5 Bizarrely Perverted Products from Family Friendly Brands
Plenty of us grew up watching things like Transformers and Star Wars, because our parents felt reasonably secure in the knowledge that the most objectionable thing we were likely to see were a few laser blasts, a handful of explosions, and a woman in a metal bikini strangling an intergalactic rape slug to death -- certainly nothing that was going to give us nightmares or turn us into confused piles of prepubescent sexual frustration.
But as it turns out, those "kid-safe" franchises were just waiting for an opportunity to betray decades of parental trust in the most spectacularly pornographic ways possible, which is the only possible explanation for why we got officially licensed products such as ...
A Star Wars Art Book That Is Secretly Full of Nudity
Even if you're a huge Star Wars fan, it's completely acceptable to not have any idea who Aayla Secura is, considering the fact that she got approximately six and a half seconds' worth of screen time in the only watchable Star Wars prequel (she was the blue-skinned Jedi who got shot 900 times in the back with laser guns during the "Order 66" scene in Revenge of the Sith). For some reason, her official bio consists of more words than that.
Pictures always help. Let's see if this one rings any bells:
Yep, that is Aayla Secura. And this isn't some random Photoshop snagged from DeviantART -- it's an officially licensed painting by Evan Wilson, hand-chosen by George Lucas himself for Star Wars Art: Visions, an art book featuring paintings by incredible artists like Alex Ross, Boris Vallejo and Jeremy Lipking. These contemporary masters united beneath the banner of Star Wars to create stunning illustrations such as "Darth Vader's Writhing All-Male Sleepover":
If you have any idea what the hell is going on in this picture, please email us at unsolved@cracked.com.
The book carries the official Lucasfilm seal of approval, and Emperor George even wrote the foreword himself, polishing off a package intended to help thousands of Star Wars fans polish off their packages.
While these depictions of blue nudity admittedly fall on the more sophisticated end of the masturbation scale (the end on which you feel an overwhelming urge to wear a monocle and talk about cheese while "throttling the Cantina Band"), it seems like any official boner fuel is too much for a franchise that many would argue was created for the sole purpose of keeping Toys"R"Us in business. There's also no indication that Star Wars Art isn't appropriate for all ages -- it's entirely likely that some well-meaning grandmother has gifted this throbbing tome to her young grandson, forever creating an awkward set of unmet expectations on each subsequent birthday.
A Series of
In addition to a series of money-printing video games and trading cards, Pokemon has spawned a few different comic adaptations over the years, because cash has to be generated in absolutely any medium where it can be grabbed. The franchise is about as kid-friendly as a game about enslaving a race of sentient monsters and forcing them into gladiatorial battles against each other, which is another way of saying that all the violence is generally bloodless, and all the characters are earnest, inoffensive children.
Again, this is not "Rule 34" fan art some horny 15-year-old posted to 4chan. This is officially licensed Pokemon wank material.
When creating a comic adaptation of the Pokemon cartoon series in 1998 (right at the very height of Pokemania), Japanese publisher Shogakukan decided it would be a good idea to tap into the artistic talents of Toshihiro Ono -- an artist best known for his work in hentai (also known as "graphic cartoon fuck drawings") under the pen name of Kamirenjaku Sanpei. That's right -- he drew manga porn that was so hardcore, he felt the need to use a false name. As you might expect from a guy who's accustomed to drawing monster tentacle sex all day, his idea of "toning it down" meant inflating all of the girls' chests to a parodical degree and dressing Misty (who, again, is maybe 12 years old) like a nitro stripper from some 1980s vision of the distant future.
Because cultural standards of what is and isn't appropriate for children vary wildly across certain hemispheres, when the Pokemon comic The Electric Tale of Pikachu made its way to the United States, all of the female characters' attributes were deflated to a more biologically correct size:
... and someone had filled in the girls' illegally pornographic outfits with a black Sharpie. The revised version is on bottom (the panels are reversed because Japanese comics read from right to left):
Photoshop can only go so far, however, so some scenes from the original comic had to be removed entirely, such as Misty washing her bare breasts beneath a waterfall in hopes of getting them to "evolve" before catching Ash and Brock spying on her and streaking off into the night.
It's not quite clear whether the comic was edited to make it conform to Western standards, or whether Toshihiro Ono just wildly misunderstood what the publishers meant by "pocket monster".
Marge Simpson Posing Nude for Playboy
The precise point at which The Simpsons collapsed under the weight of its own greatness is a matter of some contention among fans. Some might point to the infamous "Principal Skinner is really a fraud named Armin Tamzarian" episode in the ninth season. Some would instead call out Homer's transition from lovably stupid to "borderline maniacal and barely employable" stupid. And still others might point to that time in November 2009 when The Simpsons' producers decided to feature Marge Simpson in a spread for Playboy magazine.
"But Cracked!" you might be saying to your computer screen right now. "The Simpsons has always pushed the 'family friendly' envelope!" First of all, the "Eat My Shorts" T-shirts we all owned when we were 10 disagree. Second, Playboy editorial director James Jellinek acknowledged that Marge Simpson's inexplicably yellow skin was bared in an attempt to staunch the flow of their bleeding subscriber base by attracting younger readers, which seems to suggest that neither Playboy nor The Simpsons has any idea who their audience is anymore.
The spread also featured a one-page interview with Marge, complete with the expertly crafted gay jokes we should expect from a sitcom in its 25th year of production ("When I was a little girl there were three men I wanted to marry: Elton John, Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly. But for some reason it never worked out.") and Playboy's trademark Playmate Data Sheet, which normally contains personal facts about the model's interests and measurements but in this case contained the interests and measurements of Bart Simpson's mother.
In case you're still one of those weirdos of the "Well, that's not that bad" opinion, allow us to show you Marge Simpson's nipples:
Yep, you have now seen an official, signed-by-Matt-Groening depiction of Marge Simpson's nipples, made doubly creepy by the fact that this character is based on Groening's mother. And she's offering you a taste of her "doughnut."
Sony Fills Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz With Ramps Made of Giant Breasts
As its name implies, the objective of Super Monkey Ball is to select a monkey that best represents you as a person and roll around an obstacle course in a giant ball, avoiding bottomless chasms and miniature golf-style hazards until you eventually reach the finish line. It's the pictographic definition of "child-friendly video game," so much so that the only possible way to make it objectionable would be to litter the obstacle courses with mammothian jiggling breasts ... which Sony of Japan, in an attempt to drum up interest in the PS Vita, totally did.
Sony launched an ad campaign featuring busty Japanese model Yukie Kawamura as its spokesperson to try and convince adults to buy their new portable gaming system, because what every 30-year-old man wants is a device that will let him jerk off to an animated monkey game in a public place.
And, to make sure that grown-ups everywhere really got the message that this charming game about monkeys in giant rubber balls was absolutely intended for mature audiences, they incorporated Kawamura's physique into the game itself, allowing gamers to bounce their magical cartoon chimps across her jumblies:
So, the handful of adults who purchased both a PS Vita and a copy of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz got to roll their monkey balls all over Kawamura's body. Her ample bosom served as both a ramp to launch your monkey, or as an obstacle in the way of you completing the level (in both the literal and meta-gaming sense).
"I'm suddenly compelled to take my hands off of the controller."
"What's the point of having a level based around a semi-naked model if you can't get that model semi-naked and watch her play it?" you might be asking, if you are one of the 18 people this product appeals to. Well good news, friend, because Sony thought of that. They sat Kawamura on a giant pink ball in her trademark bikini and filmed her rolling breastily around while playing a level in their adorable monkey game for kids:
Here's where you're tempted to say something like, "Man, Japan is crazy!" but honestly, we refuse to believe that nobody over there thought this was a tiny bit weird. The same goes for ...
Transformers: Kiss Players Turns the Transformers Into Pedophiles
The Transformers franchise has gone through many, um, transformations in its 30 years of existence, but for the most part it has remained pretty standard Saturday morning cartoon fodder, right up until Michael Bay decided to trash it up with a corrosive dose of CGI, racism and robot testicles. Believe it or not, that's actually not the most offensive thing that's ever happened to the robots in disguise.
Behold Transformers: Kiss Players, the 2006 Japanese toy line by Takara that reimagined the Autobots as shape-shifting space robots who gain their power by kissing very young girls. For some reason, the Kiss Players don't all transform into rusty old panel vans and child endangerment litigation.
"More than meets the eye!" indeed.
The ballad of these mechanical heroes and their uncomfortably sexual relationship with preteen girls was fleshed out by an accompanying comic book and radio drama series, because if you want your product to connect with kids in the mid-2000s, you need to have a strong radio presence. And just in case you thought the creepiness ended with predatory kissing, get ready for a gratuitous scoop of underage body horror -- in addition to planting their cold steel lips on elementary school students, the Transformers actually "fuse" with their young victims, which is another way of saying that these Transformers have naked children inside of them.
Instead of titanic battles for control of the universe, Transformers: Kiss Players seems to be focused more on the Autobots trying like hell to keep the Decepticons from raping their young female companions.
Just to be clear, his tongue is a penis.
That sentence may sound like hyperbole until you reach the scene wherein one of the girls is captured, strung up in bondage gear, and doused in a spray of ... um, transmission fluid? (We don't think we can post an image of that without getting raided by the FBI). Furthermore, according to this YouTube translation of the Transformers: Kiss Players radio drama, there is a scene in which plucky young heroine Melissa licks ice cream off of Optimus Prime's stick shift. That's a line not even Michael Bay would cross.
Scott Elizabeth Baird thinks Highlander 2 is the best one. Disagree? Discuss it with him here and here.
For more childhood betrayals, check out 5 Childhood-Ruining Appearances from Famous Characters. And then check out 24 Facts That Will Ruin Your Childhood.
