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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"Now, we're not trying to indoctrinate you. Well, we are, but we're not succeeding."''|'''Peter Sagal''', ''[[Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me
This is when a [[Very Special Episode|very serious]] [[An Aesop|Aesop]] is undermined because it's presented by a show that just ''cannot'' handle it well.
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Not that this is always the fault of the writers. Any attempt to tackle serious subject matter honestly is problematic when the [[Moral Guardians]] are watching. This is often due to the fact that many attempts to deal with such serious subject matter will usually have said Guardians responding with outrage ''at its mere inclusion''! Yes, even if you are explicitly attempting to discourage it.
And so you often end up with children being warned about something dangerous -- but exactly ''why'' that something is dangerous is often never explained (which is why this trope can be a rich well of [[Paranoia Fuel]]). It's hard to tell kids "don't play with power tools because you might get killed" when [[Never Say "Die"|you can't say die]] (so expect to hear something like "very, very badly hurt"). Likewise, gun safety is an improbable issue to address when [[Family-Friendly Firearms|everyone packs a laser gun or something]]. Most infamously, [[Drugs Are Bad|drug abuse]] isn't easy to deal with when you can't quantify ''why'' you shouldn't use drugs<ref>Even, in some cases, to well-informed adults. Especially to well-informed adults.</ref>or when you can't even acknowledge that drugs exist.
Not to be confused with a [[Broken Aesop]]. While there can be some crossover, ''Broken'' Aesops are lessons undermined by the action within the show (e.g., "Be nice to people who are different from you. Now, let's go back to [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|fighting monsters]]!")
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== Comics ==
* ''Little Dot'' had an issue featuring the title character's [[Long-Lost Uncle Aesop|Uncle]] [[Meaningful Name|Smoke]], who [[Exactly What It Says
* Possibly parodied in ''[[Doom (Comic Book)|The Doom Comic]]'' with a [[Green Aesop]] about safe disposal of radioactive waste. In a comic otherwise ''entirely'' about the marine's hunt for his beloved [[BFG]]. [[So Bad It's Good|Yeah]].
* [[Chick Tracts]] are (in)famous for their inability to convey a message.
* Back in the late 1980s when AIDS was still the new pandemic, [[Archie]] comics sometimes included a full-page PSA featuring Principal Weatherbee telling the students: "Your best defense against AIDS is ''education''" but didn't say anything else. So, where is this education we're supposed to get?
** Sorry, [[Morton's Fork|but you'll have to]] ''[[Morton's Fork|learn]]'' [[Morton's Fork|how to get educated]]!
* In the 80s there was an [[X
** The demon in question was established to be merely a consequence of the misery in the area, which was caused by far more complex causes... but it was very, very easy for the casual reader to get the above impression.
** In retrospect, Mikhail Rasputin's quasi-introduction falls into this category by [[Fridge Logic]]-- Peter Corbeau compares his death to the real-life Apollo 1 fire... except that it was later revealed that Mikhail hadn't actually died, but had been sent to another dimension, gone insane, and come back as a supervillain. Addressing real-life disasters is hard in a comic that's so big on bringing people [[Back From the Dead]].
* ''Serenity'' ([[Name's the Same|not]] [[Serenity
== Films -- Live-Action ==
* ''[[
** While robbing a shop!
* ''[[Reefer Madness (Film)|Reefer Madness]]'': The moral was (at one point) ''meant'' to be "marijuana is evil", but...
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** Why did they even need a book about Mama being pregnant? They already had the one in which Sister was born.
** Papa Bear is ''racist''?! Argh!
* [http://www.cracked.com/blog/10-great-childrens-books-for-people-who-hate-their-children/ This] [[Cracked]].com list of '[http://www.cracked.com/blog/10-great-childrens-books-for-people-who-hate-their-children/ Great Books for Traumatizing Children]' appears to be mostly made up of Clueless Aesops. They range from [[Anvilicious]] (''[[Latawnya the Naughty Horse Learns
* The [[Horatio Hornblower]] story "Hornblower and [[Have a Gay Old Time|the Man Who Felt Queer]]". The story features Horatio taking part in a sneak attack on a French ship. One of his crew, who earlier complained of feeling ill, has an epileptic fit. As the man -- unaware of his surroundings -- starts speaking loudly, Horatio strikes the man on the head with the tiller so they won't be found out by the enemy. Although the man's fate is left vague, it's clear that even if he isn't dead, he'll never play the piano again. Later on Horatio notes that the guilt of possibly killing the man is what gave him the courage to complete his task. Uh, what?
** Actually, Horatio makes it very clear that the reason he wanted to complete the task was so that he would not have possibly killed a man for nothing. Which is fair enough.
** The TV series tries to make this a little less of a WTF moment by making Horatio's best friend Archie the epileptic. Knocking him out makes him feel guilty enough, but later on Horatio's enemy unties the boat and the still-unconscious Archie drifts out to sea. A horrified Horatio is thus given a nice bit of character development when he's led to believe that he killed his best friend ({{spoiler|he didn't, Archie's found alive in a Spanish prison a couple of episodes later}}).
* On the surface, ''[[Twilight (
** Many readers draw religious parallels and symbolism from the books, particularly when considering that Meyer is a Mormon. Meyer claims that she didn't intend the books to be influenced by her religion or promote her beliefs, but admits that her values do shape her writing. Regardless of intent, many readers feel the result is clueless aesops.
** On a related note to the Breaking Dawn pregnancy, Twilight is simply not the kind of series that should be having a debate about abortion. Also, the pro-life/pro-choice thing is slightly irrelevant ''when it's clear that the baby is most assuredly killing the mother, and she may or may not survive to give birth'' (in other words, exactly the kind of exception most pro-life advocates are willing to make when it comes to their stance on abortion). The fact that it's a [[Creepy Child|Creepy]] [[Half-Human Hybrid]] with powers of [[Mind Rape]] and [[Horror Hunger|makes Bella thirst for blood during the pregnancy]] only makes things worse- Bella may well be giving birth to the [[Anti Christ]].
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* The ''[[Hannah Montana]]'' episode about Oliver having diabetes is a re-edited version. The original episode portrayed diabetes in a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeGsik3AG3w downright] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1VSa5bNbmk dangerous] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfZmzvrsy7c inaccurate] way. Bonus points for ''[[Dude, Not Funny|jokes]]'' about fainting diabetics! Whee!
** To clear things up, "No Sugar, Sugar" (the original) made it seem like ''any'' amount of sugar is bad for a diabetic. "Uptight (Oliver's Alright)" (the re-edited version) presents more accurate information about the condition, in that diabetics (especially type 1) need sugar every once in a while to keep their blood sugar levels even.
* A Canadian children's program once tried to tackle the serious subject of alcoholism and [[Berserk Button|Intermittent Explosive Disorder]]. That show was ''[[
* ''[[Kids Incorporated]]'' had an anti-drugs episode, an episode about homelessness, an episode about child abuse, and a surprisingly poignant episode about Kid's estranged older brother. Oh, and they each contained [[Mood Whiplash|the usual happy covers of popular songs and]] [[Imagine Spot|Imagine Spots]] and were each aired in the middle of a week's worth of otherwise completely off-the-wall fantasy episodes with magic robots and such.
* The ''[[Mork and Mindy]]'' episode with Mr. Bickley's blind son seems to have multiple Aesops: accept handicapped people, learn to see life in a new way, don't abandon your son... But it's not well-handled because this is a show about a [[Cloudcuckoolander]] alien who says the darnedest things. Just to give an example of how poorly executed this episode was, they used the "Does your guide dog get scared when you're skydiving?" joke.
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*** Arguably, the moral is "if you're taking so many drugs that you hallucinate that your ''dog'' is warning you off, you'd better rethink things".
** An early "Above the Influence" add showed two teenaged boys smoking pot in the office of the father of one of the boys. One of them noticed a gun on the desk and picked it up absently. When his friend asked "is it loaded?" he said it wasn't and fired, presumably killing his friend. The intended message was probably something like "marijuana will impair your judgement in life threatening ways." But the danger came off as so contrived that message could easily be "[[Idiot Ball|don't leave a loaded gun with the safety off on top of the desk in your unlocked office when your thirteen-year-old son is in the house.]]"
** There was another odd set of anti-drug ads where a girl high on weed is shown (through [[Uncanny Valley|icky special effects]]) to have melted into the couch. Doug Benson has a terrific deconstruction of how clueless this ad was in (of course) ''Super High Me'': if your reaction to an anti-drug PSA is [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made
* The ''[[Saved
** Also the episode that dealt with the dangers of drinking-and-driving. Now, this subject unfortunately isn't that far removed from real-life high schools (not that Bayside could be considered entirely realisitc), but the presentation is questionable. Bottom line, Zack and friends get found out because they keep telling different cover stories and get left with a lot of holes to plug. It's as if the intended lesson was "If you're going to lie, keep your story straight so you don't get caught."
* There was a [[Government Information Adverts|Public Service Announcement]] at a local TV station which used its puppet mascot and tried to explain the difference between "good touching" and "bad touching". The trouble is, they used footage from [[Looney Tunes]] cartoons while they were talking about "good touching"... including [[Bugs Bunny/Characters|Bugs Bunny]]'s crossdressing smooches on Elmer Fudd, and multiple shots of Pepe Le Pew. Someone clearly wasn't paying enough attention when that PSA was made....
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{{quote| "Remember to wash your hair only ''once'' every two weeks!" (Eww...)}}
*** This sounds odd today, but [[Technology Marches On|shampoo was harsh]], even corrosive back in the Fifties. Washing it every day would have made them look like they stuck their fingers in a light socket regularly for fun. It sounds warped out of context though.
* ''[[
* The Truth's line of anti-tobacco PSAs are often well written, but one is an [[Egregious]] case of [[Did Not Do the Research]], where they try to prove tobacco companies were aiming their products at kids because cigarettes were shown in ''[[The Muppet Movie]]'' -- because clearly a movie featuring Muppets can only be for kids. ''[[The Muppet Movie]]'' was released in 1979, when [[Jim Henson]] was out to prove puppets could appeal to ''older'' audiences and a film didn't need an R rating to be made for adults.
* The well-intentioned episode on ''[[Star Trek:
** Also their choice for all the 'asexual' aliens to be played by women, because you know it wouldn't do for Riker's [[Love Interest]] to look like a man. (Okay, it ''is'' [[Shown Their Work|scientifically accurate]] because the only vertebrates we know of who can [[wikipedia:Parthenogenesis|reproduce asexually]] are [[One-Gender Race|all female]]. Still...)
*** This actually annoyed [[Jonathan Frakes|Jonathan "Riker" Frakes]] a bit, but the producers didn't have the [[Stealth Pun|balls]] to have the <s>hot babe</s> androgynous alien played by a guy.
*** In fairness to the producers, casting androgynous or asexual aliens as women was a typical Star Trek trick, which had works previously for the Talosians (Original Series) and the Bynars (Next Generation). But [[Failed a Spot Check|no one seemed to connect the dots in this case]].
**** Could also be considered [[Completely Missing the Point]] by some viewers because the episodes was ''supposed'' to have the "straight" metaphor character be oppressed by the "gay" metaphor characters, as part of a common ''[[
** "Symbiosis", the anti-drug episode. The ''Enterprise'' rescues some of the crew and a couple of barrels of cargo, considered more important than crew by those who weren't rescued, on a ship going between two planets in a system that has only interplanetary travel and is losing that. Planet #1 is supplying a drug to planet #2 that is an addictive cure for a plague that has, Dr. Crusher discovers, been wiped out centuries ago. This is the sole industry of Planet #1 -- they don't even have their own ships -- but only Planet #2 uses the drug. Everyone stops the Enterprise from seizing the drugs by citing the Prime Directive. Because of this, Picard retracts an offer to send parts for fixing the ships to Planet #2 because of the Prime Directive.
*** An argument can be made that the episode isn't anti-drugs so much as anti-exploitation and slavery. There is a slightly out of place [[Character Filibuster]] on the subject, but it arguably avoids being too anviliicious by virtue of coming from the character's established traumatic background.
* Due to [[Executive Meddling]], the entire ''[[The Weird Al Show|Weird Al]]'' Show ended up as [[Take That|clueless Aesops]]; which annoyed the star. My personal favorite is "The way to deal with bullies is open communication". ("I want your money." "Here it is, please stop hitting me." is open communication, isn't it?)
* ''[[
** [[Harsher in Hindsight]] considering Todd Bridges came out later saying he was repeatedly molested during the show's run.
* Even ''[[Police Camera Action]]'' is not invulnerable to this trope. In fact, possibly more so than ''[[Hannah Montana]]''.
* The 1998 episode ''Rust Buckets'' is a possible [[Trope Codifier|example]] of this, and just ''could not'' handle the episode's issue (unroadworthy vehicles) well. In fact, in Part 2 after the commercial break, it went ''off-topic''!
** The episode ''Unfit to Drive'' from the 1996 series, ''Enough's Enough'' from the 1997 series, and (to a slightly lesser extent) the 1997 episode ''Don't Look Back In Anger'' tend to sometimes forget what the aesop they're dealing with is.
* Parodied by ''[[
{{quote| '''Narrator:''' This is a man. And this isn't.}}
** Also parodied by ''[[The Sooty Show]]'' (even though the episode itself was a straight attempt at trying to get across at least some basic sex education) when Matthew tries inexpertly to give [[The Talk]] to Sweep, hampered by his use of [[Dissimile]] and [[Metaphorgotten]].
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** Never lie? Flexible depending on the situation.
** Money is the root of all evil ''if'' you have it. If you don't have money, money is the cause of all your problems, as is evidenced in episodes where a senior-citizens' home is being sold, a woman's animal shelter is being sold to developers, and an episode where kids won't have Christmas because their dad doesn't have a job.
* [[Walker, Texas Ranger|"Walker told me I have AIDS."]]
* There was a brief flare-up of PSAs that instructed children to go and get an adult if they saw or read anything on the Internet that made them uncomfortable, without quantifying what such things might be. Given [[Rule 34|the]] [[The Internet Is for Porn|number]] [[Fetish Fuel|of things]] one can find online that can make grown adults uncomfortable, this seems a little ill-thought-out. (But at least parent and child can sit and stare at the walls for a while together.)
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== Puppet Shows ==
* Any children's show where a main character or actor dies either avoids the issue entirely, [[The Other Darrin|casts someone else to take their place]], or say they "[[Character Outlives Actor|moved away]]"... except for the most notable [[Averted Trope|aversion]]: The death of Mr. Hooper (Will Lee) on ''[[
** Sesame Street ''did'' have a show about divorce. Then they realized that there was ''no way'' they could present the issue well and scrapped the episode, swallowing the cost.
*** Part of the issue with that episode was that it apparently not only showed the aftermath of the divorce, but the parents going through it as well. Kids were just too upset by it.
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== Video Games ==
* The Tales series in general, and ''[[
** ''[[
*** Its even worse than that. {{spoiler|Ragou was caught red-handed for ''feeding people'' to his pets [[For the Evulz]] and was punished with a slap on the wrist. Cumore had the authority to keep sending people out to die in the desert because frankly no one cared to stop him. The justice system is obviously, hilariously broken and its apparent that Yuri's vigilante acts saved a lot more lives than Flynn's [[Lawful Stupid]] approach to things.}}
* The moral they try to get across in ''[[
* [[Ryu ga Gotoku
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== Web Original ==
* This trope was brutally satirized in ''[[The Onion]]'' article "[http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38286 Talking To Your Child About The WTC Attack]", which encouraged parents to give a no-holds barred explanation of the world history leading up to the World Trade Tower attacks in order to answer why this bad scary thing happened (serious [[Tear Jerker]] warning). Although given that the material is fairly obscure even among adults who try to keep with the news, the real moral might have been "try hard to understand world history, and don't believe the simplified explanations we have to tell our kids."
* Poked fun at by [[
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* There was an animated story in ''[[Yo Gabba Gabba]]'' about anthropomorphized drops of water and oil who live in towns across from one another. They are separated by a line in the middle of a road and they are not allowed to mix with one another. Now, the story looks like it's heading towards a [[Green Aesop]] when an oil drop runs across the road and collides with a water drop. But the story focuses on how together they make a pretty rainbow. And then all the oil and water drops start playing together. The message was ''supposed'' to be "it's wonderful when people who are different play together", but unfortunately children will probably interpret it as "go ahead and pour oil in the sink/bathtub/etc. to make pretty rainbows".
** Also, oil and water? Not well-known for mixing together. It (hopefully) should be blatantly obvious that generally oil ''should not be in water''.
* ''[[
** It gets bad when they introduce a character that's pretty much every offensive gay stereotype rolled into one, and [[Seth
* The (in)famous episode of ''[[Arthur (
** What makes it even worse is that D.W. never got punished. Arthur spent an entire week making a model plane, and DW not only ruins the wet paint, then blames it on Arthur, but she then throws his plane out the window, after he specifically told her not to touch it. She's not even sorry that it broke, blaming the plane for being defective because it didn't fly. Arthur hits D.W. in retribution, but gets all the blame.
*** From what we've seen. [[Unreliable Narrator|Her punishment could have happened off-screen.]]
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*** To be fair, hatred had been established as toxic to Captain Planet, as the counterpart to Heart. It was also used to summon Captain Pollution.
** The [[G-Rated Drug|Mind Pollution]] episode. Linka gets hooked on a fictional drug called "Bliss" that has ''instantaneous'' addictive properties. Since the nuances of real drug addiction are drawn out and complicated, everyone who used Bliss just got turned into a mindless zombie.
** "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBfkI51sVyc Teers In the Hood]" for the [[Heroes (TV series)|waffles!]]
** Oh goodness, the AIDS episode...
{{quote| '''Todd:''' Man, AIDS stinks!}}
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*** If you're trying to curb overpopulation, wouldn't a logical approach be to teach kids that orphans are perfectly good kids who need homes? That way you're teaching compassion for others instead of accidentally calling anyone who had quadruplets evil.
*** What's more, since this was a show aimed at kids, they had to execute the whole anti-overpopulation message without mentioning birth control or abstinence. So kids are told to make smart choices about family planning, but they're not explicitly told how.
* The infamous Saturday morning special ''[[Cartoon All
** American children were treated to a similarly [[Anvilicious]] message from Bush, Sr.
** And Aussie kids got one from Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Kind of funny in retrospect, as he's the Prime Minister celebrated for downing a [[wikipedia:Yard glass|yard of ale]] in eleven seconds when he was younger (making it into the Guinness Book of records), so you have to wonder what else he got up to back then. But then, this is Australia, where you're looked upon as weird if you don't like to get smashed at least occasionally.
** Apparently, the special was not advertised as being a [[Very Special Episode]] prior to it first airing, fooling kids into thinking that it was going to be a purely fun crossover cartoon super special. Little did they know that they were about to be [[Anvilicious]]'d to oblivion.
** Y'know, some of those very cartoon characters being aware of drugs [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made
* ''[[The Flintstones]] [[Spinoff Babies|Kids]]'' "Just Say No (to drugs, of course)!" prime time special. It's less infamous than "Cartoon All-Stars", but it could almost be the type specimen of the Clueless Aesop Very Special Episode. It features your trademark crazy inaccurate information, a [[Long-Lost Uncle Aesop|whole new set of characters]] introduced during the episode, and radical changes made to a main character after hanging out with the aforementioned new characters. The latter two elements were used '''just''' to deliver the Aesop [[Snap Back|and none of them were ever acknowledged after this one episode]]. And, oh yeah, there's the bizarre sight of the slapstick-prone Flintstones characters talking about drugs. And to top the whole thing off with a bonus, there's a ''killer'' [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] moment or [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]]: [[Michael Jackson|Michael Jack]][[Rock Theme Naming|stone]].
** ''Another'' [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] moment: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZvHiiWFbBU "It tastes gooood, like a-- *click click* cigarette shoooould!!"]
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** Even worse is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYxQgjfeoDU this Sonic Sez], which attempts to teach a respectable Aesop ("Only dial 9-1-1 in a real emergency"), but Sonic inadvertently tells kids that "If you're being attacked by people who mean you harm, calling 9-1-1 would be a dumb joke."
** There is an even more ridiculous [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBDtu2AmktA Sonic Sez], that may suggest the writers knew exactly how silly this was. Grounder smashed himself while chasing a rabbit, a container of pills falling out of him in the process. The rabbit goes to take them, only for Sonic to stop him. The pill bottle reads, "For Grounder, Robot Headache Pills, Take One A Day With Oil."
* An episode of the ''[[Double Dragon (
* The [[Classic Disney Shorts|Classic Disney Short]] "[[Donald Duck|Donald's]] [[Blatant Lies|Happy Birthday]]" (1949) was about Huey, Dewey and Louie wanting to buy Donald a birthday present but Donald insists that the nephews save money. Once they get the money, they buy Donald a box of cigars. Donald jumps to a conclusion and thinks they want to start smoking, so he forces them to smoke the entire box only to later find out the cigars were meant for him. Here, the nephews are thinking of their uncle and working hard for the money, while Donald wants the boys to save money and not smoke, but the problem is, Donald is supposed to be seen as the bad guy--he becomes aware he's a smoker by forcing the nephews to smoke when they get punished for being good? You're left with a very screwed-up morality tale, and the disturbing ending doesn't help.
** The aesop seems more like "Don't jump to conclusions" or "Think before you act impulsively", rather than having anything to do with the risks of smoking...In fact, who says it's even playing out an aesop on the first place? It seems more like it's all [[Played for Laughs|Played for]] ([[Black Comedy|dark]]) [[Played for Laughs|laughs]].
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*** You know, in 1949 no one really though smoking was bad. Just saying.
* Ah, ''Tinkerbell & The Great Fairy Rescue''. This entry in the otherwise surprisingly good ''[[Disney Fairies]]'' movie series soured some viewers thanks to it's intended Aesop being presented in such a clueless way as to become downright [[Warped Aesop|warped]]. The morals of the story were probably originally meant as, "spend more time with your child" and "don't stifle your child's imagination" and "have an open mind". In practice, the moral instead became an alarmingly [[Anvilicious]] [[Science Is Bad|Science Is]] [[Science Is Wrong|Badong]] [[Script Wank]]. These days, do we really need a children's film where a skeptical biologist is the antagonist?
* [[In
** The show also had a real life one with "Feeling Pinkie Keen" (from the same writer, oddly enough). Similar to the "Tinkerbell" example, the message was supposed to be that you shouldn't obsess over finding explanations for all the weird stuff you see. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJQGS0ZMf0A Twilight's final summation] had some unfortunate phrasing that made it sound like the message was "Scientists should admit that God exists."
* Also happens [[In
** At the end of the episode, Chef specifically calls this out, points out that the people teaching the sex ed (Mr. Garrison, Mr. Mackey, and Miss Choksondick) are all misguided, misinformed, or just plain clueless about sex themselves, and says that if the parents want it done right they should do it themselves.
* According to ''[http://www.everythingisterrible.com/2012/02/drug-avengers.html Drug Avengers]'', an obscure and [[Deranged Animation|very weird]] educational cartoon recently exhumed by ''[[Everything Is Terrible]]'', the reason [[Space Whale Aesop|Earth will not be able to join the Galactic Federation in the future]] is because we do too many drugs. Yup.
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