Ed Ranks Shakespeare Porn Parody Titles

Well, this was really only supposed to be a three-part journey, but I was so inspired by just how much the plot of Twelfth Night sounded like a porno, that I've gone and ranked 34 Shakespeare play titles via their new porn parody titles. Some I made up on my own. Some I had to sort of steal from the internet. I did the best I could.

Why 34 instead of 37? Because Henry IV was divided into Parts 1 and 2; and Henry VI into Parts 1, 2, and 3. There was no need to divide those into multiple parts, and so I included them together. It was hard enough to figure out any porn titles for all of those dumb "Henry" plays anyway.

And before you judge me like I'm some sort of depraved weirdo for making this list... remember which guy's name was literally Shake-spear. If that's not a masturbation reference, I don't know what is.

34. Hairy the Sex (Henry VI) - See what I mean? Some of these are really tough. You might be able to think of something funnier, but recall there are 1,934,120 different Shakespeare plays named "Henry," so save your judgment until you get through these all.

33. Richard Safe Word (Richard III) - "Safe Word" sort of rhymed with "The Third," but I'll admit that this is only the 33rd best idea. I assume Richard asks for "My kingdom for some whores" in this parody, instead of "a horse."

32. Sin-beline (Cymbeline) - Is this title lazy? Absolutely. So are post porn parody titles. The plot of this real play features an attempt at courtship between a sister and her step-brother. Which basically means it is already the plot of a modern porn film. What the fuck is up with porn these days, by the way?

31. Horny for Five (Henry V) - The main character in this, Henry, obviously sleeps with five others.

30. Kink John (King John) - I was originally going with "King Johnson," but this is a little better.


29. Carol's Anus (Coriolanus) - Obviously for fetishists.

28. M'am Wet (Hamlet) - This parody title for Hamlet isn't good. It isn't good at all. Yet I still think it's better  than any other ideas suggested by the rest of the internet.

27. Stacked Beth (Macbeth) - Featuring some actress with very large breasts and a witch orgy.

26. 2 Richards (Richard II) -  A super gross-out one featuring an actor with a second prosthetic unit.

25. Coitus and Cum Eater (Troilus and Cressida) - Well, I tried.

24. Antony in Cleopatra (Antony and Cleopatra) - Immensely lazy, but still better than any of the above. There is a character already named "Sextus" in the actual play, so this one will mostly write itself. What's Tania Russof up to these days?

23. Romeo in Juliet (Romeo and Juliet) - Ditto. This isn't super witty, but it gets to the point and you know exactly what's going to happen. Romeo will bang Juliet so hard (after visiting an apothecary who gives him super Viagra) that he thinks he killed her, and so he kills himself by overdosing on the entire bottle of Viagra (presumably, it causes a priapism that explodes his dick off and he bleeds out). Then Juliet wakes up, sees Romeo dead, and kills herself too with her dildo. OBVIOUSLY.

22. Ball's Gel On Rear-Ends As Well (All's Well That Ends Well) - Look, I really tried with this one. I'm not entirely satisfied with the result, but I did the best I could. If you think about it a lot, "Ball's Gel" kinda sorta refers to semen, and said semen is obviously winding up on rear ends. Hey, I'm not proud. If I was proud, I wouldn't be doing this horrible list.

21. Henry the Forced (Henry IV) - Forced / Fourth. Get it? This is almost certainly an S&M film, just so you know.

20. Semen on Asses (Timon of Athens) - A much better way of getting to the gist (or jism!) that I was trying to get to with #22 above. Gay. Straight. This film can be whatever you want it to be, sport! The part of the actual plot of this play dealing with whores spreading VD should probably be removed from the parody though. I'm just saying. Who is going to jerk off to a scene about getting VDs? (Probably someone is the answer!)

19. King Rear (King Lear) - Just as lazy as much lower ranked things like King Johnson, and yet it works so well. Again, you know what you're getting with this. There will be a guy wearing a crown and lots of butt stuff. I could have also gone with various formations that included "Kink" instead of "King," and I could have just gone with the homonym "Leer," which would have worked well too.

18. Julius Tease Her (Julius Caesar) - Lazy? Obvious? Whatever. Don't judge me.

17. Ohhh, Fellow! (Othello) - I'm going to defend this one. It's solid, whether you like it or not. It's also definitely interracial.

16. Titties Androgynous (Titus Andronicus) - No, it doesn't flow easily, but just hear me out. Look, the "Androgynous" part is easy. Anyone could come up with that part. It's the word you instantly think of when you hear "Andronicus." Hell, you might have already thought the name of the play WAS Titus Androgynous. This film features can't-tell-what-sex partners, but when they take their shirts off, you see at least that they have boobs. Are they women who simply dress like men? Are they transgender? Transitioning? Guess you'll have to find out! This concept has to at least appeal to some depraved masturbator out there. Plus, it will have a character named "Tamora, Queen of Goths," which is a great character for a porno! Although, if it follows the plot of the play with any accuracy, this is just gonna be a snuff film.

15. Henry Ate... Her Out (Henry VIII) - I'm not sure this should be ranked so high, but I've already ordered these and now I'm too lazy to renumber. It's witty enough.

14. Testicles, Prince of Queer (Pericles, Prince of Tyre) - This one was difficult, but I'm okay with the result. I'm assuming that "Tyre" is pronounce like "tear" in "teardrop" rather than like "tire" in "car tire." If it's pronounced like "tire," then this is much less funny.

13. The More Cunts for Penis (The Merchant of Venice) - Featuring "Shycock." Oh, you bet he wants a fucking pound of flesh. 

12. Twelfth in a Night (Twelfth Night) - This title actually isn't that good, but it's the one that started me off on this ranking, so I'll place it here as a sign of respect.

11. Two Gentlemen in Verona Sky (The Two Gentlemen of Verona) - I mean this one is self-explanatory. There is apparently a porn star named "Verona Sky," according to a highly sophisticated internet research tool I used (PornHub). Is this somehow more clever than the other "X in X" jokes I did earlier like "Romeo in Juliet?" YES! Because it's TWO GENTLEMEN, which works perfectly. If Verona Sky has not already done a film with this title, she's really missing out. This title is much better than existing titles I was able to find associated with her, such as "Ramming Young Seductress Verona Sky's Exquisite Teen Asshole (HD 8:08 minutes)." I mean that's not poetic at all.

10. The Cumming on Derrières (The Comedy of Errors) - This is the 3rd different title making the same joke. Don't look at me like it's my thing. It's obviously Shakespeare's thing.

9. The Spinner's Tail (The Winter's Tale) - Hell yes! To the point. You have to know what the slang term "spinner" means, and also recognize the tail/tale homonym, with the fact that "tail" can also refer to butts. RESPECT THIS!

8. The Temptress (The Tempest) - This one is pretty simple and perfect. This lady is going to shipwreck sailors and then screw them. Which... wait... that sounds familiar.

7. The Screwing of the Tame (The Taming of the Shrew) - This could have also been The Screwing of the Dame, but I guess with the Tame it's a little more close to flipping the original. The Tame probably refers to the screwed person being some nerd loser in glasses who is taught to be wild instead of tame by their sex-crazed partner. You know. Hey, I'm just making titles here. I don't have to do entire scripts.

6. Love Neighbor's Lust (Love's Labour's Lost) - There were variants around this theme that I saw online when I was searching for ideas for other titles, but I prefer mine.

5. Pleasure for Pleasure (Measure for Measure) - This has to already have been made, right?

4. The Hairy Wives Who Get More (The Merry Wives of Windsor) - I could have stopped with just "Hairy Wives," but no. I kept going until I got something to replace "of Windsor" as well. You're welcome.

3. MILFs Do About Anything (Much Ado About Nothing) - Call Nina Hartley, Lisa Ann, and Sara Jay. I have a concept that can win them multiple AVN Awards.

2. Ass, You Lick It (As You Like It) - This one is great. But there are so many ways I could go with this one, including:

• As You Lick It
• As You Like Tits

1. A MILF-Hunter's Night Cream (A Midsummer Night's Dream) - Winner. This could also work with "Ream" instead of "Cream," but I'm sticking with this version.

Ed Ranks Shakespeare's Tragedies

Am I saving the best for last? Yes, sir and/or m'am. Yes, I am. I have already covered Shakespeare's 15 Comedies and 10 Histories. That leaves Shakespeare's 12 Tragedies. What I rank here as the top 5 Tragedies are also ranked by me as Shakespeare's 5 best plays, overall. He was simply a master of tragedies.  That's not to say that all of these are gems. Timon of Athens, which I'll begin with, I rank all the way down at  35 out of 37 overall.

Once this is all over with #1, I'll show you my rankings of all 37 of the plays together, ignoring the any distinction between category.

Another note! There are some Tragedies which you might think should be categorized as Histories, and vice versa. Some of the Histories are formally named "The Tragedy of...", and many of the Tragedies have feature historical characters. I'm just following the rules and categorizations from the First Folio, dudes.

12. Timon of Athens

Timon's generous grant lives on today. What a legacy!

You know those people who win the lottery and then everyone comes out of the woodwork to be there best friend? Then suddenly they're broke. You know how MC Hammer got super rich and then super poor? There is nothing new about this story, because Shakespeare was writing about that very thing happening, set in Ancient Greece. Timon is a rich Athenian with all sorts of hangers-on. He throws all his bros lavish parties, but his bros have zero gratitude. Once he comes to realize this, he says "fuck you guys" and straight up leaves Athens and all his wealth behind. But not really, because by coincidence (Shakespeare sure relies on coincidence a lot for a supposedly "great" writer) the cave that Timon goes to live in as a pariah (and eat roots) is instead FULL OF GOLD. Everyone somehow learns of all his sweet gold, and they beg for him to come back and defend Athens from some rebel guy. Instead Timon gives the gold to the rebel guy and a bunch of whores, with the intent that the whores spread venereal disease. Which makes no sense. It's not like whores are sex-crazed maniacs who want to spread disease. They're just trying to make some money to live a comfortable life. If Timon gives them all his gold, they don't need to have sex for money anymore. They already rich! Even if Timon is specifically paying them to spread disease, it's not like they have to follow through with it. Because Timon wanders off into the woods and dies. The end. Does this play sound terrible? Well, it is.

11. Troilus and Cressida

Remember the legend of the Trojan War? Achilles. Helen. Hector. Paris. Agamemnon. Ajax. Palmolive. Joy. Dawn. You know the one. There was a pretty terrible Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom movie about it. But most famously is the actual legendary story of Homer's (largely unreadable) Iliad. Shakespeare thought he could one-up what is regarded as one of the most famous stories of all time by doing a cover version of it, only following the incredibly minor Homeric character of Troilus, and his tragic love story with Cressida, a character who didn't even appear in Homer's Iliad, because she was only made up in 12th century France. The story actually follows two plots - one involving Troilus and Cressida's love story, and the other dealing with the rivalry and plans of the opposing Agamemnon and Priam. Guess which of the two stories the play is mostly about? If you guessed "the story that the play is named after," you'd be wrong. Naming this play Troilus and Cressida is basically  the same as if they released the film Napoleon Dynamite exactly as it was with him as the protagonist, but instead named it Kip and Lafawnduh. The tone of the play is also all over the place, rotating between witty comedy and gloomy nihilism. THAT would be like if Spielberg wanted to make a fourth Indiana Jones movie after 1989's Last Crusade (which he didn't, since there are only three films), and simply chose have Indy make snappy jokes while fighting Nazis into a 1993 film called Indiana Jones and the Schindler's List. You can understand how that doesn't work at all, right? Spielberg has great films with Indiana Jones, and he has great films about the absolute horror of the Holocaust. These two things may both be about Nazis, but they should not be mixed.

10. Cymbeline

Shakespeare somehow made a titty mole a major plot point.

As with the play Troilus and Cressida, the play Cymbeline features Cymbeline, but not really as a main character. Cymbeline is the king of ye olde ancient Britain. Year before, his sons were kidnapped years ago by a banished lord named Belarius, although he's now living under the secret identity of "Morgan." Cymbeline also has a non-kidnapped daughter, named Imogen. But Imogen falls in love, and runs off, with a (surprisingly still-alive) man named Posthumus Leonatus. The play is mostly about Imogen though, and features her stepmom the Queen trying to marry her to her dumb step brother, and/or kill her. Cymbeline isn't happy about her marrying Deceased Leonatus either, because she's the heir to the throne and needs to marry someone worthy. And while Imogen's dad might be a "king" in name, he's really just in charge of a vassal state to the Roman Empire. When he refuses to pay his vassal rent, the Romans decide to invade. It all gets convoluted from here. So convoluted that the god Jupiter shows up for some reason. Anyway, long story short, Morgan/Belarius helps to defend Britain and reveals that his two sons are really Cymbeline's sons. Imogen is also cross-dressing (pretty normal for Shakespeare) as a Roman dude, but since Cymbeline's sons are back the king no longer gives an actual shit about his daughter anymore, so he reinstates them as his heirs and ceases to give a shit about his daughter. They have peace with Rome in the end and Imogen can marry who she loves, even if he is [not] dead. So this should be a comedy instead of a tragedy, right? You're jupiterdamned right it should be! This is totally a "Problem Play" Comedy, rather than a Tragedy. But I'm not going to be the one to un-do 400 years of history and argue with its placement as a Tragedy in the First Folio. Maybe the people making the First Folio didn't bother to read it. Why would they? I didn't.

9. Titus Andronicus

This picture is basically all the explanation you need.

This is Shakespeare's first ever tragedy, so you'll have to excuse its lower ranking because the ol' spear shaker was still mastering his craft. It's perhaps Shakespeare's bloodiest and most violent play, and focuses on Titus (a Roman General) and his feud with Tamora (Queen of the Goths, and presumably regional manager of Hot Topic). The play was super popular in it's day, but then fell out of favor in the prudish Victorian Era that didn't like violence. The feud starts when Titus murders Tamora's son, a war captive. So all this shit is really Titus's fault. What escalates from there is a bloody series of plots of murder, treason, and revenge from both sides that includes: 1) Titus murdering his own son, 2) Tamora's sons brutally gang-raping and mutilating Titus's daughter, 3) Titus cutting off his own hand, 4) Two more of Titus's sons being murdered and their heads sent to him, 5) Tamora's Moorish lover brutally murdering Tamora's midwife to hide the fact that they had an interracial baby, 6) Tamora's lover being discovered by Titus's only remaining son, Lucius, and being blackmailed to betray her, 7) Tamora and her sons dressing up as spirits to trick Titus, only to have Titus cut the throats of Tamora's sons, 8) Titus murdering his own mutilated daughter because it was her fault that she got raped, 9) Titus grinding up the bodies of Tamora's sons and feeding them to Tamora and the Roman Emperor in a pie, 10) Titus murdering the despondent Tamora after Scott Tenorman-ing her [or Frey Pie-ing her, whichever you prefer], 11) the Roman emperor killing Titus, because he's not a fan of eating humans and watching a lady get murdered right in front of him, 12) Titus's son Lucius murdering the Roman emperor for murdering his father for murdering Tamora, for murdering... etc etc etc., 13) Lucius being crowned emperor himself, because presumably if you kill the emperor you take his powers like a quickening in The Highlander, 14) Emperor Lucius ordering the slow, brutal starvation murder of Tamora's Moorish boytoy, who regrets nothing and declares that he only wishes he could have done more evil in his life because he's Black and hence evil, and finally 15) THE ARISTOCRATS!

8. Antony and Cleopatra

This is Shakespeare's version of the tragedy of these two famous Romans, based at least someone on Plutarch's biography of Antony. It's sort of a sequel (or at least spinoff) to Julius Caesar, as Antony appears there. The story? You probably know it! If not from Shakespeare, then at least from history if you paid attention. Antony co-rules Rome as part of a Triumverate with Lepidus and Octavius. But Antony doesn't spend any time ruling Rome, because he's totally busy reaming out his girl Cleo down in Egypt. Eventually, Sextus (Yep!) Pompey launches a rebellion and Antony has to get off his butt to quash it. After he's done with that whole drama, he's quasi forced to marry Caesar's late sister, Octavia. After a while, he ditches her and goes back to Cleo. But now Octavius (not to be confused with Octavia) is angry with Antony and goes to war with Egypt. Cleo's forces retreat, forcing Antony to retreat too, so the dude thinks Cleo has betrayed him. Cleopatra realizes that Antony is furious with her, and somewhat unwisely thinks the only way to win him back to... pretend that she's dead? I'm not sure how she planned on this working. Instead of that working, it makes Antony so sad that he kills himself. Which makes Cleopatra so that that she kills herself. With a snake. Which is not that practical, but okay. Surely this bitch could find some hemlock or something, right?  No, the history in the story is not perfect. Shakespeare also decided to mix up a little of Virgil's Aeneid in the plot. Still, a pretty well-known and beloved version of the Antony/Cleo tragedy. 

7. Coriolanus

Getting tired of hearing about old Greek and/or Roman generals yet? Too bad! Coriolanus is a super great Roman general, who really kicked the ass of Tullus Aufidius, the leader of the rival Volsci tribe. His greatness in military battle leads to him becoming a bit of a celebrity and hero back in Rome. Alas, as good as a general as Coriolanus is, he's also a big of an ass (I mean "anus" is right there in his name). That leads to him being banished from Rome for said ass-ish-ness. After he's banished... guess who he teams up with! Since I've only actually mentioned one other character in the play, you can probably guess Aufidius! The dude becomes super popular with the Volsci and Aufidius sort of gets jealous of him. Coriolanus plans to invade Rome but is talked against it by his mommy and instead signs a peace treaty between Rome and the Volsci. Aufidius is not a fan of that shit, and so he has Coriolanus murdered. But then he feels sort of bad about it after, and gives him a nice funeral. In the play itself, Coriolanus rarely has asides or soliloquies to explain his motivations to the audience, and thus becomes less relatable when compared to other Shakespearean Tragedy protagonists.

6. Julius Caesar

Great Caesar's Ghost! Literally.

I don't think I need to explain this one to you, do I? Okay, if you insist! Caesar is a popular war hero, but some feel that he's going to wind up becoming a dictator, transforming the Roman Republic into an Empire. A group of conspirators thinks that the only way to really save Rome is if Casar is killed. It's the ol' "We have to kill Baby Hitler before he turns into Hitler" story. Brutus and Cassius are two of the lead conspirators, with Brutus being the most morally torn about it. Is it right to kill Baby Hitler? He decides yes, and Caesar is dead not that far into the play. The rest of it is about the conspirators defending their actions and what happens after. Brutus gives a rational, meticulous speech explaining why he had to do what he did. That wins everyone over first, and they agree that Caesar had to go. Then Antony comes along and gives a manipulative, emotional speech that makes the gullible masses turn 180 to drive the conspirators out. Since it's a tragedy, all of those guys die by the end, with Antony even mourning the dead Brutus because he did what he did for the good of Rome. Everything you probably know about Caesar comes from this play. Do you really think the actual historical figures in this said things like, "Et tu, Brute?", "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!", "Cowards die many times before their deaths", "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!", "Beware the Ides of March", "the fault [...] in our stars", etc? No, the did not. Thay is all Shakespeare, my peeps.

5. Romeo and Juliet

Okay. This one I'm REALLY not going to explain. You know what this is. If you're told to name a Shakespeare play, this is the one most people name. A tragic story about forbidden love because two families that hate one another have kids who love one another. It's assigned reading at every high school, I'd guess. To teach you  iambic pentameter, as if you're ever going to write stuff in iambic pentameter in your life. There are a bajillion adaptions and re-imaginings of it. Capulets and Montagues are just like the Lancasters and Yorks from Shakespeare's histories (but with less historical basis), and the Hatfields and McCoys (but with less incest and banjo music). Just remember the next time you go to Verona and wade through crowds to go see "Juliet's balcony" that: a) Juliet is a fictional character made up by Shakespeare, so there is no such thing as Juliet's balcony because there is no such thing as Juliet; and b) THERE IS NO FUCKING BALCONY SCENE IN ROMEO AND JULIET. TRY TO FIND THE WORD "BALCONY" HERE. JUST FIND IT! YOU CAN'T BECAUSE IT ISN'T THERE. YOUR ENTIRE LIFE IS A LIE.

4. King Lear

King Lear is a fictional English king. You thought that when medieval people were making up stories about fake kings from the past that they started with Arthur? No way. They made up a bunch of fake kings, going all the way back to biblical times. King Lear is a supposed (but not actual) English king who had three daughters. Two of them were total ass-kissers who paid him lots of complements, while the third didn't. So he left the non-ass-kisser out of his inheritance. Of course the ass-kissers were undeserving, and participated in rebellions to overthrow their father. Exiled, Lear now teams up with the one daughter who wouldn't kiss his ass, but who truely loved and cared for him the most, as they try to take back the throne for him. How does that plan go? Well, this is a "Tragedy," so the answer is "not well." Renowned as one of Shakespeare's greatest plays. Am I going to argue with that? No.

3. Othello

Uhh... yikes. Just YIKES.

Probably not the most politically correct play, but the character development of the Moor here is a lot better than in the bloodbath that is Titus Andronicus. Othello is a Moorish captain serving in the Venetian army. But his biggest enemy isn't on the other side of the battlefield, it's his own traitorous ensign, Iago. Iago forms a plot to accuse Othello's wife, Desdemona, of infidelity. Othello reacts in a totally normal and reasoned manner and-- JUST KIDDING! He kills her. Then Iago's own wife tells Othello the truth, but Iago kills her too. Othello wants sweet, sweet revenge, but he's only able to wound him. Distraut over killing his innocent wife, Othello kills himself. The play deals with racism, love, jealousy, betrayal, revenge, and repentance, and is therefore perfect to be adapted into the second-most famous Julia Styles movie adapted from Shakespeare to be set in contemporary times.

2. Macbeth

If you're at all confused by what this is (why are you reading this, if you are?), this is alternatively "the witch one", or "the Scottish one." Admittedly, just as Romeo and Juliet never says the word "balcony," this play never says the word "witch," but I think we all get the idea that these three ladies are witches, right? Anyone who says, "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble" is a little bit more than just a Weird Sister. ANYWAY, Scottish General MacBeth gets a prophecy from a trio of witches that says he will be king, which is SUPER COOL. Inspired by the prophecy, he goes about making sure that happens by doing things like murdering the current king, Duncan. After, he's racked by guilt and paranoia, and soon has to commit more and more murders to protect himself, which does exactly the opposite by encouraging some guys named Macduff and Malcolm (the latter being the son of the murdered Duncan) wage a bloody civil war. Macbeth is pretty confident that no man can kill him though, as he also has a prophecy that he cannot be killed "by any man of woman born." The war, of course, ends with Macbeth's death, because OH HELL PROPHECIES HAVE TECHNICALITIES, in this case the fact that he was actually born by C-Section, which apparently means that your mother must be the knife that cuts you out instead of your actual mom, because that plot device makes no sense. Wouldn't the better plot twist to be killed by "no man of woman born" be to be killed by a woman? How hard would that have been, Shakes?

1. Hamlet

Nice beanie, Doctor Who.

Well folks, Hamlet is the best play. I'm not the only one saying this. It's on nearly everyone's "best Shakespeare play" list. It's also one of the most commonly performed Shakespeare plays, although a lot of his comedies get significantly more play. Hamlet is the Prince of Denmark, and he starts getting visited by ghosts. Specifically, his dad's ghost, the late king (Hamlet Sr.) who was murdered by his own brother (hence Hamlet Jr's uncle), Claudius. Hamlet wants revenge on his evil uncle and plots to kill him, but accidentally kills his girlfriend Ophelia's dad instead. OOOPS! I guess you shouldn't randomly stab strangers behind curtains without seeing who they are. That then drives Ophelia to just drown herself in some water that never looks that deep to me. Bitch should have gotten herself to a nunnery. Hamlet still really wants to kill Uncle Claudius, and Claudius knows that. For that very reason, he encourages Ophelia's brother to try to kill Hamlet, which doesn't take much convincing at all because Hamlet is sort of responsible for the deaths of the guy's sister and father. They fight each other, but Ophelia's brother has a sword that has a poisoned tip. They both stab each other with the sword, meaning they're both goners who are about to die. Then the brother does a quick team jump as he's dying and tell all of Claudius's plot to Hamlet, which gives Hamlet enough time to run off and kill Claudius before he himself succumbs to the poisoning and dies too. So who is king if they're all dead? Just some dude named Fortinbras, presumably. And yeah, this is the "To be or not to be" one, in case you weren't aware. Where he talks to the skull of the childhood jester who entertained him. Which is just damned creepy.

~~~

Well, that's that! And as promised earlier, here are all 37 of them, ranked in order from worst to best, regardless of what type of play they are:

37. Henry VIII
36. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
35. Timon of Athens
34. Pericles, Prince of Tyre
33. Henry VI, Part 2
32. King John
31. The Merry Wives of Windsor
30. Troilus and Cressida
29. Henry VI, Part 1
28. Henry VI, Part 3
27. All's Well That Ends Well
26. Cymbeline
25. Titus Andronicus
24. Taming of the Shrew
23. Love's Labour's Lost
22. The Comedy of Errors
21. Antony and Cleopatra
20. Henry IV, Part 2
19. Coriolanus
18. Measure for Measure
17. The Winter's Tale
16. Richard II
15. The Merchant of Venice
14. Henry V
13. Julius Caesar
12. Richard III
11. Much Ado About Nothing
10. Henry IV, Part 1
9. A Midsummer Night's Dream
8. As You Like It
7. The Tempest
6. Twelfth Night
5. Romeo and Juliet
4. King Lear
3. Othello
2. Macbeth
1. Hamlet

We are done! OR ARE WE?! A surprise part 4 is still to come! Maybe Christmas has come early!

Ed Ranks Shakespeare's Histories

Prose before Hos.

Here comes Part 2 of me ranking the Shakespeare plays! Fun, right? This time we're dealing with Shakespeare's histories! He did less of these than the other types of plays, and by my count only 10 (excluded from this is the play Edward II, for the reasons that it was not in First Folio, initially published by an "anonymous" author, and analysis indicates that it was only partly written by the bard).

Look, I'm not saying that his histories are all awful. They are not Shakespeare's stronger point though. On the actual history side, they are usually pretty lacking and inaccurate. At times they verge on propaganda for the Houses of Tudor and Stuart. One might even say fake news.

Ignoring the historical accuracy of the history plays, they're often just not as good as the comedies and the dramas either. I'm ranking these things separately in three lists - but if I were to rank all 37 together, only one of these would crack the Top 10, and that one all the way up at 10 itself.

All of these history plays also deal with English kings, so you might be able to learn more about the actual histories from my rankings of these kings, which was also done in three parts: The Worst (featuring Henry VI at #37, John at #32, and Henry VIII at #29), The Middle (featuring Richard II at #24, Henry IV at #23, Richard III at #18 ), and The Best (featuring Henry V at #1).

Anywho, without further ado...

10. Henry VIII

This is widely considered by most people to be Shakespeare's absolute worst play. And so it goes in my rankings as well. It is 10th place among 10 in the Shakespeare Histories, and in all 37 of Shakespeare's plays, I rank it at 37.The play has an alternative title, All Is True. But it's not. The play takes events that happens over the course of decades and condenses them into a short time, and also rearranges historical events into a different order to make it better for the plot. Henry is depicted pretty sympathetically, Cardinal Wolsey is made into a duplicitous villain, and any mention of Henry being a wife murderer is erased. Who makes a play which features Henry and Anne Boelyn and doesn't even bother to mention that one will have the other murdered? The play even ends in an epilogue that apologizes for the fact that it won't please every one. That's basically the equivalent of having a Uwe Boll movie that ends with an apology for it being a Uwe Boll movie. Oh, and this play is also so bad that the Globe Theater burned to the ground when it was playing. I'm not kidding.

Oh hell... is that Satan?

9. Henry VI, Part 2

Shakespeare made three Henry VI plays. None of them are particularly good. I'm ranking the middle one as the lowest of the three (sort of like how Temple of Doom is the worst of the three Indiana Jones films. There are only three Indiana Jones films, by the way. Rumors of a fourth one are terrible, terrible lies). In this part, the story deals with Henry VI's inability to quell the bickering of nobles, thus serving as a prelude to an eventual war. If you read my summary of Henry VI's reign in the link above (technically his two reigns, since he had a habit of getting deposed), you'll know that he was awful. This play is actually the middle part of FIVE of Shakespeare's Histories, which can link together as a tetralogy covering the Wars of the Roses (Henry V, all three Henry VIs, and Richard III). Anyway, the play has a super huge cast (the largest of any Shakespeare play), which makes it nearly impossible to follow who all these tons and tons of characters are. Dozens of useless characters? Inspired by the War of the Roses? This is basically the progenitor of A Song of Ice and Fire. Alas, there are no dragons and titties (that I can recall).


8. King John

This one is all about King John, who has a fairly mediocre reign. What Shakespeare focuses on is mostly the instability of England during John's reign - cause by two sources. The first is the ongoing war/feud with France, but the second cause (and arguably more important moral tale that Shakespeare is pushing with the play) is internal bickering. Shakespeare basically uses this play to say, "hey, war with France could really devastate us, but the true threat is when we fight ourselves." Most of the play is about John fighting off France, and France's attempts to install Arthur (John's nephew) as England's king. It also features Richard I's illegitimate son as an ally to John, and calls him Philip the Bastard. Which is a fantastic name. The play features John's forces capturing the rival Arthur, but being unwilling to kill him. Instead, Arthur jumps out of a window, and the play leaves it dubious as to whether he was suicidal or trying to escape. The actual truth is... unknown. John might have just had him killed. Anyway. He vanished. The play also features John himself dying from being poisoned by a disgruntled monk. In reality he contracted dysentery during the First Barons War, while he was getting supplies from the coast. Which makes for a less dramatic play end, I suppose. Or Shakespeare simply didn't know how to work in a "shitting blood until he dies" scene.

"Suck it, Rutland!" - Act 1, Scene 3

7. Henry VI, Part 3

The conclusion of the Henry VI trilogy. In this part, the horrible and incompetent Henry VI has to face the horrors of the War of the Roses. In picks up right where the previous play left off, with the House York being victorious in battle and taking the throne away from Henry. The play features four different battle scenes in it (the most of any Shakespeare play), which is a point of contention among scholars, many of who felt that it detracts from the plot and shows Shakespeare at an immature stage in writing (the Henry VI plays were some of his earliest plays), going for action scenes instead of coming up with witty dialogue to tell the stories. The character of Montague is also presents a serious issue in this play, with Shakespeare combining two different historical figures to make him. He's done that with other characters in other plays, but in this play he uses Montague in a confusing manner where he appears to continue to inconsistently represent both different historical figures at different times, thus making his character make no sense. The play concludes with Henry being captured, but in the tower of London, and being stabbed to death by the future Richard III, setting the stage for his own play where he gets to be a villain and main character. That might not be factual either, but Shakespeare likely sourced Sir Thomas More's History of Richard III for that explanation (so at least he didn't just make it up himself). Adios, terrible king and an unnecessary three plays about him!

6. Henry VI, Part 1

Oh man, just as I was happy that this guy died, now I have to go back in time and visit him in his youth? Okay. Part 1 serves as a prequel to the War of the Roses, dealing with England's territorial losses to their continental lands in France, and the French territories and the political machinations that would lead to eventual war between the houses York and Lancaster. Some suspect that this very early Shakespeare play might have been a collaboration with Christopher Marlowe, which would have made this the epic bard Supergroup collaboration equivalent of Velvet Revolver (Guns N Roses + Stone Temple Pilots? Yes please!). The play picks up with the greatest king in English history, Henry V, unexpectedly dying. Which sucks. It then goes on to have Henry VI fuck up everything in wars of France, and also features Joan of Arc! Yeah! That's cool, right? I bet most people didn't even know Joan of Arc was in a Shakespeare play, did they? Of course not. Who is going to read all of these damn dozens of Henry plays? According to the citations on Wikipedia (eh, trust it at your own risk), Part 2 is the best of the Henry VI plays and Part 1 is one of his worst plays altogether. Well, I flip the order of those in my opinion because I cannot keep up with all those damn characters in Part 2. And it just barely edges above part 3. I designed these rankings using an Excel worksheet where I ranked a couple of different factors that I came with. Part 1 and Part 3 wound up in a mathematical tie, so I just used my best judgment to place this one above.

5. Henry IV, Part 2

Henry IV, Part 1 is a great play. It's sequel? Less so. It's often not even considered much of a "sequel" by the traditional sense, wherein the historical narrative of the story is continued. Instead, Henry IV Part 2 is often considered an "extension" of  Part 1, and focuses more on the comic relief character Falstaff (previously mentioned in the Shakespeare Comedies, for his appearance in The Merry Wives of Windsor). So really, it's sort of a Hobbs & Shaw spin-off, adding new additional comic relief from Falstaff and others, which only half continues the story of Part 1. Why half? Because the story is basically two different plays - one following the young Prince Hal (eventually to become Henry V) and the other following Falstaff. The two barely interact with one another, only having two scenes with each other. Hal's story is about him becoming mature and rejecting his ways of hanging out with lowlife douches, and preparing himself to take the throne when Henry IV dies (which he does). The two plots finally meet up at the very end of the play, when Hal (now Henry V), rejects Falstaff's ways and is a proper king. Setting up a Henry V sequel, naturally.

4. Richard II

I will admit that this is not one that I have actually read, and who has? Richard II is a pretty mediocre and forgettable king. So I had to do a bit of research into the play's plot and opinions about it in order to try to fairly judge it. The conclusion? People's opinions about this play are ALL OVER THE PLACE. There are those who think that this is one of Shakespeare's finest plays (I even found someone who said it was his second best play, after only Hamlet). Nobody really puts the play at the very bottom, but a lot believe it's only in the lower-middle of if bard's catalogue. Because of that, I place it here in the middle. It's not terrible, it's not great. The plot? As I alluded to in my actual ranking of Richard II as a king, much Shakespeare's play is simply Tudor propaganda and artistic license, which portrays Richard as an awful king and villain. It takes place in the last two years of his life, where the king is wasting England's money, stealing the lands of his enemies (especially John of Gaunt), unfairly placing taxes, and punishing noblemen for the crimes of their ancestors. John of Gaunt dies, and his son Bolingbroke gets revenge, not only by getting his dad's land back, but also by defeating Richard II to make himself the new King, Henry IV. Thus begins a series of eight plays (all on this list, and sometimes called The Henriad) that largely serve as sequels to one another, going all the way through Richard III. Only John and Henry VIII fall outside of this continuum.

I have used this picture before, and I will use it again.

3. Henry V

Henry V is the best Monarch of English history (for reasons I explained in the link at the top). Yet the play named after him is only the third best of Shakespeare's histories. And while this is the only play actually named after Henry V himself, it's the third one to feature him as a character - as he was young Hal in both Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. In this play, the now mature king deals with the events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415, for those counting at home), the most epic and famous battle during the Hundred Years' War against France. This play is an AR-17 assault weapon of quotable quotes from beginning to end, featuring the iconic "Once more unto the breach", the entire Saint Crispin's Day speech (most famous for "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers"), and some other gems including "O! for a muse of fire", "The fewer men, the greater share of honour", "so vile a sin" and "the game's afoot"). You thought Arthur Conan Doyle invented that later one for Sherlock? Nope! It was Shakespeare. The point is, I can't include all the famous quotes from this play because there are so many.

Does this look like a guy who would kill two kids? Maybe.

2. Richard III

Is this the most historically accurate play? No. But it is super iconic. Richard III is basically only famous today because of this play making him into the OG supervillain that must have been the progenitor for cackling, mad villains for the rest of the history of entertainment. Maybe you don't know the history of the War of the Roses that well, and if you do know a little... it might just be from this play. The Lancasters have pretty much been defeated and the Yorks rule, led by Edward IV. The hunchbacked Richard, Duke of Gloucester plots against his brother Edward (and his kids) to usurp the throne from him, rather successfully. Richard becomes the maniacal king, and is only later defeated when a descendant of both York and Lancaster blood (Henry Tudor) defeats Richard III on the battlefield. This is Shakespeare's second longest play, and it's often abridged when performed. As with Henry V above, this one also provides numerous famous quotes, including "Now is the winter of our discontent" and "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" This is a good and entertaining play, folks. Though it won't win any sensitivity awards in 2019 for its "people with physical disabilities are evil and so god made them that way as punishment" morals. 

Yeshh Moneypenny, I am Hotshhpur.

1. Henry IV, Part 1

The historical events in the Henry IV, Part 1 play are not the most iconic or memorable in the history of England. Hotspur's battle at Homildon in Northumberland?  The Battle of Shrewsbury the very next year. These don't exactly seem like their begging for being adapted into stories that people are interested in watching. And yet I'm ranking this as the best Shakespeare history because it's, well, a good play. Yet King Henry's political and historical problems often take a back seat in this story to his personal problems, such as the unruly behavior of his kegger-loving frat bro son, Hal. Hal is under the influence of the dickish Falstaff, who I've explained enough over this last two rankings. In addition to that coming-of-age story for Hal, the tale also features Henry's rivarly with Henry Percy (Hotspur), the hand-chosen heir to Richard II, whom Henry IV usurped (but only because Richard II was totes evil). There are no quotes in this one that rival the super quotable ones of Richard III or Henry IV, but overall it strikes a great balance of writing that includes witty comedy, history, and tragedy... or at least tragedy for Hotspur, who dies at Shrewsbury. That doesn't count as a spoiler, by the way. It happened over 616 years ago and the play is literally named "Henry IV." Did you think Hotspur was going to win?

Next up... Shakespeare's Tragedies!

Ed Ranks Shakespeare's Comedies

The bard. Bard. Bard is the word.

Shakespeare! This was a guy who wrote things. Overall, he wrote 39-ish plays. Or maybe 37, depending on how to feel about mutual authorship of two of those, of which is contribution is lesser. Or even fewer than that, if you believe a number of the others are collaborations and he shouldn't get full credit. Or maybe zero, if you believe Shakespeare was just an actor who didn't write anything and Edward de Vere wrote it all. Whatever. I'm going to go with 37.

That will add up to 15 comedies, 10 histories, and 12 tragedies. I'm breaking this into three parts, based on those categories, because I can.

These are his comedies, ranked. Note that I'm excluding from this ranking The Two Noble Kinsmen, because (a) it was not in the First Folio, and (b) the primary author is likely John Fletcher, with ol' Shakes as a contributor to less than half. I will, however, include Pericles, Prince of Tyre, despite some similar authorship concerns and the fact that it wasn't in the First Folio. Why? Because most others include it and it appears in far more editions of Shakespeare's collected works than the other. I'm not making the rules here, I'm just following the lead of others.

15. The Two Gentlemen of Verona

One of Shakespeare's earliest plays, it's also a hot bog fire of awful, and is overall one of his worst plays among all three categories. It's a story about two friends who fall in love with the same girl, and then the girl is a cross-dresser. Or something like that. The best character in the play is a dog.

14. Pericles, Prince of Tyre

As mentioned above, some people argue if this one should even be included. It wasn't in the First Folio, and modern analysis of writing styles concludes that Shakespeare only wrote the second half. If I excluded it, you wouldn't be missing much. They story features at least two shipwrecks (yeah, fuck you The Tempest!), some father-daughter incest, death in childbirth, throwing a dead wife into a sea, and then a 16-year plot jump where the daughter grows up only to get kidnapped by pirates and sold as a sex slave. Does this sound like a comedy? Well, it is. Because it features some writing that un-does the terrible things which happened (the wife didn't actually die in childbirth at all, etc.) You know, the kind of thing that would make Annie Wilkes furious.

Oh Falstaff, you sexy beast you.

13. The Merry Wives of Windsor

Do you know how TV shows like to do spinoffs? Of course you do! Well, The Merry Wives of Windsor is the Baywatch Nights of Shakespeare plays. The Henry IV plays (especially the first part) are among the better of Shakespeare's Histories, and featured a supporting character named Falstaff (who, as previously established, is basically just Zach Galifianakis).  In this new play, Falstaff is promoted to the role of main character, and pretends to be interested in two wealthy married ladies so that he can steal money from them. However, both of the ladies are smart enough to realize his plot, and so they really just toy around and humiliate him for fun.

12. All's Well That Ends Well

This is the play that teaches you that if you stalk someone enough, they will eventually fall in love with you. The main character is Helena, who spends the entire play Single White Female-ing a guy named Bertram, who is totally not into her at all. Fortunately for her, she is a healer and she heals a dying king. The king grants her a wish - and she wishes to marry Bertram! But kings can only, like, legally make marriages happen. They're not genies, so while he grants the wish and marries them, Bertram still doesn't love Helena at all. In fact, he dislikes her so much that he leaves the country and tries to fuck a bunch of virgin girls in Italy. Helena, still obsessed, follows him to Italy, swaps places with one of  the virgins so that he will have sex with her instead, then gets all dramatic and fakes her death. When she reveals that she's alive again, Bertram is apparently so impressed by all the crazy effort (emphasis on crazy) that Helena went through for him, that he just accepts that he'll never escape her and swears his love to her. Fun?

11. The Taming of the Shrew

This is a strange, peculiar adaption of 10 Things I Hate About You, except set in 16th century Italy, rather than in an American high school in 1999 with Julia Styles (as originally intended by Shakespeare). Seriously. That's the plot, so just go watch that.

They spelled "labor" wrong.

10. Love's Labour's Lost

Remember the Seinfeld episode where they held the contest to figure out who could go the longest without masturbating? Well, this is also a Shakespeare plot, basically, but with actual sex. The King of Navarre and his three bros all make a pact to not bang any girls for three years for... reasons. Unfortunately for them, like the day after they start that pact, the smoking hot Princess of France and her equally smoking hot three lady attendants all show up. Basically, they all attempt to break their pact and score, each picking the girl that they wanted like they were picking their favorite Spice Girl. Posh, by the way. In case you wanted to know mine.


9. The Comedy of Errors

When this phrase doesn't refer to the fielding of the Pittsburgh Pirates, it refers to a Shakespeare play that is famous for being the shortest and most farcical. It's full of puns and slapstick humor. Most Shakespeare plays that call themselves "comedies" aren't actually that funny. This one at least attempts to be. It's about two identical twins that are seperated at birth, but then meet again - leading to all sorts of wacky nonsense, I suppose. If being beaten, arrested, and accused of infidelity are wacky nonsense. Which they are, of course.

8. Measure for Measure

Surprisingly not the subtitle of an Are You Being Served? spinoff, this is instead the story about the Duke of Vienna, who pretends to leave the city. But really, he simply puts on a disguise and pretends to be a friar, so that he can be a nosy little bitch and spy on everyone and see how the kingdom is being run without him. Terribly, is the answer, especially as is #2 left in charge is a corrupt douche named Angelo. It also features a brothel madame named "Mistress Overdone," which is surely enough to allow it to be ranked at #8 for that reason alone, even if the rest of the play is awful.

Also starring: This bear.

7. The Winter's Tale

Oh boy, this one is a doozy. The King of Sicily and the King of Bohemia are like BFFs ever since they were kids. The King of Bohemia comes to visit Sicily and they have a great time. Then the King of Bohemia says he has to go home to run his kingdom, but the King of Sicily is having so much fun that he doesn't want him to leave. Bohemia says "Nah, gotta go," and so Sicily asks his wife to help intervene and convince Bohemia to stay. And she does exactly that. Then, for no fucking logical reason at all, Sicily is angry that his wife got Bohemia to stay, even though that's exactly what he asked her to do. So he accuses her of having an affair with him (she's pregnant, by the way), banishes the child when it's born, and is such a dick that his wife dies (or appears to). Cut to years later, the child is grown up into a beautiful girl who just happens to fall in love with Bohemia's son. He does not approve. They run off together, yada yada yada, the wife didn't really die after all, everyone gets along in the end so that it can be a "comedy."

6. The Merchant of Venice

Prepare for racism!!! Shylock is a miserly (okay, cheap, there is nothing wrong with that), Jewish (uh-oh) money lender (yikes, this sounds like it could easily devolve into stereotypes) that is portrayed as the primary antagonist (of course he is) to Antonio. Why is Shylock such a villain? Fuck if I know. Antonio is a violent antisemite who has previously insulted, mocked and physically assaulted Shylock. Yet Shylock still lends him money that Antonio refuses to pay back. Shylock's interest rate is a pound of Antonio's flesh, which is quite frankly an awesome thing to charge an antisemitic asshole. And fuck Antonio because he obviously signed up for this interest rate in the first place, so he has nobody to blame but himself. Shylock takes Antonio to court, but this bitch named Portia makes bullshit arguments so that he not only loses the case, but is forced to GIVE UP ALL OF HIS WEALTH FOR BEING A JEW, AND IS ALSO FORCED TO CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY. Holy shit! This is just awful. I hope that the Jigsaw Killer finds this Portia lady and locks her up in a warehouse.

Is that Denzel or Chef!?

5. Much Ado About Nothing

A charming tale about two sets of lovers - Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, along with that Dr. Wilson from House and a very jailbait-looking Kate Beckinsale. It's all about their zany romances, mixed with tales of infidelity, cuckoldry, deception, masked balls, Michael Keaton, Keanu Reeves, and Denzel Washington. Okay, I'll admit it. I've never actually read this thing, I just saw the 1993 adaption. Get off my case. I've barely read any of these, beyond what I was assigned in school.

4. A Midsummer Night's Dream

Another one I haven't actually read, but I did see the play in London at the Globe Theater. That's pretty cool, right? This is the one that's all about spirits and fairies and sprites and love spells. It also features Puck, who would go on to star in MTV's The Real World.  Do I really have to explain this one in detail? It's one of the more famous ones. I'm pretty sure this is the most commonly done Shakespeare production. I'm not quite sure why, as it's not the best Shakespeare play, nor even the best comedy. Still, people really, really like doing productions of this play. I guess fairies are just super popular.

3. As You Like It

Probably most famous for it's quotable quotes like, "All the world's a stage" (so meta, Shakespeare), this is the one that's about the girl Rosalind, who runs away from her evil duke uncle (fuck Duke!) to join her father (the rightful duke, who was usurped) in the woods. There, she cross-dresses and takes up a new identity (a disturbingly common fetish in Shakespeare's comedies), falls in love with a guy named Orlando, and is eventually able to right all the wrongs by making the evil duke change his ways and restore her father to his rightful place. Despite her main-character status, Rosalind herself takes a back seat in cultural memory to the scene-stealing Jaques, who is an emo guy who gets all the best lines (yes, including "All the world's a stage). 

2. The Tempest

Definitely one that I was required to read in school. Maybe you did too. Tell me if this one rings a bell. Duke Prospero and his daughter Miranda are exiled by the usurper Antonio to an island, along with Prospero's magical occultist books (you'd think Antonio would take away the magical books before exiling him, but whatever). They enslave a savage named Caliban and a sprite named Ariel (more fairies, yay!), and also shipwreck random people who pass by... because why not?  Just kidding, it's not random people. The ship they wreck just happens to be the ship of Antonio, the very man who usurped Propsero's title. Because it's a comedy, rather than murdering Antonio and his crew to eat their flash (as would really happen), Miranda falls in love with a prince who was also on the ship, and eventually everyone reconciles and live happily ever after. Everyone except Caliban, who remains a slave. Which is pretty fucked up.

Characters that will probably have sex.

1. Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night is Shakespeare's best comedy (but really only his sixth best play, since his top five are all tragedies, according to my rankings). What's so funny? Well, nothing really. I wouldn't call any of Shakespeare's comedies as particularly "ha ha" funny according to today's definitions. "Comedy" just means "the main characters don't die horribly at the end." This one is about separated twins (again), Viola and Sebastian, cross-dressing (again), some stupid Duke (again) named Orsino, and unrequited love that borders on stalking (again). Orsino loves a woman named Lady Olivia, who is totally not into him, and employs cross-dressing Viola to woo Olivia, but since Olivia things Viola is a dude she falls in love with her instead. Simultaneously, Viola has got the hots for the Duke. Here is where the actual play and any porn parody diverge, because instead of a hot lesbian scene followed by a threesome, the plot grows more confusing as Viola's long lost twin brother Sebastian shows up (a guy version of Viola, thus confusing Olivia further into thinking Sebastian is Viola). It's all sorted out when Olivia marries Sebastian and Orsino decides that Viola is pretty hot herself, and reciprocates the crush. But seriously. For Shakespeare plots that could easily be adapted into cheesy porno, this has to be the top. What would it be called though? Twelfth in a Night? Twelfth and Tight? I dunno. This one has a lot of supporting characters and subplots with other suitor characters to Lady Olivia that can also be worked in. Whoever is cast as Lady Olivia is definitely going to wind up banging twelve different characters in one night. That's for damn sure.

Next up? The History plays! Spoiler alert: most of these are mediocre. Especially if they do not contain a "Henry" smaller than V or the word "Richard."

Ed Ranks G1 Transformers Combiner Teams

Fun-loving good times with Screamer and Brutey.

One of my first ever rankings was the 1985 Transformers toy catalog. It's been a while since I've discussed the robots in disguise. So now I'll rank all the Transformers Generation 1 "Combiner Teams" (also sometimes called Gestalts, although that could simply refer to the title of their combined entity).  Some ground rules:

• I am only including the Generation 1 cartoon combiner teams, as canon via the four seasons of the Sunbow Studios-produced The Transformers cartoon. 
• There is a wider "Generation 1 continuity family" that includes the original Transformers toys the continuation Japanese series, the original Marvel comics, and stuff like later comics that tried to insert themselves into, retell and/or reboot G1 continuity. I am not including any of that. Just the 80's cartoon.
• You can argue that there were other groups/teams of Transformers who "combined." Reflector was a bunch of small robots that became one camera. Omega Supreme consisted of a bunch of different things (a rocket, a base, a tank) that "combined" into one big entity. Optimus Prime himself opened up into a big battle station with Roller, and therefore you could argue that he was separate entities that "combined" when in truck mode. Skylinx was a bird and a lion that turned into one weird space shuttle/blue box thing. Headmasters (more so) and Targetmasters (less so) that appeared in the final three-part finale are sort of "combiners" in a way, aren't they? Not really. I'm going to define a Combiner as an entity that has (1) a robot mode; (2) an alternate [often vehicle, but not always] mode, and (3) a mode where they form into a larger gestalt being with a gestalt intelligence. So that would eliminate all of those types of bots that I described above.
• Sometimes you can mix up the existing teams "Scramble City" style, and have a Combiner made of parts from different teams (e.g. Abomenaticus, Comperian, etc). There are not G1 cartoon canon, obviously.

Based on the above rules, these are the eight G1 Combiner teams. Don't agree with the rules I set above to define Combiners and/or my rankings below? Too bad. Blogger is free. Make your own blog.

8. Protectobots

Nobody cares about this loser

• Team Members: Hot Spot, Streetwise, Blades, Groove, and First Aid.
• Gestalt Form: Defensor
• Their Gimmick: A team of emergency, rescue, and "law enforcement" robots (fire truck, police car, rescue helicopter, police motorcycle, ambulance).
• Origin Story: In the G1 cartoon? They didn't even bother to have one. Up to this point, the cartoon generally introduced new Combiner teams with huge stories. With these guys? They just showed up
• Analysis: How many Protectobot names do I know on my own without looking them up? None. When the Protectobots were introduced, the Autobots already had a fire truck (Inferno), a police car (Prowl), an ambulance (Ratchet), and a fire chief's car (Red Alert). The Autobots basically already had the whole "law enforcement and first response" thing covered before they created this unnecessary team with no origin. I guess getting a motorcycle and helicopter is cool. They also featured in about two episodes before they were totally forgotten and/or relegated into background characters, never to be mentioned again. In conclusion: they suck. The Autobots themselves didn't even like these guys. They had their own HQ where they lived, away from the normal Autobot HQ.

7. Technobots

Year book pose.

• Team Members: Scattershot, Strafe, Lightspeed, Afterburner, and Nosecone.
• Gestalt Form: Computron
• Their Gimmick: A bunch of... uhh... sort of quasi-futuristic space vehicle (Cybertronian?) things. Like with the below Terrorcons, their alt forms are sort of nonsense. They are also super, duper-smart and can compute things. So their gimmick is intelligence, I guess. Or at least Computron is super intelligent when they combine. On their own, the individual robots are just normally intelligent, from what I can tell.
• Origin Story: In a freak accident, the usually stupid Dinobot, Grimlock, becomes a mega-genius. Following the TV series rule that episodes should always end with status quo, by the end of the episode, Grimlock is forced to give away his super intelligence to a newly-created group of robots that he built (partially from Unicron's brain, ew). I guess this technically ignores the previously-established rule that you can't make new robots because they have to have souls from Vector Sigma or whatever, but then again maybe Grimlock got so smart he found a way around this rule.
• Analysis: I mean I don't HATE the Technobots, but their origin story with Grimlock is really the only interesting episode with them. I almost want to rank them above the Terrorcons, but I won't. Because two-headed dragons and shark-with-legs-guy are cool. In the end, "Grimlock's New Brain" is a good episode because its a Grimlock episode and Grimlock is the best. It's not good because the Technobots. The show could have done a lot more with the Technobots, but didn't.

6. Terrorcons

Seriously... WTF is Blot?!

• Team Members: Hun-Gurr, Rippersnapper, Blot, Sinnertwin, and Cutthroat.
• Gestalt Form: Abominus
• Their Gimmick: A group of Decepticon... uhh... monsters (?), including a pair of two-headed dragons, a weird-ass shark with legs, a hawk demon (or flying dinosaur-type-thing?), and whatever the fuck Blot is supposed to be (I have no idea, and neither does Transformers, really. His toy box's explanation is just like "uhh... Monster?").
• Origin Story: None given. They just show up one day. Which is pretty weak, but whatever. We're used to this by now with the show.
• Analysis: The least interesting Decepticon team. Their beast / "monster" modes are sort of cool (with the exception of Blot), but for the most part their robot forms are nonsense. You'd think if you're just making fictional "monster" creatures that don't form any real animal out there, you could really have opening for creativity to make appealing robot and alt forms. They didn't. The group even had TWO two-headed dragons. They had a clean slate to just create whatever, and they did the same monster twice. Autobot Combiners are terrible, and this is the only Decepticon Combiner that's worse than any Autobot one.

5. Arielbots

Just some plane guys.

• Team Members: Silvertbolt, Air Raid, Fireflight, Skydive, and Slingshot.
• Gestalt Form: Superion
• Their Gimmick: Autobots that are various types of airplanes (Concorde, F-15, F-4, F-16A, Harrier), and thus can fly like Autobots typically couldn't after the pilot episode (don't get me started on the inconsistant Autobot flying "rules"). As with their bizzaro Stunticon counterparts introduced at the same time, they also have weird personality traits. Such as their leader, an airplane, being afraid of flying. Yeah, you read that right.
• Origin Story: The Decepticons traveled to Cybertron to go to Vector Sigma and give their new car team, the Stunticons (see more below) life. The Autobots are wholly unoriginal and said, "If the Decepticons get to have cars, then we should get planes. " They went to Vector Sigma and just totally copied the Decepticons.They should have gotten an "F" on their homework.
• Analysis: No Autobot Combiner teams are particularly good or interesting, and this is the only Autobot team which I will rank over any of the Decepticon Combiner teams. Of the weak Autobot Combiners, the Arielbots are the best. There was at least an attempt to give these guys some stories. Although as I repeat from their gimmicks, the leader of the Autobot airplanes is afraid of flying. I gotta think Vector Sigma was just totally fucking with both the Autobots and the Decepticons when he gave their Combiner teams personalities. Vector Sigma is totally a douche. "Hehehe... I'll make Silverbolt afraid to fly! That will be sweet! I'll also make Air Raid an impulsive douchebag, Fireflight dangerously irresponsible, and Slingshot will just be a douchey bragger who compensates for horrible insecurities. And basically 4 out of the 5 of them will all want to be Decepticons. Oh man, this will be noiiiiice! I've giving the Autobots a bag of awful personality flaws! That's what they get for just copying the Decepticons." 

4. Predacons

Sweetness

• Team Members: Razorclaw, Divebomb, Headstrong, Rampage, and Tantrum.
• Gestalt Form: Predaking
• Their Gimmick: A powerful and savage group of animal Decepticons, including a lion, eagle, rhinoceros, tiger, and water buffalo. Like the Dinobots and other "animal" bots,  they're very dumb and animalistic (even in robot mode) when compared to the others.
• Origin Story: Alas, no origin story for these guys. When they first show up in the cartoon, they're actually working for the Quintessans, rather than the Decepticons. With no real explanation, they jump over to Team Galvatron. Good choice, I suppose. It's hard to go down from the Quints. I mean I guess they could have worked for the Skuxxoids. That would be worse.
• Analysis: Despite lacking an origin story, the Predacons are cool as hell. Their animal forms were all super awesome, and their "fall harvest" color scheme (red, yellow, orange, black) was nice. Predaking itself is also one of the coolest gestalts around. Maybe even cooler than Devestator (I won't commit to that for sure). And they got a surprisingly large chunk of of  Season 3 airtime after their introduction in the finale of the "Five Faces of Darkness." I won't mention them all, but one other episode was "Call of the Primitives," a great Predacon episode and a pretty good episode in other ways, so long as we just forget about the Primacron origin story for Unicron (Transformers writ-large certainly has). I also want to point out that Decepticons are definately cat fetishists. Ravage. Razorclaw. Rampage. There are a ton of wild jungle cats among the Decepticon ranks. Crazy cat ladies definately have to be pro-Decepticon.

3. Stunticons

"LIFE IS A MEANINGLESS VOID OF SUFFERING!"

• Team Members: Motormaster, Drag Strip, Dead End, Wildrider, and Breakdown.
• Gestalt Form: Menasor
• Their Gimmick: Rebellious "stunt cars" (and a stunt truck, I suppose) that could all do tricks. They also each had one-note gimmicks, sort of like a boy band. For instance, Wildrider was the "crazy, loose cannon," Breakdown was super paranoid (I guess a pot-smoker), and Dead End was a gloomy fucking nihilist (also the best. I think boy bands should include gloomy nihilists).
• Origin Story: Megatron hated that Autobots had all the cool cars (what with "Auto" in their name) and wanted cards of his own. So he stole a bunch of cars and turned them into Decepticons. But contrasting the earlier and poorly established Constructicon (and Dinobot) creation continuity which was already widely ignored, now it was a rule that you just can't "make" new Transformers. Therefore, Megatron had to go to the magical life-giving Vector Sigma back on Cybertron to give his new team souls (and weird-ass personalities).
• Analysis: It is awesome that the Decepticons finally got some cars on their team. It would allow for cool stories, such as when stupid humans thought that the Autobots had turned evil because cars were doing bad things (humans are dumb), as well the episode where the Autobots all got paint jobs to look like the Stunticons and pretended to be them to trick Megatron (Megatron is dumb). It's also awesome that the introduction of the Stunticons also made an attempt to explain how new Transformers are created/given life via Vector Sigma. Although, as always, continuity was a hot mess. Vector Sigma giving them batshit crazy personalities was also wierd. Vector Sigma was just weird (see Arielbots above) Thumbs up to these awesome guys. Although all things considered, Menasor himself was sort of weak.

2. Combaticons

This picture isn't from the cartoon, but FUCK YEAH anyway.

• Team Members: Onslaught, Brawl, Blast Off, Swindle, and Vortex.
• Gestalt Form: Bruticus
• Their Gimmick: An elite mercenary force of military vehicles: anti-aircraft truck, tank, space shuttle (which is sort of military, I guess?), jeep, and helicopter. They were also so wacky (Swindle was, as name implies, a conman; Vortex was criminally insane; and so on) that the Decepticons themselves imprisoned them in space jail. But I'll continue that in the "Origin" section below.
• Origin Story: Technically we don't  know the "true" origin of the Combaticons via the G1 cartoon (comics would later try to explain it), but we can at least pick up on how they were introduced to the G1 show. Starscream is exiled for another failed coup against Megatron (so what's new?). Exiled to Guadalcanal, he finds a bunch of old World War II ruined war machines, and decides to sneak his way back to Cybertron and go to Decepticon Space Jail where the "personality components" of rebel Decepticons are kept. Yeah, these Decepticons are so off-the-fucking-wall that even Megatron was like "these thugs need to be in jail!" Starscream steals their persoanlity components, brings them back to Earth, and instals them in his military equipment. Ta-da! Now Starscream has his own army (well, brigade) to try to defeat Megatron. Eventually after losing and being exiled again (this time in space), eventually they are "reprogrammed" to be loyal to Megatron. 
• Analysis: The Combaticons are cool. Their origin story (despite being clouded in a little mystery before Starscream got to them) is cool. Their vehicle forms are cool. Bruticus is right up there with Devestator and Predaking in terms of the coolest gestalt. Their characters have pretty awesome and interesting personalities (especially dickish Swindle), and they got significant amounts of screen time. I'm all about the Combaticons. They were also cool enough to reappear in 2001's Transformers: Robots in Disguise when the TV series ran out of new toys and just decided to use old ones from the 80's. Which is a sign that their vehicles and military gimmick was kick-ass.  The only flaw might be how easily their "renegade Decepticon" story was quickly erased from the plot after just a few episodes. Megatron can just "reprogram" them to make them loyal? What the hell? You can reprogram Transformer personalities? Why didn't Megatron do this to Starscream millions of years ago?

1. Constructicons

About to drop their new single.

• Team Members: Scrapper, Hook, Bonecrusher, Long Haul, Mixmaster, and Scavenger.
• Gestalt Form: Devastator
• Their Gimmick: A bunch of construction vehicles, including a front-end loader, crane, bulldozer, dump truck, cement mixer, and power shovel/excavator.
• Origin Story: Oh shit, well this one is super complicated in the G1 cartoon. They are introduced in the first season episode "Heavy Metal War" as "newly built" Decepticons, presumably by Megatron (I guess). Then, then in Season 2 and Season 3 it's revealed that they actually lived back on Cybertron way back in the day, were the ones who (twist!) actually built Megatron (which would presume that they were evil), but also that they used to be good (or at least neutral) robots who were friends with Omega Supreme until Megatron turned them evil (thus making it super confusing as to why the Constructicons built Megatron in the first place if they weren't already evil). If there was any sort of continuity bible that the cartoon writers were using, they ignored it for the Constructicons. Oh well.
• Analysis: This was the first Combiner team and they were the best. It's super cool that there were six of them instead of five. With most of the Combiner teams, there were clearly just four smaller robots who became arms and legs, and then one huge robot who was the body. The Constructicons were all cleverly more equal-sized and simply looked cooler because of it. Their characters were also genius builders, and probably had more character development than any of the other Combiner characters. No other teams could ever quite match their awesomeness. Also, construction vehicles? AWESOME. What little kid doesn't like playing with awesome heavy machinery?