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5. England goalie blames gaming for poor performance
When England was knocked out of the Euro 2008 championship before it even started – an act technically known as “failing to qualify" (or "sucking really badly") – goalie Robert Greenblamed the team’s failure on how kids were playing videogames. Did he need the magic of children believing in him to succeed, much like Santa Claus or Tinker Bell? If your sporting ability depends on whether the children watching the game are paying attention to the match, then you shouldn’t be against videogames because you are in one.
Above: Robert Green (top left)
What's more humiliating is how England, who apparently invented soccer over a hundred years ago, were knocked out 3-2 by Croatia. You'll notice how that score means Robert failed his country three times, which is probably why he didn't notice doing so a fourth time by opening his mouth [Edit: a commenter has pointed out that Green wasn't actually the goalie during that loss. Sorry Robert - looks like we mixed up the dates of your failures]. At any rate, goalies really shouldn’t be against videogames, what with Wii 2 and 3 (or as they’re nicknamed, “Move” and “Kinect”) out now. A whole new generation will be raised with Mr. Green’s apparently deficient skill of “standing in one place and flailing at moving objects.”
Article continues below4. Falling Shrek sales
Dreamworks Animations CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg provided a terrifying glimpse into the mind of marketing executives when he blamed poor sales of DVDs with Shrek 3 on videogames, and not on the fact that somebody had ruined those DVDs by putting Shrek 3 on them. In the movie mogul's mind, the only thing which could possibly affect sales was a change in the environment, not unlike how a similar environmental change killed the dinosaurs.
The quality of the product didn't even occur to him – not as an issue, and certainly not as something a Shrek sequel could have lacked. The plan was to keep pumping out sequels forever and blame anything which could possibly distract from that, like something legitimately entertaining.
Shrek 3 DVDs sold badly because even the most brain-damaged idiot has a limit, and between cinema and DVD that brain-damaged idiot had already paid to see Shrek five times. Shrek’s “make fairy tales into pop culture parody” shtick had become pretty old, and hearing Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy sleepwalk their way through their roles just wasn’t that enticing to people with money to spend. Katzenberg should be grateful people didn't demand compensation for the disc’s existence in our world.
Above: Imagine paying to stare at this stupid face forever. Then realize you don't have to. Congratulations, you are now happy!
Luckily for pretty much nobody, Dreamworks seems to have recovered – this past November, TV manufacturer Samsung tossed in Blu-ray copies of all FOUR Shrek movies in 3D with purchase of a 3D-capable TV. You know – just to keep the franchise fires burning. It’s not like Mike Meyers is hard at work on The Love Guru 2 or anything.
3. Girl kicks dog, triggers karma, blames Nintendo
A girl kicked a dog, the dog bit the girl, and thefamily and the media blamed Nintendo. This demonstrates how insane the average person is (and how little they know) about videogames, and why attempts to reason with some old media is more futile than explaining pacifism to a starving bear.
Now what happened is tragic. However, the claim that the dog viciously attacked simply because it heard barking coming from the girl’s DS seems ludicrous. And in fact, it is. At the close of the source article it’s briefly admitted, almost as an aside, that there’s a decent chance the girl had actually kicked the dog in question. So, she was playing Nintendogs on her DS and she put the boot to a very large dog in the real world. Can you spot which of those actions was likely the trigger?
Above: If this could spur you to violence, you’re an escaped Nazi experiment
Despite these facts, the family had other ideas. "I think this game should carry some kind of warning," the girl's grandma told The Mail. First off, a grandma would put warning labels on oxygen if a reporter asked her about kids breathing these days. Second, anyone who needs a warning label for a DS puppy simulator is dead because the sheer force of you thinking about them just crushed their precious snowflake bones.
