The dual anniversary of Joe McCarthy’s “Red Scare” and Jerry Falwell’s “Purple Scare”…

Two notorious warnings about threats to the American way of life are linked to the date February 9th.

In both cases, the quotes generated national attention when they were reported in the press. But the results were considerably different.

On February 9, 1950, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy made an ominous announcement in a speech to the Ohio Country Women’s Republican Club of Wheeling, West Virginia.

In the speech (online here) McCarthy famously claimed:

“I have here in my hand a list of 205 that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist party, and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy in the State Department.”

This quote was essentially the public launch of what evolved into an anti-Communist panic and witch hunt that lasted for years.

It was soon dubbed “McCarthyism.”

That term was originally coined in a March 29, 1950 political cartoon by the great political cartoonist Herbert Block, who signed his cartoons as “HERBLOCK.”

Exactly forty-nine years after McCarthy launched the Cold War era “Red Scare,” national news was made by another controversial public figure who was trying to launch what might be called a “purple scare.”

The story was broken on February 9, 1999 in an Associated Press story written by journalist David Reed.

It reported that televangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell had announced that the children’s TV show Teletubbies was secretly trying to turn kids into homosexuals.

The comments by Falwell in the AP story generated a great deal of additional media attention.

However, they created far more eye-rolling, snickers and scorn than alarm. And, no official Telletubby witch hunt followed.

The AP article that broke the story said:

The Rev. Jerry Falwell is trying to out Tinky Winky, suggesting that the purple, purse-toting character on television’s popular “Teletubbies” children’s show is gay.

The February edition of the National Liberty Journal, edited and published by Falwell, contains an article warning parents that the rotund Teletubby with the triangular antenna may be a gay role model.

To support its claim, the publication says Tinky Winky has the voice of a boy but carries a purse.

       “He is purple – the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle – the gay-pride symbol.”

Falwell contends the “subtle depictions”' are intentional and issued a statement Tuesday that said, “As a Christian I feel that role modeling the gay lifestyle is damaging to the moral lives of children.”

Of course, the fact that these famous/infamous warnings by McCarthy and Falwell are both associated with the date February 9th is just a coincidence — OR IS IT!?! 

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Related reading and viewing…

Notable quotes quote lists of 2018 (updated)…

EDITOR’S NOTE: This an updated post that fixes some typos and links. I had previously posted the unedited draft by accident. Sorry about that.

Every December, I like to read the various lists of the “top,” “best” and “worst” quotes of the year that are posted online and published in magazines and newspapers.

The most widely read is the annual “Most Notable Quotes” list selected by Yale Law School librarian Fred Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations (a must-have reference book for any quotation buff).
 
Each year, his list is sent out by the Associated Press news service and published by hundreds of newspapers and websites.

The quotes Fred selects are not necessarily the most repeated quotes of the year. He uses his judgment to pick the quotes he also thinks are worthy of note because they “reflect the culture of our time.”

Fred explains that “often it’s quotes that are not admirable but quotes that are silly or negative in some way. In our current world political scene, the United States maybe dominates that kind of quotation.”

Shapiro’s top ten quotes of 2018 are not all quotes by Donald Trump. In fact, only one is, and it’s not Number 1. But six quotes are related to Trump and Shapiro’s pick for the top slot was said by someone who represents the President. Here are all ten...

1. “Truth isn’t truth.” — Rudy Giuliani, in an interview on Meet the Press, August 19. He was discussing why he won’t let special counsel Robert Mueller rush Trump into testifying. Giuliani said he doesn’t want investigators to trap the President into a lie. “Truth is truth,” NBC's Chuck Todd noted to him. “No, no, it isn’t truth,” Giuliani said. “Truth isn’t truth. The President of the United States says, ’I didn't ...’” Todd responded: “Truth isn't truth? Mr. Mayor, do you realize, what...I think this is going to become a bad meme.”

2. “I liked beer. I still like beer.” — Brett Kavanaugh, remark on September 27, defending himself against suggestions that he drank too much in high school, during the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on his nomination to the Supreme Court. The lines quickly became a subject of jokes on Saturday Night Live and other comedy shows, political cartoons and social media sites.

3. “While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.” — A Twitter tweet posted on May 30 by the Sanofi drug company, in response to Roseanne Barr’s claim that Sanofi’s sleep drug Ambien caused her to post a racist tweet that led her to be fired from the revived version of her show, Roseanne.

4. “We gather to mourn the passing of American greatness, the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those that live lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served.” — Meghan McCain, in her eulogy for her father, Senator John McCain, on September 1. It was clearly a barb aimed at President Trump, who had publicly insulted Sen. McCain on multiple occasions. 

5. “We’re children. You guys, like, are the adults. You need to take some action and play a role. Work together, come over your politics and get something done.” — David Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, in a CNN interview, February 15.

6. “(I am) not smart, but genius.…and a very stable genius at that!” — President Donald Trump, in a tweet on January 6 that immediately turned “a very stable genius” into a new catchphrase and source of jokes.

7. “You don’t have to agree with Trump but the mob can’t make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone.” — Kanye West, in a tweet on April 25, expressing his continued support for Donald Trump, despite the intense negative reactions it attracted.

8. “Our country is led by those who will lie about anything, backed by those who will believe anything, based on information from media sources that will say anything.” — James Comey, in a tweet on May 23, after being fired from his position as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) by President Trump for not stopping the Mueller investigation of Trump’s possible collusion with Russia and violations of US campaign and business laws.

9. “I have just signed your death warrant.” — Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, addressing former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar on January 24, after she sentenced him to up to 175 years in prison for sexual assaults of young athletes.

10. “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd! And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” — Rep. Maxine Waters. A controversial remark she made at a political rally in Los Angeles on June 23, suggesting that angry Democrats should harass Trump Administration officials when they see them in public places.

Of those ten quotes, I suspect only #1, #2 and #6 are likely to be widely cited for a significant length of time. They are the ones that were most frequently reposted and mocked on the internet and late night comedy shows.

Naturally, there are online lists that focus solely on controversial things President Trump said or tweeted in 2018.

For example, Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large compiled an annotated list of “The 41 Most Unreal Donald Trump Quotes of 2018.”

Trump’s “very stable genius” quip is not Number 1 on Cillizza’s list. For his top slot, he picked another Trump quotation that made Trump haters’ heads spin: “The country is doing well in so many ways. But there’s such divisiveness.”

Cillizza commented: “What’s amazing here is that Trump seems entirely unaware of the role he has played in the country’s divisiveness. That’s not to say we weren’t divided before 2016 – we were – but it is to say that Trump exacerbated those divisions for political gain, and continues to do so.”

On the other end of the political commentary spectrum, Fox News commentator Dan Gainor posted a list titled “Hating Trump in 2018: the Top Five Most Incredible Liberal Media Quotes of the Year.”

Gainor’s top pick for that list was a remark by CNN news commentator Don Lemon in which Lemon appeared to rationalize violence by the so-called Antifa: “It says it right in the name, Antifa, Anti-Fascism, which is what they’re fighting. Listen...no organization is perfect. There is some violence. No one condones the violence. But there are different reasons for Antifa and for these neo-Nazis to be there. One, racists, fascists, the other group fighting racists...There is a distinction there.”

Gainor said of this quote by Lemon: “When you say ‘No one condones the violence’ followed by the word ‘but’ you are the one condoning the violence.”

Whether you’re a Trump lover or a Trump hater, if you want a fairly comprehensive list of Trump’s most widely-noted quotes in the form of tweets, check out the list compiled by CNBC journalist Kevin Breuninger, titled “Trump’s most memorable Twitter bombshells of 2018.”

That list is ordered by date and kicks off with Trump’s “my Button works” quote. That one was the President’s response when he heard that North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un had claimed the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.”

Trump tweeted: “Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

If you think CNBC is a “fake news” outlet, you can read a similar list on the Trump-friendly Breitbart News site, titled “Top Donald Trump ‘Very Stable Genius’ Tweets of 2018.”

Ironically, that list is almost the same as CNBC’s.

The year 2018 wasn’t a good one for new famous quotes outside of the political arena. Take movies, for example.

Some years are great for memorable movie quotes that become catchphrases. 2018 was not. I could only find a few lists of top movie quotes for the year and I doubt if any of the quotes they include will ever be added to the lists of the top movie quotes of all time.

However, if you’re a movie quote fan like me, it’s interesting to check out the list of 44 movie lines dubbed “Best Movie Quotes 2018” on the Movie Quotes and More site
and the list of “The 12 Best Lines Of Movie Dialogue In 2018” on the Cinema Blend site.

There are two quotes that showed up on both of those lists.

One is “It’s fucking Chucky!” That’s a line said by the character Sixer #6 in the movie Ready Player One when he sees an image of the killer doll from the Chucky horror movie series. I’ll be surprised if anyone is citing that quote years from now, the way people still quote classic lines, like “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” or “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” But I could be wrong.

The other quote on both lists is more interesting. It’s a quote spoken by actor Rami Malek in his highly praised role as Freddie Mercury, front man for the band Queen, in the movie Bohemian Rhapsody.

“We’re four misfits who don’t belong together. We’re playing for other misfits,” he says when a journalist asks what makes Queen different from other rock bands. “They’re the outcasts right at the back of the room. We’re pretty sure they don’t belong either. We belong to them.”

There didn’t seem to be any big new TV catchphrases in 2018. But I did find one entertaining list of TV quotes of the year on the TVLine.com site.

It’s titled “Best TV Quotes of 2018” and it’s one of those lists you have to scroll through. But it’s actually a pretty good, well documented list, with photos.

None seem likely to become sticky pop culture sayings, but the list is fun to read.

Naturally, some have a connection to President Trump. In the “Hamilton/Berg” episode of the show The Last Man on Earth, the character Cannibal Karl (played by Fred Armisen) suggests that not all people eaters are bad, saying “Good people on both sides.” 

That, of course, is a humorous variation of President Trump’s infamous comment that there “were very fine people on both sides” in the clash between white supremacists and alt-left anti-fascists in Charlottesville, Virginia in August.

But my favorite TV quote from the TVLine.com list reflects the fact that I am a huge fan of the long-running TV show Supernatural.

In the episode, “Let the Good Times Roll,” first aired in May 2018, the alternate universe version of the character Bobby Singer (actor Jim Beaver) is shocked at some of the things he sees in the news on TV. The main characters of the show, brothers Sam and Dean Winchester, had previously referred to the world alt-Bobby comes from as “Apocalypse World.”

Remembering that, Alt-Bobby quips: “Let me get this right: The ice caps are melting, a movie where a girl goes all the way with a fish wins Best Picture, and that damn fool idjit from The Apprentice is president…And you call where we come from Apocalypse World?”

It wasn’t that many years ago that memes became a big thing on the internet. Apparently they still are and I found several lists of 2018 memes.

None may become as famous as early memes like “I Can Has Cheezburger?” But some did gain notoriety, like the countless variations of the “scared to moan” meme.

As explained on the DailyDot.com site: “It seems like every user puts their own spin on the meme’s wording, but they all express some variation of, ‘You guys are scared to moan during sex? I’m in my girl’s ear like…’ followed by a short video of some animal or human making a hilarious noise.”

If you want to read some lists of 2018 memes, check out these three:

●  “The Memes That Defined 2018 — From ‘Scared To Moan’ To ‘Bongo Cat.’”

●  “The 108 Best Memes of 2018.”

●  “Memes Rule Everything Around Me: The Best of 2018 Edition.”

I looked for lists of quotes from other realms and found quite a few; many of them very nichey.

For example, on various special interest sites, you can read:

●  “Quotable Wine Quotes of 2018.”

●  “2018: The Year In Quotes From Corporate Board Member”

●  “Top Marketing Quotes of 2018”

●  “2018: Year of the Woman, in 5 Powerful Quotes”

●  “‘She said What?’”: The best quotes from women in 2018”

●  “Best LGBT quotes of 2018: Moving things queer people said this year”

●  “Artist quotes: best of 2018”

●  “Bad sex award 2018: the contenders in quotes”

●  “The best celebrity quotes of 2018"

●  “Most Shocking — and Revealing! — Celebrity Quotes of 2018"

●  “The very best (and worst) celebrity quotes of 2018"

●  “The Best Sports quotes of 2018”

●  “Top Inspiring Travel Quotes by Famous Travelers of 2018”

●  “The Story Of 2018 Told In 25 Uniquely Baffling Quotes”

One of the most amusing compilations of 2018 quotes I saw is a YouTube video posted by a young comedian named Alonzo Lerone, on his “Get a Dictionary” channel.

Alonzo specializes in reading Internet posts and comments that are full of typos, misused words, and bad grammar.

In his YouTube post “TOP 50 Funniest Senior Quotes of 2018,” he reads the things some graduating high school seniors picked as the “Senior Quote” to be shown in their school yearbook.

I have no idea where he found them all, but he cracks himself up reading them. And, I gotta admit, even though none of them are memorable quotes that will be posted and reposted on the internet or included in books of famous quotations, it cracked me up to hear Alonzo read them.

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Related reading – and some daily quotation calendars for 2019…

“Baseball been berry, berry good to me!” – the famous SNL catchphrase of Garrett Morris as Chico Escuela…

If you’re old enough to have been watching Saturday Night Live in the late Seventies you might have been watching Episode 5 of Season 4 when it first aired on November 11, 1978. (I am and I was.)

Buck Henry was the host. The Grateful Dead were the musical guests. And, there were several classic skits — including one at the end that introduced what would become a famous TV catchphrase.

The sketch takes place at a meeting of the St. Mickey’s Knights of Columbus.

After dealing with a few business items, the organization’s leader, played by SNL cast member John Belushi, announces that the club would have a special guest speaker that night.

Dan Aykroyd, playing the Knights’ treasurer, notes that the group had to go into debt to pay the speaker’s steep $900 fee.

Belushi then introduces this special guest: “the immortal” Chico Escuela, a former all-star baseball player for the Chicago Cubs who came to the US from the Dominican Republic.

After being introduced, Chico — portrayed by SNL cast member Garrett Morris — gets up, stands at the podium and says in a thick Hispanic accent:

“Thank you berry much. Baseball been berry, berry good to me. Thank you. God bless you. Gracias!”

Then he sits down.

Astonished by the brevity of this $900 “speech,” Belushi’s character asks: “Is that it Chico?”

Chico thinks about it a second, gets up again and adds: “Keep you eye...keep you eyes...on de ball.”

After which, he sits down again.

Belushi says sardonically: “Thank you, Chico. You’ve been an inspiration to all of us.”

Three weeks later, during the December 9, 1978 episode of SNL, Morris’s Chico made a second appearance and repeated his line “Baseball been berry, berry good to me!” several times — making this the night on which it gained official catchphrase status. 

In that episode (Season 4, Episode 8), the host was Monty Python star Eric idle. Kate Bush was the musical guest. Dan Aykroyd performed the insanely funny skit in which he plays a frantic Julia Child, who bleeds to death after cutting her finger. And, Don Novello showed up as Father Guido Sarducci.

Chico was in the Weekend Update segment with Jane Curtin, who announced that he had been hired as the Weekend Update sports commentator. After being introduced by Jane (this time as a former New York Mets ballplayer), Chico says:

“Thank you. Thank you, berry, berry much. Baseball been berry, berry good to me. Thank you, Hane.

[A photo of major league player Pete Rose, who had recently signed a four year, 3.2 million dollar deal with the Philadelphia Phillies, appears behind Chico.]

Pete-ee Rose...Baseball been berry, berry good to Pete Rose. Three-point-two-million-dollar para Pete Rose. Charlie Hustle, you bet. Thank you berry, berry much.

In foot-ball... I don’t know football. In Dominican Republic, football is — how you say, Hane? Um, Oh! Soccer! Your football... I don’t know.

In National Hockey League... I don’t know hockey.

In baseball… Baseball been berry, berry good to me! Thank you berry much. Thank you. Thank you berry much. Hane? Thank you, Hane.”

Hearing Chico’s fact-challenged report, Jane responds sarcastically: “Great job, Chico. I’m glad that we haven’t hired just another stupid ex-jock sportscaster.”

Morris went on to appear as Chico Escuela eight more times before leaving the Saturday Night Live cast in the summer of 1980.

Each time, he repeated “Baseball been berry, berry good to me!” (sometimes written as “Beisbol been bery, bery good to me!” and in various other ways). It remains one of the most famous of the many memorable catchphrases created by SNL.

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Related viewing and reading (and other stuff)…

“Coffee, Tea or Me?” – the catchphrase popularized by a hoax based on a joke...

Back in the 1960s, when air travel was more pleasant and our culture was less politically correct, airline stewardesses were hot – at least in terms of their popular image.

Most stewardesses were young and single. In the media, they were often portrayed as both desirable and attainable – as women who liked to fool around with pilots, passengers and lucky local citizens at stops along their routes.

The airlines tried to cash in on and promote this image in the mid-Sixties with ads that featured beautiful stewardesses and taglines like “I’m Cheryl. Fly Me.”

Then, on November 21, 1967, the Bantam paperback edition of the book Coffee, Tea or Me? was published, about a month after the hardcover edition had been released by Bartholomew House.

Subtitled The Uninhibited Memoirs of Two Airline Stewardesses, this widely-distributed, wildly successful paperback further popularized the stereotypical image of fun-loving, promiscuous stewardesses.

It also made the sexually provocative phrase “Coffee, Tea or Me?” a familiar saying.

The book was portrayed as a humorous but fact-based memoir co-written by two stewardesses named Rachel Jones and Trudy Baker.

When it was published, two young women using those names went on a media tour to promote it.

Soon, Coffee, Tea or Me? became a national best seller, then an international best seller. 

Three sequels were published and credited to Rachel and Trudy.

In 1973, Coffee, Tea or Me? was even made into a TV movie starring Karen Valentine and Louise Lasser.

Decades later, it was revealed that the real author of the Coffee, Tea or Me? books was Donald Bain.

Bain was working as a public relations man for American Airlines when he wrote Coffee, Tea or Me?  

Thanks to its success, he went on to become a prolific full-time novelist and ghostwriter who has since penned dozens of popular books (including many of the Murder She Wrote novels).

“Trudy Baker” and “Rachel Jones” never existed.

The women who went on the book tour were two actual Eastern Airlines stewardesses, but they were hired by the publisher’s publicity agent to pose as Trudy and Rachel.

It was a supremely well-executed hoax that generated a ton of money for Bain and a memorable phrase that’s still used and lampooned today.

In the introduction to later reprints of the book, Bain wrote that the title Coffee, Tea or Me? came to him halfway through writing it after he heard someone recite an old airline joke that used the phrase.

If you’re old enough, you might remember the joke: A stewardess enters the cockpit of a commercial airplane and asks the pilot, “Coffee, tea or me?” The pilot says, “Whichever is easier to make.”

Bain says in his intro:

"Little did I know in 1967 that the book I was writing with a title lifted from a lame old joke would go on, along with its three sequels, to sell more than five million copies, be translated into a dozen languages, cause anxious mothers to forbid their daughters from becoming stewardesses, spawn airline protest groups, have its title inducted into the public vocabulary and be republished thirty-six years later, branding me the oldest, tallest, bearded airline stewardess."

Speaking of lame jokes, there’s a funny coincidence about the illustrations used on the covers and interior pages of the Coffee, Tea or Me? series. They were drawn by Bill Wenzel, one of the greatest of all adult cartoon artists.

Cartoons featuring Wenzel’s bosomy, airheaded babes, typically accompanied by classically lame and sexist captions, appeared in countless men’s girlie and humor magazines from the late 1940s into the early 1980s. He also did many paperback covers.

You can read more about Wenzel in the excellent book about him that was published in 2000 and in the authoritative posts done about him by vintage paperback and magazine maven Lynn Munroe. You can also see scores of his cartoons in this Google image search.

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Related reading…

“To crush your enemies...”

For readers of this website who may not know about my other quotation site, QuoteCounterquote.com, here’s a post that will give you an idea of what you’ll find there. Basically, each post on QuoteCounterquote.com features background information on a famous quotation followed by a set of quotes that are interesting or humorous uses, variations and take-offs on the main quotation. It’s easier to show you what that means than explain it, so below is an example based on a famous movie quote. If you like this post, click here to see more. If want to subscribe to future QuoteCounterquote.com posts, click on one of the subscription options at the top of the right sidebar. Cheers!  *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

THE FAMOUS MOVIE QUOTE: Barbarian General (actor Akio Mitamura): “Conan, what is best in life?” Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger): “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!”        From the film Conan the Barbarian (released in the US on May 14, 1982)        Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “crush your enemies” line in Conan the Barbarian became the first of his many famous movie quotations as an actor. It’s also the first line he speaks in the film after a full twenty minutes of backstory recounting how Conan was captured as a boy by brutal barbarian raiders, used as a slave, then trained to be a vicious pit fighter and a warrior for his captors. Here’s the dialog from that scene (which you can watch on YouTube):                       Barbarian General: “We won again. This is good! But what is best in life?”          Warrior: “The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, wind in your hair!”          General: “Wrong! Conan, what is best in life?”          Conan (Arnold): “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!”          Barbarian General: “That is good.”       Conan’s last seven words are sometimes quoted as “to hear the lamentation of the women,” because Arnold’s Austrian accent makes the word “their” sound like “deh.” But I’m pretty sure it’s “their women” given the inspiration for the movie quote.       John Milius, who directed Conan the Barbarian and co-wrote the screenplay with Oliver Stone, didn’t create Arnold’s famed catchphrase from whole cloth. It’s not in the Conan stories written by the creator of the character, Robert Howard. But it’s based on a passage in a book by one of Howard’s favorite writers, Harold Lamb.                     In Lamb’s classic 1927 biography, Genghis Kahn: the Emperor of All Men, he gives his version of a legendary quotation by the great conqueror at the end of Chapter 11. Lamb wrote:                        One day in the pavilion at Karakorum he asked an officer of the Mongol guard what, in all the world, could bring the greatest happiness.                        “The open steppe, a clear day, and a swift horse under you,” responded the officer after a little thought, “and a falcon on your wrist to start up hares.”                        “Nay,” responded the Khan, “to crush your enemies, to see them fall at your feet—to take their horses and goods and hear the lamentation of their women. That is best.”        The version of Khan’s words crafted by Milius (and/or Stone) for Conan the Barbarian became a popular catchphrase that has since been cited and adapted many times. Some of my favorite examples are below...

THE FAKE NEWS VERSION: “I said, ‘Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women,’ but the media took that totally out of context.”        Peter Kuper        American illustrator and cartoonist                       His caption for a cartoon spoofing Conan and the frequent lament of politicians, published in The New Yorker, January 2017

COHEN THE BARBARIAN’S VARIATION: [Nomad]: “What is it that a man may call the greatest things in life?” [Cohen the Barbarian] “Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.”        From the Discworld novel The Light Fantastic (1986) by Terry Pratchett                    This quote by the Cohen character (aka Ghenghiz Cohen) is a is a favorite of Discworld fans. Cohen is an aging, toothless barbarian who speaks with a lisp when he’s not wearing the special dentures he has made from the diamond teeth of the troll Old Grandad.        (Portrait of Cohen with his diamond dentures by Paul Kidby.)

THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL: “The heroic figure in Conan the Barbarian was actually paraphrasing Genghis Khan when he gave his famous answer to the question ‘What is best in life?'... An alternative idea came from Galilee: What is best in life is to love your enemies and see them reconciled to you.”        John Ortberg        Evangelical Christian author, speaker, and senior pastor of the ECO Presbyterian Menlo Church in Menlo Park, California        In his book Who Is This Man?: The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus (2012)

THE INTERNET TROLL MINDSET: “WHAT IS BEST IN LIFE? TO TROLL YOUR ENEMIES, TO SEE THEM BUTTHURT BEFORE YOU, AND TO HEAR THE LAMENTATIONS OF THEIR FOLLOWERS!”        An internet meme seen on ImgFlip.com

THE ROBOT CHICKEN MUSICAL ADAPTATION: [Conan singing]: “What is best in life? That is hard to say, for each man is unique in his own way. As a boy, I liked gumdrops and puppies, sailboats and frogs, and my best friend little Ricky Maebius! But when I became a young man, what was best in life began to change just like my body. I liked pretty Stacy Lyon with her long blonde hair and eyes that were blue as the ocean! But now that I’m grown, my thoughts have changed, and it’s pretty clear to me. The answer to the question, ‘What is best in life?’ is plain enough for all to see. Crush your enemies! Crush your enemies! And see them driven before you! Crush your enemies! Crush your enemies! And see them driven before you! And hear the lamentations of the women!”        A hilarious parody song sung by an animated Conan action figure in the “Boo Cocky” episode of the Comedy Channel’s “Adult Swim” cartoon series Robot Chicken (Season 3, Episode 16; first aired September 7, 2008)

CONAN-INSPIRED CHRISTMAS CHEER: “All I want for Christmas is TO CRUSH MY ENEMIES SEE THEM DRIVEN BEFORE ME AND HEAR THE LAMENTATION OF THEIR WOMEN”        Slogan printed on t-shirts and other clothes sold by LookHuman.com

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