my head is "As Long As Soccer Plays Still Celebrate with Slides," followed by a computer graphic-enhanced soccer slide that takes the guy around the field for 30 seconds. It was, you know, funny and stuff. I guess that's what GEICO does.

4.  Easier Way to Save - This is the one with people doing super cheap things to save money, like calling collect and trying to fit in the entire message in the "name" so that the person can decline the charge. Remember this one? Yeah. This one is sort of hard to remember because who the hell even remembers what calling collect is?!

This is just an actual gecko. Don't get too excited.

3. GEICO Gecko - Yeah, this is their most famous ad campaign. The Gecko. He talks with that accent. You immediately think of GEICO. Still. I mean are his ads really #1?  I mean he just stands around and talks about things. And the character was only created (fun fact!) because there was a Screen Actors Guild strike and GEICO wasn't allowed to use actors.  The more you know...

2 Always a Great Answer / "I've Got Great News" - Once again, this is one where I'm taking two seperate ad campaigns from almost two decaded apart and combining them, because it was a bit of a rehash.  The most recent one was the "Always a Great Answer" one.  his is the one where some unrelated situation is happening, someone has to explain themselves, and they simply say "GEICO can save you up to X% on Insurance."  Typical example: A judge is about to find a man guilty and asks if he has anything to say for himself. And he says that GEICO can help you save. The judge then agrees and dismisses all the charges.  Geez, I hope this guy was in court for petty theft rather than murder or something. The "I've Got Great News" version of this was sort of the same joke, but 15 years earlier and a little funnier.  People are having a tense conversation and then the one person is like, "I've Got Great News... GEICO can save you... etc. etc."  The most famous one of these was the "Soap Opera" one. Where the lady things the guy will leave that other bitch for her, but his great news is only that he's saving money. Remember that one? Yeah. "I saved. I thought that meant something to you."

1. Rhetorical question - This was probably one of the longest running ones they have.  It starts off with handsome salesman guy walking in an empty room and asking a rhetorical question (examples: Do Woodchucks Chuck Wood? Was Abe Lincoln Honest? Does Elmer Fudd Have Trouble with the Letter R?)  This was followed by an example of that exact thing showing that, yes, that is a rhetroical question because obviously.  And yes, this was also the one that had "Maxwell the Pig" who cried "wee wee wee" all the way home, to call back to the intro.  So there you go. 

Ed Ranks Fictional Seafood Wars

Allergy Warning: This ranking contains pictures of fish.

Do you remember those news stories last summer about the "Scallop War?" No? Well, go ahead and click these hyperlinks that I conveniently just included in this ranking for you.

Have you read them yet?

If not, read them. You'll need them for context.

Is your context acquired?

Great! Either way, even if you didn't read it. Because who cares if you read it anyway! Here are 20 other seafood wars that happened throughout history, with the slight qualification that I'm making them all up on the spot and none of these events actually happened.

20. Salmon Battle (2008) - This one just involved a couple of Oregon rednecks on the Columbia River who went done and got a couple of black bears to fight one another over a wheelbarrow full of delicious salmon. That is until officers from the Oregon State Office for the US Fish and Wildlife Service showed up and broke the whole thing up. So this one is pretty anticlimactic, really.

19. Mako Strike (2004) - After the initially successful use of the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program (NMMP) in deactivating antiship mines and booby traps set up in Iraq, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vern Clark approved the creation of a team of mako sharks to be an elite attack force. After launching one strike against the insurgent Iraqi forces, the program was abandoned because mako sharks are crazy as hell and don't listen to orders. Hasn't anyone seen deep blue sea?

18. Mussel Massacre of 2008 - After a heated debate between representatives from Belgium and New Zealand, each claiming their mussels to be more delicious, a Maori delegate to the UN snaps and kills 26 Belgian diplomats. Belgium does nothing about it because, honestly, does anyone at all fear being attacked by fucking Belgium?

Darius the Great.

17. Oyster Assault, 490 BC  - In the definitive battle of the first Persian Invasion of Greece, King Darius I is devastated when Miltiades the Younger of Athens lunges 4,000 tons of oysters at his army. Needless to say, the Persians retreated because those oyster shells have really sharp edges.

16. Skirmish of Char (2005) - In the FUTURISTIC YEAR of 2005, the Decepticons have retreated from Cybertron and now live on the rocky planet Charr. Wanting to defeat the Decepticons once and for all, the Autobots decide to launch an assault on Charr. Unfortunately, Optimus Prime decides that fucking WARPATH gets to lead the assault. POW! Needless to say, Warpath is a moron. KAPLAM! Instead of attacking the planet Charr, Warpath accidentally attacks char, the genus of salmonid fish known in Latin as Salvelinus, although commonly referred to commercial as "trout."  ZANG! KABLAM-O! The Deceptions therefore escape and we get Season 3 of Transformers.

15. Lobster Crusade of 1192 - Following his treaty with Saladin and guaranteeing the free passage of Christians to Jerusalem, ending the Third Crusade, King Richard I (aka Lionheart) was super psyched to go back home to England. Do you know what else he was psyched to do? Tell those fucking assholes in Maine that their lobster is bullshit and only tastes good after a ton of butter is drenched all over it. Richard immediately declared war on Maine, a territory that England would not itself definitely control for another 571 years (the end of the French and Indian War). Richard was always ahead of his time. But before he could sail across the Atlantic in an unprecedented move that English sailors were not yet capable of doing, Richard would be captured by Leopold V, Duke of Austria and held for ransom until Michaelmas of 1194. Thus ended the abortive Lobster Crusade of 1192.

14. Kipper Carnage of 1991 - On March 15, 1991, the day after the airing of "Dimension Jump" (episode five of Series IV of the British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf), an obsessed fan named Oliver Smith (which is, like, the most English name ever), goes around smacking everyone in the rural village of Wapley, South Gloucestershire, with kippers (smoked herring). After smacking dozens of people in the head with kippers, he's eventually arrested and sentenced to die. That's right. The punishment for smacking someone in the head with a kipper in Wapley in 1991 was death. I dare you to dedicate enough time to research that to figure out if it's true or not. Which it's not. Because the title of this ranking specifically says "fictional," and to further clarify, in the introduction I also stated, "I'm making these all up on the spot and none of these events actually happened."

13. Crab Clash of 1815 - The 16th Brigade of Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher decimates the resurgent forces of Napoleon at Waterloo by sending a bunch of snippy-snappy crabs into the French Imperial Guard's camp. The crabs, obviously, pinch all of the Frenchmen who throw up white flags and surrender because being pinched by crabs is super painful and shit.

Diocletian's Palace, where the deadly assault occurred.

12. Dalmatian Calamari Fray of 305 - After Roman Emperor Diocletian abdicated the throne and retired to his palace on the Dalmatian coast (modern day Split, Croatia) in 305, he was expecting asome peace and quiet at last. But that wasn't to be the case, as Constantine was furious that Valerius Severus was declared as the new emperor instead of himself. In jealousy, Constantine sent agents to poison all of the calamari being served at Diocletian's Palace. Little did Constantine know that Diocletian thought that calamari tasted like "rubbery horse ass," and he didn't eat any of it. While many of Diocletian's advisors died, he remained safe himself and lived for several more years.

11. Tuna Onslaught of 1967 - Initially when Aquaman heard that there was a group called the "Awesome Threesome," he was super psyched and wanted to check it out. But then he learned that it was a group of robotic villains that wanted to attack Atlantis, and he was less happy. Fortunately, Aquaman can talk to fish and stuff like that, so he ordered a bunch of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (which can weigh over 800 pounds!!!) to crash themselves into the trio of evil robots. Needless to say, there is only so much damage that even metal robots can take after they've been repeatedly bashed up by massive, 800+ pound tuna. The Awesome Threesome was never seen again.

This ceviche is from Peru. If you care.

10. Ceviche Scrimmage, 2015 - In a contest hosted by Colombian chef Eduardo Martinez (leader of the “nuevo Colombiano” cuisine revolution and owner of Mini-mal restaurant in Bogota), famous rival chefs from Peru and Chile faced off to see who could make the tastiest ceviche in South America. The end result is NOBODY CARES because this isn't a damn food blog. Do you want to read a food blog instead? Here you go: Beer & Pork Belly is the best food blog in the world. Ever. Enjoy it.

9.  Fight for Shrimp (2018) - When the Red Lobster in Twelve Oaks Mall (Novi, Michigan) opened for business on Saturday, November 17, 2018, a very fat man name Gary came up and asked if they still has the "Endless Shrimp" deal going on. Now, times are really hard for restaurants these days with the economy and all. So the person working at the front was like, "No, sorry." They could tell this fatass would suck them dry.  But Gary had just seen the commercials and wanted that endless shrimp. They again refused him, citing that Twelves Oaks Mall had just increased their rent, and the local franchise owner had recently taken a pretty big financial hit with all his stock in Sears and everything. Furious, Gary took his fight to court and sued Red Lobster. Usually these things take years to settle themselves out in court, but this one went straight to the Supreme Court when Brett Kavanaugh saw that Gary had a pretty hot lawyer that maybe he could expose his penis to her and sexually assault her while drunk. After arguments from both sides, the Supreme Court decided that Red Lobster can't deny someone unlimited shrimp just because they are SUPER fat. I'm not sure how I feel about that, because I can feel both sides of the argument, ya know.

8. Sashimi Barrage (1904) - When Captain Hikojirō Ijichi of the Japanese pre-dreadnaught battleship Mikasa engaged with Russian Naval forces at Port Arthur in 1904, he ran out of ammunition for his 8-inch guns. Not wanting to appear foolish in front of Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō, he loaded up all his crew's sashimi rations are fired them at the Russians. It was largely ineffective with the Russians simply saying, "Eww, what is this? Raw fish? Nasty!" Although one Russian Commander slipped on some eel, smashed his head against a pipe, and died. So that was pretty cool.

7. Flounder Bombing (1975) - in January of 1975, an explosion at the U.S. State Department headquarters in Washington, DC destroyed nearly two dozen offices on three different floors. Luckily, nobody was killed in the attack, which the domestic terrorist organization "Weather Underground" took credit for (this was before they decided to change their ways and create a website to tell people the weather). When FBI forensic analysts reconstructed the bomb, they discovered that the bomb was 100% made out of flounder. Yep. The wires? Flounder wires. The dynamite? Flounder dynamite. It doesn't seem to make any sense, does it? But that's what they found. A flounder bomb.

Seriously though, it's better than clam chowder.

6. Cullen Skink Attack of 2006 - One day in 2006, an American tourist walked into a pub in Glasgow and ordered a bowl of cullen skink. He had it and said to the waiter, "This is okay, but I don't think it's as good as New England Clam Chowder." The waiter immediately threw the scalding hot bowl of cullen skink into the man's face and beat him so harshly that the man needed to be taken to the hospital. Strathclyde Police investigated and almost arrested the waiter until they learned the story of what happened. After which, the Strathclyde Policeman ALSO punched the American tourist in the face and simply said, "Welcome to Glasgow, bitch!" The American tourist was deported and both the waiter and the policemen were knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. 

5. [Classified] - Sorry, the CIA made me remove this ranking. It's apparently still classified until 2037. It involved a bunch of mackerel, Ronald Reagan, and the Sandinista National Liberation Front. I dare not say any more.

4. The Great Amberjack Strife of 1892 - As anyone who has read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" knows, working conditions in factories in the late 19th century weren't pretty. The workers at the Swift & Company slaughterhouse in Fort Worth, TX had it no different than anyone else, but at least they were given some tasty amberjack as part of their work rations at lunchtime. Honestly, these guys were seeing and slaughtering cattle all day and got pretty tired of eating beef. And since Gustavus Swift had built a global empire on refrigerated container cars, it was pretty easy for him to source fish from the coasts for delivery to his workers in the middle of Texas. But when Swift & Company cut the amberjack rations in half, the slaughterhouse workers went on strike. Swift attempted to hire scabs to cross the picket line, but threats from the picketing workers largely scared them all off. President Benjamin Harrison almost intervened by sending the military down to Fort Worth to bust the strike, but held off in fear of lowering his already poor poll numbers in Texas (which was firmly behind former President Cleveland in the upcoming Presidential Election of 1892). Finally, Swift & Co. relented and restored the workers' amberjack rations to their initial level.

3. Perch Blitzkrieg (1940) - Beginning in May 1940, the Germans launched a six-week assault on France and the low countries in what would become known as the "Battle of France" or the "Fall of France." While Hitler's tactics in the invasion of France after his forces crossed the Maginot Line differed somewhat from his earlier invasion of Poland, no German strategy was stranger and more confusing than his "Perch Blitzkrieg," in which the Germans attacked French forces with millions and millions of perch. The French, of course, simply took the delicious fish and made Perch á la Meuniér.

2. Paella Sortie of 1668 - After years of conflict there was still no end in sight to the devastating war of Portuguese Restoration. Finally, António Luís de Meneses, 1st Marquess of Marialva (and General in the Portuguese Army) challenged John of Austria the Younger (General and bastard son to King Philip IV of Spain) to a Paella cook-off that would determine: A) which country had the best paella, and B) the independence or continued subjugation of Portugal the Spanish crown. Well, Portugal is a country today, so you can pretty much figure out that António won the sortie.

RIP Steve. We miss you.

1. Barramundi Conflict (2002) - When the government of Australia learned in 2002 that the Tri Marine International seafood company had been mislabeling Nile Perch as "Barramundi" for sale in the United States, it initially tried to respond to the offense with words. Once Tri Marine International responded negatively to Australia's complaints, and indicated that it would continue to sell their shitty gutterfish perch that way, Australia had no choice but to send in their most valuable operative, Steve Irwin, to kick the shit out of Tri Marine's CEO. Once ol' Steve-o had their CEO tied up in ropes and being slowly lowered into a pit of hungry crocs, the CEO relented and promised that only the (sustainably-sourced) Pacific species Lates calcarifer would be sold under the name "Barrimundi" in the future.

Ed Ranks Playable Characters in Maniac Mansion

Protip: Don't microwave the pool water.

Maniac Mansion (1987) is a graphic adventure game produced by LucasFilm Games (now LucasArts).  I was absolutely obsessed with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) port of the game. Why? Because it had multiple endings, and multiple ways to achieve those endings based on which characters you chose to play with. It also had "cut scenes" (cinematic stories that interrupted your game play to move the plot along) long before most other video games did. Another cool aspect is that you have to switch between the multiple characters you choose for the game (3) and have them do different tasks at different times to finish out a story - so team work is required and you need to position your characters appropriately to perform various tasks throughout the mansion. 

If you're not familiar, the plot is this:

20 years ago, a meteor from outer-space crashed near the mansion of Dr. Fred Edison and his family. But it wasn't just any meteor, it was an EVIL, BRAIN-CONTROLLING METEOR! It took over Dr. Fred's mind and had him start kidnapping people to perform experiments on their brains.  Dr. Fred's family are also a bunch of fucking weirdos. I'm not sure if that has to do with the Evil Meteor or if they were always just weirdos. Also he has two pet tentacles - a Green Tentacle and a Purple Tentacle - that act as henchmen. Or, in the case of Green Tentacle, fairly useless house guest (think Kato Kaelin, but in the form of the arm of an invertebrate that might be featured in Japanese pornography). Anyway, a cheerleader named Sandy is kidnapped by Dr. Fred, and Sandy's boyfriend, Dave, decides to rally a team of exactly TWO friends to help save her from the aforementioned Maniac Mansion.

Oh, you can also kill a hamster in a microwave. That was pretty controversial.

While I could rank the "endings" of this awesome game (as I did with Bandersnatch), I think instead I'll rank those select-able characters. Here they is:

7. Dave - You have no choice but to have Dave. Dave is the "main character" and Sandy's boyfriend. But Dave is, within the game, completely useless. Most characters in the game have a "thing" they are able to do, which makes them special and allows for a different ending to the game (or a different way to get to the ending). Dave is not able to do anything special that any other character you select cannot do. As I discussed when talking about Final Fantasy XII, the main character is often the most boring character.

6. Jeff - Jeff is a surfer dude / stoner. He does almost absolutely nothing. Like Dave, he has no significant impact on your ability to win the game. Since the game makes you select three different characters, it is winnable no matter what selection of three you pick. That is because the remaining five characters that I have not talked about yet all have special abilities that will allow you to win. So if you select Dave, Jeff, and a third character... then the third character is how you're going to win because these two are crap.  Oh, Jeff is marginally better than Dave because he has the ability to fix a telephone. You don't need to fix the telephone to win the game though. Fixing the telephone DOES make the game easier, because you can prank call Edna (Dr. Fred's wife) and distract her in order to steal a key from her room. But Edna also kidnaps the kids wandering around the mansion when she sees them and takes them to a dungeon. So if you properly position two characters, you can have one get caught and taken to the dungeon by her (you can then have another character break them free after) and have the other character sneak into her room and take the key while she's going down to the dungeon. In some versions of the game, all of the characters have noticeable footsteps as they walk, except for Jeff because he's barefooted. While this could have been worked into the plot of the game somehow as an awesome stealth power that Jeff has to sneak around where other characters can't - it isn't and there is unfortunately no payoff to Jeff's quiet feet.

5. Syd - Syd plays music. He seems like some sort of New Wave / Flock of Seagulls / Pop-Synth musician. Syd is okay. Syd's ability to end the game depends on his music skills. Through his music skills, you are able to get a demo tape from the Green Tentacle (he's sort of a music junkie). Then you can send that demo tape to "Three Guys Who Publish Anything," a company that, well, publishes anything. They will love that shit and send you a contract.  Once you give that contract to Green Tentacle, he will be your best friend and help you break into Dr. Fred's lair to defeat the Meteor and win the game.  The final obstacle preventing you from getting into Dr. Fred's lair to defeat the Evil Meteor and save Sandy is always the Purple Tentacle, so you will always need to get someone on "your side" to cockblock the Purple Tentacle and let you pass. The music contract way of doing it is cool, and therefore Syd is okay.  The problem? He's a repeat character. There is another character with the exact same qualities as Syd, who can win the game through this method.

4. Michael - Michael is a photographer. Michael also has a cool way to end the a game and get past Purple Tentacle. Dr. Fred's son, Weird Ed, is a psycho paramilitary commando nut... but he's also at least sane enough to see that his dad has gone crazy and he wants to help "save" him. Michael is able to develop some photos for Weird Ed, that will get Weird Ed on your side. Then he'll be the one (vice Green Tentacle) to come down and help you push Purple Tentacle out of the way to confront Dr. Fred and the Evil Meteor.

3. Wendy - Wendy is a writer who aspires to be a novelist. I'll be honest, Wendy is the character I probably used the least when I played this as a kid because she seemed the most boring. But her endings are actually kind of awesome and she actually has TWO DIFFERENT ENDINGS, if you're smart enough to also use a Bernard-Wendy combo with Dave. Anyway, the Evil Meteor is, in addition to being evil, sort of an aspiring writer. But he sucks at spellchecking and editing (much like me, as you can tell if you've read this blog)! Wendy can fix up a manuscript you find written by the Evil Meteor, send it to deliver it to "Three Guys Who Publish Anything," and get a contract for the Evil Meteor that will make him famous and get him on a Late Night TV show! Just give this contract to Purple Tentacle at the end of the game, he'll give it to the Evil Meteor, and the Evil Meteor will renounce his ways, free Sandy, and turn good in order to become a famous author. Nice, huh?  I mentioned a second ending as well, but I'll get to that when I talk about Bernard, because he's required for the second "secret" Wendy ending.

2. Razor - Remember everything I said about Syd above? The same goes for Razor. Razor is also a musician. But rather than being a Flock of Seagulls-type musician, Razor is a badass sexy ginger metal rockstar who wears tight black leather. Why the hell would you want to play with Syd if you can play with Razor instead? Razor can get the publishing contract for Green Tentacle and win the game, only she can do it while you listen to a better music soundtrack the whole time.  Oh yeah, each character has their own theme music that you get to hear when you're playing with them. Razor's is obviously the most awesome. Also, players in the game are totally killable in different ways (you might want to kill Dave just for the hell of it, because Dave sucks). If you kill all the characters you have except for Razor and then end the game, there is a quasi-secret ending which implies that Razor and Sandy hook up. HAWT.

1. Bernard

Yes, disco does suck. Good call, Green Tentacle.

Bernard is the dork/nerd/loser. But he's great! After I figured out his skills, I think I usually selected him in every single game I played (no matter what ending I wanted to get). He's clearly the best and most competent character. Given his nerdery, he can fix broken things that nobody else can fix. That means he can fix the telephone that Jeff can fix to make the game a little easier, but he's also able to fix a radio that Jeff has no clue what to do with.  What good is the radio? Well, it gives you the super awesome (my favorite) "Meteor Police" ending. What's that? Well, remember how there is an evil meteor from outer-space who is your enemy? That's appatently not an isolated thing. In space, there must be so many evil, brain-controlling meteors that an elite team of space cops named the Meteor Police have been set up to counter them.  When you fix the radio, you can send a message to space and let the Meteor Police know what's going on.  Then, when you show up to Dr. Fred's lair and get stopped by the Purple Tentacle, the Meteor Police will show up just in time to save the day and arrest him. Sweet, right?  Well, that's not all. Let's go back to Wendy.  If you select both Bernard and Wendy as your team members, then you can still have Wendy re-write the Evil Meteor's manuscript and make him a famous writer that appears on a Late Night TV show. But right before you go in to give the manuscript to the Purple Tentacle to make the Evil Meteor famous, go ahead and have Bernard call the Meteor Police too.  Then, in the middle of the talk show appearance on live TV, the Meteor Police will bust onto the set and still arrest the Evil Meteor. Bernard rocks so hard that when they gave Maniac Mansion a sequel, they made Bernard the main character. The only thing they did to Bernard, which was slightly annoying, was that they made him a "wimp," which essentially just meant that the first time he runs into the Green Tentacle monster he runs away like a coward. Oh well, I guess he has to have some flaw.

Ed Ranks Eponymous Songs

Every come up with a phrase that you think is really cool - but can't decide whether to make that the name of a song that or band does, or just go ahead and name your entire band that? No?  Well, sometimes people say "WHY NOT BOTH?" and name both their band and a song released by their band the same thing.

These are the top 12 eponymous songs, which share a name with the band that released the song.

12. Public Enemy [No. 1] (Public Enemy) - Okay, maybe this one doesn't quite count because the group's name is Public Enemy, and the song's name is technically Public Enemy No. 1. Close enough though, right? Let's put it in last place because that technicality.

Basically Hannah Montana, but in the 60s.

11. The Monkees (The Monkees) - That's right, the theme song to "The Monkees" is technically named, "The Monkees," which means that "The Monkees" is by "The Monkees." Isn't that fun? See what we're doing here? Some people call this song "Hey Hey We're the Monkees" or "(Theme from) The Monkees," but since that "Theme to" part is only in parentheses, technically the name is just "The Monkees."  Anyway, The Monkees are terrible. So this is #11.

10. Damn Yankees (Damn Yankees) - Damn Yankees released a song called "Damn Yankees." Is it good? Maybe. I mean they were a supergroup. But then again, I refuse to rank the violently insane Ted Nugent in single digits, so he's just going to have to sit here in double-digit territory.

9. They Might Be Giants (They Might Be Giants) - They Might Be Giants has an eponymous song too! Yeah. They do. It's going to be hard to look up on Google or YouTube though. Because when the song name and the band name are the same thing, search engines think you're just being stupid. But you're not. Because this is an actual thing. So dig through and you can find it.

8. Porno For Pyros (Porno For Pyros) - You might better know Porno For Pyros as "Basically Jane's Addition." Why? Because it's basically Jane's Addiction. Did you know that Perry Farrell named the band after viewing an ad for fireworks in a pornographic magazine? Well, the internet says that's where the name come from, so it must be true.

7. Meat Puppets (Meat Puppets) - There would be no grunge music without the Meat Puppets, so we've got to be happy that they existed.  Remember that Lake of Fire song? Yeah, that's the Meat Puppets. You might think it's a Nirvana song, but they only did a cover.  By the way, speaking of grunge music, this seems like the perfect time you remind you all that THE STONE TEMPLE PILOTS ARE THE GREATEST GRUNGE BAND EVER. There, I said it. Again. I'm sorry. Those are just the facts. Chris Cornell was so sad that I ranked Soundgarden as #4 that... he had a very bad evening that day but forgot about it the next day. Why? What did you think I was going to say? Did you think I was going to make a suicide joke? Of course not, you sick fuck. You're disgusting. I'd like you to stop reading my blog immediatly and think about your life. 

6. Kool & The Gang (Kool and the Gang) - The first song on Kool and the Gang's first album is titled "Kool & The Gang."  Now, technically there are some minor differences there. The album's cover clearly shows the name of the band spelling out the word "and" rather than using an ampersand (like the song does),  and it also spells "the" with a lower "t" rather than a capital "T" (like the song does). Is that enough to matter? Of course it's not, stop being a Grammar Nazi.  

The EXACT OPPOSITE of The Monkees.

5. Motörhead (Motörhead) - Yep, Motörhead has a song named "Motörhead." RIP Lemmy. But it's only the 5th best eponymous song. Sorry. 

4. Iron Maiden (Iron Maiden) - I mean it's sort of hard to rank this song way down at #4 because Iron Maiden IS THE BEST!!!! But just wait for the top three, and maybe you'll appreciate what I'm going with here.

3. Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath) - Yep, Black Sabbath's first album was called "Black Sabbath" and that album's first song was called "Black Sabbath."  Because these guys were really, really, really into the name "Black Sabbath" apparently, what with Ozzy and Geezer doing crap like painting their entire house place, placing inverted crosses on the walls, practicing the occult, and decorating the homes with pictures of Satan. Hrm. I'm starting to think these crazy heavy metal guys might be into some of that devil stuff or something.

Buddy Holly stole this brother's look.

2. Bo Diddley (Bo Diddley) - Bo Diddley invented the genre of just naming a song after yourself. He didn't even need a band or anything. He just named it after himself like a crazy egomaniac. Which is AWESOME. He is indeed a rock pioneer. I do not endorse square guitars though.  If I had thought about Bo Diddley's hideous square guitar when I was ranking guitars, I most definitely would have placed it as just barely better than a hideous double-necked guitar.

1. Bad Company (Bad Company) - Yep, this is a great song. Deal with it. Is Bad Company a better band than Iron Maiden? Of course not. But Bad Company's "Bad Company" is a better eponymous song. It's, like, their best song. Don't be hatin' on Paul Rodgers, shorty.