Remember the educational TV and classrooms films we all grew up with? Now, imagine they were turned upside-down, run over by a train, dropped from a 30-story building, and trampled by a giant iguana.

Well, that’s How Come.

It’s a comedy series – a parody of everything from Mr. Wizard to Mythbusters. But all the information is all wrong. And the characters are even wrong…er.

Your hosts are Professor Hugh Holcomb, whose only qualification is his family’s ownership in the station on which How Come airs, is as arrogant as he is inane. His co-host is Mia, whose television career has fallen on hard times, and is seeking a comeback at any cost – and this opportunity stretches her to the limits, especially considering how much Hugh likes the smell of hair, and likes to reminisce about that weekend in Poughkeepsie that Mia would rather forget.

Along with a cast of characters including an over-anxious roving reporter, a revolving door of strangely familiar guests and extremely unlucky interns, and the show’s misguided female question & answer computer – who has a crush on Hugh – they guide the audience each week through a downward spiral of misinformation on unexpected topics such as hair, death, chairs, statues, luck, etc., by exploring the science, history, and application of each through a variety of experiments, interviews, montages, “vintage” films, and location segments, all with bizarre and hilarious results that will make you ask “How Come?”

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During the Dark Ages, Germans had a ritual in early February in which they would sacrifice their firstborn aunt to a giant creature known as the Gründschwein. Standing 30 feet tall, wielding a giant, meaty oar (from which the term meteorologist is derived – not, as most schools teach, from the study of meteors), he would summon the destructive forces of the weather if not for these offerings. Often, this came in the form of a long winter, sometime lasting right through the summer and on up until labor day, casting a dark shadow on everyone’s vacation plans and barbecues.

The Gründschwein (actual photo)

The creature feared nothing except the sun, but centuries went by before it came out again (remember, this was the Dark Ages), and once it began casting a shadow behind him, it frightened him so badly that he hid for six weeks every time he saw it, often before he had summoned even the tiniest tornado or blizzard.

The entire notion of predicting the weather dates back to this tradition, and today the world relies heavily on a very simplified version of this ceremony to determine the end of winter, which involves a modern day groundhog, but we now know this is a gross distortion, as this common creature has no such abilities, never mind a magical oar wrapped in raw liver and bacon with which to wield power over the skies.

But before the Gründschwein tradition spread throughout Europe and then onto the parts of the world that don’t smell like an armpit, people had no idea that they could predict the type of weather that was coming, and had no hope of being able to do so (much like anyone who watches Channel 4 News).

Is electricity the biggest hoax ever conceived?

Find out in this “educational” film, brought to you by “special arrangement” with ThunkTV financial partner*, Marflux Educational Films.

*Please see disclaimers.

Excerpt from The Universe of Knowledge:

There once was a man from Nebraska

He said, “I’m not sure but I’ll aska”

Why the pumpkins are pale and

The acorns do smell

And that’s why he moved to Alaska

*You are leaving the Thunk TV website. We are not affiliated with this website in any way, shape form or fashion. Thanks for your understanding and enjoy your useless products.

Ralph & Henry were the bestest of best friends, and they loved to go out into the forest and build little shacks and lean-to’s where they could ramble out loud (and often in their diaries) about their contempt for meat, society, government, taxes, haircuts, and how their families always pushed them to become dentists, to the point of obsession (something they ridiculed as if it were some kind of religion they liked to jokingly call “dentalism”) and they practically dedicated their lives to transcend this notion.

These two would sit for hours around little campfires, making up silly little poems that didn’t rhyme very well, and writing at length about the most mind-numbing variety of leaves and flowers that you can possibly imagine. Henry often made fun of Ralph’s ease at getting himself lost, until one night Henry accidentally set 300 acres of the woods on fire, after which his ridicule ceased, at least for a while. The two developed a deep respect for one another and their respective accomplishments (which was of great value to each of them, as nobody else did).

Henry Thoreau (born David, a name he despised, and insisted on being called Henry) was unusually rebellious in his youth, with a contempt for authority and government, and as evident through most of his diaries, this was a phase he never grew out of. Even into his thirties, he was still going on about it. He was born and raised along the ocean in California, and often referred to himself as a “Pacifist” because of this, as a way of separating himself from the schoolmates who picked on him back east.His family name of Thoreau inspired him from an early age to view everything in great detail, and he spent much of his childhood studying while all the other children were playing outside. After his family moved to Concord, Massachusetts to run a grape juice farm, he was a social outcast among his peers, was very self-conscious about his unusually large nose, and would often retreat into the wilderness when bullied. It was on one such occasion that he met Ralph, who had been wandering aimlessly around a muddy little swamp they referred to as Walden “pond,” which became a favorite spot to which they often returned.

Ralph Emerson (jokingly called “Waldo” by cruel schoolmates) was known for his haphazard ways, his distinctive striped stocking cap, and his complete lack of any sense of direction. Sadly, he never realized that his faulty ideas of self-reliance were his greatest weakness, and it was often said that, without his friendship with Henry, that Ralph would have lost his way in the woods, and met his death walking in circles. It is said that Henry would spend hours, even days, searching for him, shouting for him in the forest, something that he would become quite accustomed to in later years.

The two friends often returned to what was left of those swampy woods, and eventually started trying to spread the word about it in hopes that people wouldn’t burn the rest of it down and build condos. But on one such venture, Ralph wandered off by himself, and Henry spent days on end looking for him. Against his better judgement, he went back to the town to plead for help locating his pal, and several of his former schoolmates reluctantly agreed to help, posting signs, and shouting out to him in the forest. Until his dying day, Henry would look for that ridiculous striped stocking cap in every passing crowd of people, shouting “Where’s Ralph Waldo Emerson?” – a tradition that eventually evolved into a series of children’s books that far exceeded the popularity and literary appeal of Ralph & Henry’s journals, which are, amazingly, still sporadically reprinted to this day. Their “transcend-dentalist” philosophy reached new cultural relevance in the 1960s, when their work began to be re-circulated among restless youth, who rejected their parents’ plans for them to become dentists and used car salesmen, in favor of growing long beards and running around in the woods avoiding doing anything useful.

Eventually someone drained that swamp and built an amusement park there, but just like Ralph & Henry’s diaries, it wasn’t very entertaining, so it went out of business. The swamp has since been drained and made into a nature-themed swimming resort, mockingly named “Walden Pond” as Henry once called it, and though it’s not very popular, singer Don Henley is said to have skinny-dipping parties there with a modest gathering of other B-list celebrities and has-beens, which has so far kept it in business.

Ralph “Waldo” Emerson’s descendants went on to start a company that made electronics with the same haphazard, shoddy sense of quality that their family patriarch spent his whole life exemplifying.

zob-lee-am

n. A mysterious entity which manifests itself in a masonry column beside a driveway or street, opposite a bricked postal receptacle.

Not much is known about the xobliam, except the following:

1. The xobliam is hollow and empty.
2. The interior of the xobliam is a constant 37° Fahrenheit.
3. The xobliam is evil, yet it is incapable of action (either physical or telekenetic.)
4. The xobliam contains the exact amount of gases required to fill the interior of a 1971 Ford Pinto.
5. The xobliam is only known to appear in North America.

Common sense dictates several rules of conduct regarding the xobliam:

1. Do not verbally taunt the xobliam. Written taunts have mixed results.
2. Maintain a distance of at least 17 inches from the xobliam at all times.
3. Do not decorate the xobliam.
4. Do not stare directly at the xobliam for longer than 14 minutes.
5. Do not dance around the xobliam (except during the first hour of the winter solstice.)
6. Do not park a car directly facing the xobliam.

Alternate regional names for the xobliam:

Pilar de la Oscuridad (Mexico)

Colonne De Mefait (Quebec)

Nadie Meenvía Cartas (Nicaragua)

Frente al Buzón (Honduras)

Readers:

Help us expand the world’s knowledge of the subject by sending us photos of xobliam sightings in the comments area. Thanks!

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