A little while ago (well, it seems like only a little while but was in fact-holy crap- a little over 2 years ago) I wrote an article for Cracked.com about the 9 Manliest Names in the World. It was one of the first articles to appear on the revamped site right around the time it absorbed the PointlessWasteOfTime.com forums, along with editor David Wong, who threw open the doors to all the long-time posters and gave us a chance to write some comedy for money.
It was the first of a grand total of two articles I wrote for the site along with some other small stuff, and it was great fun. It’s still one of my favourite things that I’ve written, and that’s not just because I got paid for it. First, it was a great learning experience for me, handing in a dense, poorly worded article and having the editors pick over it and take out everything but what worked. It taught me a lot about how to write things that are funny.
But it’s also experienced a longevity that I never expected. Two years after it was published, it’s currently sitting on well over a million views, which as one of the writers of a blog that on a high traffic day can boast readers of a hundred or so, is a staggering number. Every other week I get messages from people who’ve just read it. And those readers have suggestions.
Of course, some of the suggestions are “UR LIST SUX DIE INA FIRE!!11″ but every once in a while I’ll get a PM on the Cracked boards, suggesting another entry for the list. Most of those are completely unverifiable, things like “my friend has a cousin who knew a guy once called Shaftboner Donghammer”. But every once in a while someone suggests a person and I’ll think “why the hell weren’t you around when I was writing this thing?”
Today I opened my inbox to see one of the most manly names I have ever seen. My own. But below that was a message from a reader, who’d stumbled across the article and who had a suggestion for another name. The name?
Dick Killington.
PROFESSOR DICK KILLINGTON
I mean, wow. And it’s verifiable too, he’s mentioned in a Times Higher Education article and on the University of Leeds website, where he’s a Professor of Molecular Biology in addition to being one of the room wardens.
So that’s just wonderful. I mean, you can’t go past the man who topped the list originally, the inimitable Sergeant Max Fightmaster (who I’m told is now a First Sergeant in the US Army, because would YOU be denying Max Fightmaster a promotion?) but if anything Prof Killington embodies even more what I wanted to get at with that list- ordinary, everyday people, who happen to have ridiculously manly names. Some guy signing his bank cheques with “Dick Killington” and the cashier not believing that’s really his name. Imagine being pulled over and the cop asking what your name is, and you say “Dick Killington”. That is intensely funny to me.
Not to mention, it gives me a great idea for a possible villain for Max Fightmaster to take on in the movie the universe must produce of these most manly-named men. Sergeant Max Fightmaster against the evil Professor Killington, and his threat to release a deadly supervirus into the atmosphere that only HE has the cure for! He’s holding the world to ransom! It’s a race against time, will Fightmaster be able to get there before the needlessly elaborate release mechanism is released? Well, yes, of course he will, but isn’t it going to be fun finding out how?
Tags: The November Challenge