We all know and accept that failure is a natural part of the business cycle.  Bad ideas will be rejected by the market, and good ideas will flourish and lead to a more prosperous and efficient economy.  Hell, even perfectly good ideas that outlive their usefulness will slowly die ignominious deaths no matter how marketable they were a few years ago.  But some business ideas are so catastrophically awful, so based on warped views of what the market wants, that they fail quickly and often in spectacular fashion.  And we’re not just talking about your local artisanal cheese shop that failed to flourish in a down market.  Most of these ideas had tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars and big name companies backing them, and still couldn’t manage to survive more than a year.
 

Motorola Iridium

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Way back in the late 90s (kids), there were phones that connected to the walls using cords, and voice messages were sent over these vast “wire” networks. But also around this time, the cell phones that we all know and love were beginning to gain widespread popularity (despite their giant size and weight), especially among the wealthy business elite. 
 
The problem was, they didn’t quite work everywhere.  And when savvy business execs were negotiating ways to exploit children in southeast Asia, they had some trouble getting reception because this was Vietnam in 1997, where the locals were lucky to own shoes―much less advanced electronics.  The only solution at the time was a satellite phone, which were outrageously expensive, bulky, unreliable and altogether impractical. 
 
There were several sane approaches to this problem at the time:  Pick up a normal phone.  Wait a few years for infrastructure to catch up and cell prices to go down.  Not worry about it because Motorola is a cellphone company.  Instead, Motorola went the super villain route and launched a dozen or so satellites into low-Earth orbit at the cost of several billion dollars.  After several years of work and billions invested, Motorola was finally ready to reveal…another brick of a satellite phone that cost thousands of dollars and was generally unreliable.   

Not to mention that the areas where it was necessary to use this device (poor, impoverished, devoid of infrastructure), were also the last place you wanted to pull out a $2,000 phone on the street.  Oh did we mention that the phone, like the GPS in your phone now, needed a clear view of the sky to work?  To top it all off, by the time the network was complete, cell phone service had started to become widely available in just about every corner of the globe.  The network was essentially dead upon launch.  The Iridium network is still there, and is reportedly quite popular with Arctic and Antarctic researchers. 
 

Webvan

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Obviously the dot-com boom of the 90s encouraged some of the most spectacular expenditures on the most bone-headed business ideas, so let’s start getting some of the more hilarious examples out of the way.  Webvan was founded in 1999 with a simple idea you think would take off quickly in the Internet age: we have all this Internet shopping, why not allow people to buy groceries online?  A few massive infusions of capital later, and Webvan was off, quickly building facilities 10 US cities, guaranteeing a delivery time of 30 minutes or less, and greedily eying another 16 markets. 

Hoping to copy Amazon’s success as a first-mover in the space (i.e., the first major player can scoop up market share and hedge out future competitors), Webvan’s executives spent like there was no tomorrow, gobbling up warehouses and delivery trucks.  There was just one, tiny, itty-bitty problem: no one had any freaking idea what they were doing.  None of the executives had any experience with grocery stores or retail food sales at all.  And this led them to miss one all-important detail that you think would have come up in earlier discussions when people were throwing millions of dollars at them: Profit.   

Grocery stores, as opposed to the hodge-podge of items being sold on Amazon, have razor-thin profit margins―some of the lowest of any business in the world.  And they can’t leave a product on a shelf for weeks, or even days, hoping that someone will buy it.  Webvan went from tens of millions to hemorrhaging millions within the span of a few months.   

The Kardashian Kard

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If only this had been called the “Kool Kardashain Kard”, every joke about the Kardashians that every needed to be made would have. Imagine the thrilling board meeting where this idea came up:  having exhausted all their make-up, reality shows, marriages, and divorce merchandising, some incredibly boring accountant walked into the room and said, “You know what’s exciting and kool? F*CKING DEBIT KARDS!” 

The idea here was that (shudder) tweens could live the lavish Kardashian lifestyle with this stylin’ debit card without learning a single thing about money.  It’s the American Dream!  Just like the Kardashians, kids could symbolize everything decadent and destructive about modern America. They could do it in style and possibly even without a sex tape.   

Fortunately, the Kardashian Kard of Koolness ran into several roadblocks, the first being outrage from parents and advocacy groups.  Associating important matters of finance with pop culture and a symbol of status led to outcry as some argued it would teach personal finance through opulence, rather than responsibility.  Additionally, the Kards came with various fees which could easily add up to more than $100 a year.  The second and more serious problem was pre-paid debit cards are just plain boring and way too much of a hassle.  Why buy something, put money on it, then use it to buy season one of Keeping up with the Kardashians when you could just guilt your estranged parents into buying it for you?  Unsurprisingly, the kard was a huge flop. 

Kozmo.com

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Much like Webvan, Kozmo.com jumped on to the hysterical “everyone will buy things on the Internet and everything will be delivered”-bandwagon of the late 90s and early Aughts.  Only Kozmo took the Amazon idea and dialed past 11 into 13 territory.  They promised to deliver anything, virtually anywhere inside their markets, even if it was only a $0.50 pack of gum.  It quickly became a favorite among young professionals and college students, but because this was 2000, the end was coming. 

Contrary to popular belief, the idea of delivering just about anything wasn’t all that crazy.  The problems Kozmo suffered from were twofold: low margins and jittery investors.  Seems that paying someone to deliver a pack of gum tends to cost a lot and not net the company too much money.  After an initial capital investment of $280 million, Kozmo had to find a way to make themselves profitable after overextending to too many unprofitable markets.  Believe it or not, they actually succeeded, and their top 6 regions were actually briefly profitable. 

Of course this was shortly after the NASDAQ tanked.  Kozmo’s executives went to investors with their profits, expecting the money needed to go forward with a merger that would keep them afloat.  That’s when some genius in the boardroom realized that, even though Kozmo was turning a profit, the margins were still too razor-thin.  They wouldn’t see the principle on their $280 million dollars for years down the road, not to mention to two to threefold return on investment they’d begun to expect in the dotcom era.  And that is the reason why we all have to get up off our asses and actually walk to the corner store like savages for gum. 
 

XFL Football

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In 2001, Vince McMahon and NBC got together to fill the NFL off-season with something other than reruns of Friends.  They decided to start a hip, new league with lots of boobs and perhaps the most annoying commercials ever played ad nauseum. 

The XFL was supposed to be a meaner, tougher, grittier version of football, designed to attract a younger demographic and, as McMahon elegantly put it, “people who watch movies”.  They cobbled together a bunch of sub-NFL level athletes and threw the whole gaudy, over-hyped mess on TV for precisely no one to enjoy.  To everyone but McMahon’s lack of surprise, it set new records in how small of an audience a sporting event could get. 

But despite our hindsight hatred of this thing that invaded every commercial space from December through February, it’s more football, isn’t it?  Who wouldn’t cheer the chance to not have to wait almost 6 months for the new season to start?  The problem was that in trying to brand the XFL as a new, edgier, more sensational football league, McMahon and NBC managed to alienate all of their viewers who like football.  The overwhelming reason cited for not watching the XFL season was “it looks too much like wrestling”.  Fans refused to believe that the entire exercise was genuine and not staged like every other thing McMahon puts his hands on.  Though it was slated for at least two seasons, the incredibly low TV ratings of the XFL led to its cancellation after only a single season. 
 

Kibu.com

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Kibu.com opened its doors to much fanfare in the fall of 2000, but quickly became yet another victim of the dot com bust.  So who cares?  Hundreds of seemingly promising businesses back by millions of dollars died in that virtual firestorm.  What makes Kibu, a site targeted at adolescent girls, any different than the hundreds of sites that thought they could get rich quick off of ad revenue alone (heh)?  Well Kibu set something of a record, even in the crazy dot com era.  A short 46 days after their opulent launch party in a San Francisco neighborhood, they shut their doors.  In less than a month and a half, the entire company tanked. 

So what happened?  Well it’s kind of unclear.  What’s likely is they made the same mistake countless other dotcoms did, they targeted a tiny, fickle, difficult-to-capture market, and expected minuscule advertising revenue to lead to the astronomical returns on investment their backers were expecting.  Still, Kibu remains as one of the shortest-lived vs. most-hyped dotcoms of the early Aughts, despite having a name that sounds like some sort of Japanese fetish site. 

The Edsel

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One of the most famous flops in business history, the Edsel was a series of cars produced by Ford from 1958-1960.  Spending a mind-boggling $400 million to develop and market the cars, the Edsel (named after Edsel Ford) was supposed to be Ford’s newest and most exciting entry, a shot over the bow of its competitors.  Instead it became one of the swiftest and most expensive flops in automotive history. 

By all accounts, the Edsel should have succeeded wildly.  It was slickly marketed, price-competitive with competitors, and a generally well-built with plenty of top-of-the-line features.  But as they rolled them out, Ford started hearing disconcerting stories about consumers taking one look, then walking out of the dealership.
   
So what was the problem?  Well there are many differing opinions on the subject, ranging from the price, marketing, appearance and reliability.  All of which sound like an exercise of “It should have worked, buuuuut”

Price: It should have worked because the Edsel was only slightly more expensive than the basic Ford models.  Buuuut, no one quite knew what the Edsel was supposed to be (a luxury car? A budget alternative?) — and so the price still seemed too high.

Marketing: The slick marketing campaign built a lot of anticipation around the Edsel’s release by only showing the car through unfocused lenses and thin, gauzy sheets. Buuuut, again, like above, no one knew what the hell the Edsel was supposed to be.  Also the name is ugly as sin.

Appearance: Even by today’s standards, the Edsel is not a bad looking car.  It’s a bold design to be sure, but it’s still slick and classy.  Buuuut, at the time it looked like “an Oldsmobile sucking on a lemon”

Reliability: On paper, the Edsel was a sturdy car built with good parts and meant to last.  Buuuut, the assembly of the Edsel often took place in different plants, making quality control nearly impossible.  Some cars were shipped to dealers only partially assembled, with instructions in the trunk.

On paper, the Edsel must have looked like a slam dunk to Ford executives, but it’s amazing that with all the numerous tiny problems, no one pointed a single one out.   

Premier Smokeless Cigarette

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By now you’ve likely ran into at least one douchebag at a party smoking an E-cigarette while gushing about how healthy it is.  If he’s really a douche, he’ll straight smoke it in bars and then yell self righteously when he gets thrown out and ruins everyone else’s night (Steve).  This futuristic-looking smoking device doesn’t burn tobacco, but instead vaporizes a nicotine gel.  The smoker gets their nicotine fix without having to tear up their lungs. Why didn’t anyone think of this before? 

They did,  in 1988. It was called the the Premier Smokeless Cigarette. Company spokespeople often said that if smokers would just stick it out, they’d quickly acquire a taste for the new cigarettes.  Which is unfortunate because consumer studies showed that few smokers made it past their first Premier.  Premier survived less than a year, which is amazing because that’s a hell of a lot shorter than Camel Snus and I dare you to find a single person not on an airplane who enjoys those. 
 

Netflix Price Raise

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Last July, the popular Netflix service decided to split its streaming and DVD services into two separate deals.  Netflix would remain a streaming service, and DVDs would be delivered through a separate account called “Qwikster”.  Oh and the price for both services combined went up by around 6 dollars.  The justification generally went that Netflix delivered hundreds of free movies instantly for one-fifth the price of your average cable bill.  Certainly a small increase shouldn’t bother anyone.   

Except they ignored one of the first rules of business: don’t raise prices without offering additional services.  As if that wasn’t enough, customers who had DVDs delivered were now responsible for two accounts, and typing in two website addresses is like, really a lot of work, man.  Trying to perform damage control, Netflix offered a sincere and heartfelt apology which was about as sincere and heartfelt as Darth Vader and Skeletor’s lovechild.   

Eventually, Netflix called it quits.  They kept the price increase, but they gave up on the unnecessarily separate services.  But not before they lost much of their “Not Comcast” credibility, upward of 800,000 subscribers, and 10% of their quarterly revenue. 
 

boo.com

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This high-end online UK retailer launched in 1999.  They left the gate with $135 million in venture capital and launched simultaneously in most major European countries. They burned through their venture capital in less than 18 months, which is more than $250,000 a day.  Unsurprisingly, the capital ran out before sales caught up, and the company went into bankruptcy in 2000. 
 
The funny story here is that boo.com was actually not doing that terribly when the company fell apart.  By the time the money ran out, sales were close to $500,000.  While that’s roughly two days of expenditures at boo, in any other environment that would have been enough to justify further capital investment. But this was the dot com era, and investors were vacillating wildly between “Where are my 300% returns in two years!” and “I need to horde my money it’s the end of the world!”.  $500k simply wasn’t enough to justify further investment.   

But the real reason behind boo’s failure wasn’t investment, it was their terrible, terrible website.  While it might not look so bad nowadays, it combined all the terrible popups and animated logos of the late nineties with the bandwidth-heavy flash widgets of 2003.  And this was in 1999, when somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of their customers were still using dial-up. 

PAW-PALS

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A tiny little shop in Oroville, California, PAW-PALS is probably the worst business idea you’ve never heard of.  You know you’re off to a bad start when the origin story of this quaint little store began with two people walking their cats.  This is an activity that precisely not a single sane person in the world participates in, but oddly founder Jeffrey Sentose thought was a large, under-serviced market demographic.   

The story goes that Sentose was out walking his cat one brisk morning.  All of the planets and stars and quasars and brown dwarfs and asteroids and comets in the universe apparently aligned and he met yet another person out walking their cat.  The two cats got along so well that Sentose, who according to the article never met a terrible idea he didn’t try to make money off of, decided to create a lavish store for people to bring their cats for cat play-dates. 

If you’re shuddering right now, it is because you have actually owned more than one cat and know that cats are evil, angry hellspawn.  Especially when other cats are around.  And especially when they’ve been plucked from the sunny perch they’ve been lounging on for the past 72 hours to go hang out with other cats and other humans.  Cats are the hermetic, possibly homicidal, Ted Kaczynskis of the pet world, and yet Sentose decided he should open a place to bring all these murderous little furballs together like some sort of feline Madrassa.  As proof that there is some justice in the world, PAW-PALS failed within a month, presumably because those strange enough to actually visit the place were never heard from again―a point bolstered by noise complaints that (quite seriously) complained of “frequent mrrrowwwwwwwws [sic] loud and shrill enough to chill the bones of any man”.
 
[PAW-PALS is not actually real.  But honestly, could you could tell the difference?]

 
The fabric of our lives, naturally preserved artifacts, can be worth some serious dough — but people rarely get away with heisting these valuable artifacts due to the major security in museums all over the world. Riots and looting, however, sometimes trump these security measures and many artifacts are destroyed in the process. But shameless looters are not the only reason you won’t see your favorite Chinese tombs in a museum near you — natural disasters, careless construction workers and angry evangelists also make appearances on this list of 5 incredibly valuable artifacts that were destroyed.
 
 

The Museum of Egyptian Antiques

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Loot like an Egyptian? With political unrest reaching a fever pitch throughout Egypt earlier this year, a group of protestors in Cairo decided to focus their anger on the past instead of the present when they broke into The Museum of Egyptian Antiques . At first taking to the newly renovated gift shop and café for over-priced jewelry and snacks, the looters then moved into the museum itself and ran amuck on some of Egypt’s most valuable pieces currently in preservation. By breaking through the glass-paned ceiling and sliding down ropes, nearly 50 Tom Cruise-wannabes trashed various artifacts in the Late Period gallery, stole ancient treasures and destroyed a well-known statue of King Tut on a panther. Which is upsetting, because that sounds both incredibly noble and visually hilarious. 

National Museum of Iraq

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Looters were also the cause of more cultural devastation as groups of aggressors managed to steal more than 15,000 registered objects from the National Museum of Iraq during the month that preceded the 2003 Iraq War. While precautionary measures were attempted in order to secure the museum in the months leading up to the war, looters still managed to walk away with some of the museum’s most historically important pieces. Most of the stolen antiques were assumed destroyed, but nearly 5,000 items were later recovered –Three of which were determined to be the most valuable pieces missing: the Sacred Vase of Warka, the Mask of Warka and the Bassetki statue. Various items were reportedly scattered throughout Jordan, France and Switzerland; the headless stone statue of the Sumerian king Entemena of Lagash, however, was found in the good ol’ U.S. of A (along with almost 1,000 additional artifacts), thanks to aid from a New York art dealer who had encountered the piece. For his troubles, the dealer asked the Iraqi government for his full commission rate and a live scorpion. Neither was granted. 

Chinese Construction Mishaps

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So who’s the jerk in China who ripped into 100 ancient tombs like a 7 year-old on Christmas morning? No one seems to be certain, but because of the “improper excavation of the local cultural relic department”   in Xi’an’s Chang’an District in 2005, they’re all ruined. WAY TO GO, GUYS. The tore-up tombs were evidence of several dynasties (Han: 206BC-AD 220, Sui: 581-618, Tang: 618-907) found scattered in the Zhixin Cherry Blossom Garden in Guodo Town. Apparently this is becoming an unfortunate trend in China though, as construction workers in Nanjing accidentally destroyed 10 more ancient tombs in 2007. What were they working on, you ask? A magnificent cultural institution? A stately cathedral? Nope. An Ikea. They ruined artifacts dating back 1,800 years to construct a Swedish furniture store. Let’s hope they’re enjoying their Dagstorps and Karlstads, because who wouldn’t want a loveseat that lasts a year instead of a piece of history that has lasted lifetimes?

Women’s Club of Huntington Beach fire

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It was neither stupidity nor greed, but instead fire that resulted in the loss of a century’s worth of artifacts at the Women’s Club of Huntington Beach. In 2005, a tremendous fire, which required the attention of more than 50 firefighters and several gallons of always-comforting ice cream, burned the Women’s Club to the ground and engulfed everything inside it. The Women’s Club moved into the building in 1916, and some of the items lost included an antique grand piano, dishes that were used to serve regular meals to members during its inception and decades-old paper records. The club was renowned as an important part of the local community as well as an important part of local history. The members of the club helped establish the city’s first library and held countless educational programs in the early 1900s that were widely unavailable for women at the time. Women’s Clubs everywhere intended on holding candlelight vigils in memoriam of the tragedy, until they realized it was likely a fire hazard and drank wine instead. 

Nigerian Pentecostal Church burnings

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Several years ago, many members of the Pentecostal Church in Nigeria started burning centuries-old, extremely valuable African artifacts to blatantly erase history. Because if someone burns a shrine in a forest, it never really existed and no one ever prayed to it and congratulations, you are probably going to hell for that … right? Led by pastors of the Pentecostal Church, members have been urged to both reject and destruct any “paraphernalia of ancestral worship.”  That means that anything they own, as well as anything their neighbor owns, should most definitely be bonfired. One community in the rainforest belt has repeatedly had to defend its carved god figures and ceremonial costumes from looters and recently instated a gong to sound an alert for intruders. One participator happily confessed his involvement in the bonfires saying that “I had experienced a series of misfortunes and my pastor told me it was because I had not completely broken the covenant with my ancestral idols. Now that I have done that, I hope I will be truly liberated.” Let us know how that works out for you, buddy.

If you’ve ever been stuck at home during the day, The Price is Right has already come and gone, and you weren’t desperate enough to watch General Hospital, odds are you saw quite a few “As Seen on TV” ads.  Some of these products seemed genuinely useful in the alterna-world of infomercials where people seem incapable of opening jars or hanging clothes without a specialized tool.  Hell, some of us even bought one or two of these products (I love you, Slap Chop).  But God help you and have mercy on your progeny if you were the type of person who impulsively bought these things that initially seemed useful, and then later you still thought were useful — because you are obviously mentally ill.  The rest of us, however, should stay away from some of the worst of these products, things like: 
 

The Cami Secret

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Famously known as The Boob Apron, the Cami Secret is the only as seen on TV product that could potentially ignite World War III if it ever saw widespread use.  This is due to the fact that oogling tits comprises somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-100 percent of a man’s daily happiness.  Ask a (straight) man whether he’d rather live in a war-torn post-apocalyptic hellscape, or live in a world without boobs, and you will understand the fragile underpinnings that hold society in place that the Cami Secret is trying to make even more flaccid. 

Fortunately for men, women and the future of humanity in general, the Cami Secret is not only a terrible idea, it’s a straight-up shitty product.  In an Internet where the average rating is 4.4-5.0+++!!!!OMGWOULDBUYAGAIN, the Cami Secret nets a kiss-of-death three stars on average at Amazon.  Browsing through the comments, it seems like the most common review consists of “This product works really well as long as I don’t do anything but sit perfectly still all day”.  Though perhaps men shouldn’t hate on the Cami Secret so much, given its tendency to slip out with the slightest gust of wind.  After all, experts speculate that the remaining 40 to 0 percent of men’s happiness that is not derived from boobs, comes from secretly rooting for nip slips. 
 

Barkoff

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Designed for people who hate their dogs and also like to kick kittens and small children (allegedly), the  Barkoff emits a high-pitched whistle every time it detects a bark.  Sort of like the canine version of Dr. Evil’s “sh!”, this is supposed to aggravate and annoy your pet into silence.  However, to be fair, those of us who’ve lived next door to someone with a yipping little hellspawn would approve this wailing banshee of product as a just and humane response. 

Or we would, if it worked.  At all.  A quick browsing of the aggregate reviews nets a bunch of one-star reviews and one or two five-star reviews.  To those of you who are unfamiliar with the Internet or statistics, this likely means the positive reviews are fake, or at the very least, heinously illiterate (“Makes dog queit”; “wonderfal nothing to change nothing to worry about”).  Even the semi-positive reviews where the Barkoff actually worked, noted that it drained 9 volt batteries at the rate of one every 2-3 days.  To put it in perspective, the 9 volt battery in your smoke detector can easily last 6 months.  

The Potty Patch

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Along with Barkoff, the Potty Patch follows in a long tradition of terrible products for terrible people who should never own pets.  The idea here is that the Potty Patch allows owners to potty-train their dogs without ever having to walk a couple of feet to go outside or possibly (shudder) meet another person.  The Potty Patch video brags that this over-glorified carpet square is super-absorbent and can hold up to a quart of water.  It also has the “natural feel and smell of real grass”.  Which totally misses two important points: 1. Dogs expel waste in two ways, 2. It will not smell like grass for long. 

But whatever, for those horrible people than own small dogs with bladders the size of thimbles, the Potty Patch provides a convenient alternative to taking your yapping terror out in the freezing cold every 30 minutes.  That would be a convenient fix, if only, according to the reviews, dogs didn’t hate the thing, refuse to use it, and the stench of urine didn’t become overwhelming and fill the entire house after one use.  The Potty Patch feels like one of those good ideas that was invented by one person with a lot of supportive friends and family who didn’t have the good sense to mention that he or she was basically inventing a giant poop and piss patch. 

Listen Up

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The nerd in all of us that has never given up on the dream of being James Bond looks at the Listen Up sitting on the shelf at the local convenience store and instantly is filled with fantasies of fast cars, loose women and even looser physics.  The Listen Up makes a passing attempt at being a cheap and dirty hearing aid for the impaired, suggesting that you use it to watch TV with the volume turned low (for everyone else’s comfort).  But then it very obviously hints at the fact that you can amplify conversations up to 100ft away.  The whole point of conversations is that, if you are meant to be in one, the other person will not be 100ft away.  So this is a spy/stalking device pure and simple, it’s even disguised as an…MP3 player? so no one will know you are creepy/trying to prevent the assassination of the president. 

If you have even a cursory understanding of physics, you’ve probably already figured out that the Listen Up will not actually allow you to listen in on your neighbors/suspected terrorists.  For that you’d need some sort of device to capture sounds coming from that specific direction, to the exclusion of all others, or something like this.  Not that it’s impossible to build a device this small that can do that, but you’re not going to get it from $9.99 if you call in the next 10 minutes.
 
Unfortunately, the Listen Up merely amplifies all sound like a poor, grainy hearing aid.  Not only that, the Listen Up has a slight delay, meaning that if you want to use it to watch TV at a low volume (one of its repeated selling points), all you’re going to get is an earful of whooshing noises and a noticeable echo. 

The UroClub

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This may seem like a strange way to begin a paragraph but: come on guys, we all wish we could just piss in a bottle and not pause our video game/lying in bed feeling the crushing weight of existence/Mythbusters marathon to get up and use the bathroom, but we’ve all agreed that it’s really “super gross”.  The UroClub seeks to undermine this last, fragile bastion of civility left to the modern bachelor by acting as a tube you can pee into while golfing.  Take a moment to let that seep in.  Or maybe seep isn’t the best word.  Soak in.  No, shit. Okay let’s just keep going. 

If you have any remaining shred of sanity and/or decency, your mind right now is filled with one word and one word only: “Why?”  If not, I am very sorry for every who knows you, and as a service to them let’s review some basics about this product. 
 
First: It is a tube that you pee into when out on the golf course and no bathrooms are nearby. This sounds convenient and discrete until you realize that you still have to undo your fly and pee into a tube, instead of, you know, some bushes like any other self-respecting man.

Second: Are you supposed to golf with this?  If not, why not just bring a tube that you don’t swing at high velocities over your head?

Third: Golfing takes hours to complete, and temperatures are often high.  You are driving around the course with a hot, fetid, tube full of urine riding shotgun. 
No word from the manufacturers on what happens when the tiny UroClub tube goes into an overflow situation, though most speculate it would be something like “Jesus just go in a bush you pussy”.

Doesn’t anybody drop acid anymore? Either that only happens at music festivals these days, or someone in the drug business has figured out an efficient way to transport large amounts of hallucinogens without letting the crazy seep into their pores. While the usual suspect (cocaine) occupies three spots on our list over the past several decades (including number one), the most recent list-worthy bust occurred just last year and involved the attempted transport of nearly 30 tons of marijuana — which is really too bad, because nobody likes a grumpy stoner.

$6.9 Billion – Cocaine — 1989

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In 1989, the biggest bust in history yielded 20 tons of cocaine, which came out to a street value of about $7 billion, or five “doses” (whatever that means) for each person in the United States. Big time Mexican drug trafficker Rafael Munoz Talavera was about to make it rain on every man, woman and child, had his cohorts not been caught in their warehouse in Sylmar, an upscale residential community near the San Gabriel Mountain foothills in California. Evidence in the trial against warehouse manager Romero McTague (who received life without parole) and the other 6 men arrested in Sylmar (which did not include Munoz), showed that this bust was small potatoes in comparison to the additional 77 tons that had moved through the warehouse in previous months, during which time the DEA was planning their attack. This brought in a whopping $81 million in transportation fees alone, according to the prosecution. Munoz managed to escape jail time for Sylmar, and also remained unscathed for his alleged involvement in importing 200 total tons of cocaine between 1988-89. His reign came to an end in 1998 though, when he was murdered by a rival Mexican drug group and drifted away to his own personal powder bowl in the sky. 

$4 Billion – Heroin — 1991

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It’s the summer of 1991 in Hayward, California: Grunge is happening, Freddy Mercury is still alive, and no one has a clue that Steely Dan is about to spontaneously reunite. Great time for music; a not-so-great time for the heroin business. Authorities snagged nearly 1,200 pounds of China white heroin from a warehouse in Hayward, making it the largest heroin seizure in U.S. history. The estimated street value of 1,200 pounds of Mr. Brownstone came out to almost $4 billion. At the time, the DEA even said that this collection represented 5% of the world’s total yearly production. To get to it’s place in the sun, the drug traveled all the way from Thailand to Taiwan, stowed away on a ship to the Port of Oakland and hitchhiked to Hayward, only to meet its demise before it had enough time to kill a comedian.

$1 Billion – Cocaine – 1984

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Coming in at number three on our list in true Blow fashion, was the 1984 raid of Sr. Pablo Escobar’s now infamous “Tranquilandia,” which was a large-scale laboratory used to process and mass-produce really good cocaine. Stowed away in the Colombian jungle, the Medellin Cartel boss lost an estimated street value of more than $1 billion when the Colombian National Police snatched up 14 tons of cocaine after getting a hot tip from the DEA. The complex, which boasted 19 total laboratories, an independent water source and electrical system, had actual dormitories for the lab workers to blow their noses and sleep off the stimulant. The Cartel also constructed eight private airstrips in the area, specifically for the transportation of their product. Apparently the DEA knows what they’re doing though, and those smarties put tracking devices on ether (which is a major chemical in processing cocaine) tanks purchased by a Medellin Cartel associate, from some chemical plant in New Jersey (shocker). Their fancy devices led them into the Colombian jungles, and the rest is Johnny Depp history.

$600 Million – Cocaine – 2007

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Coke smugglers should really strive to do better work, because in 2007, 20 tons of the drug got intercepted yet again, this time from a Panamanian ship named the Gatun. Unlike most of the busts on the list, this one never made it to a warehouse, and was dubbed the largest maritime cocaine bust in U.S. history, thanks to the U.S. Coast Guard. They were just hanging out on a Sunday, patrollin’, and they caught got the Gatun ridin’ real dirty. DEA administrator Karen Tandy said that (duh), traffickers at least try to make an effort to stash their stash in secret compartments or inside other humans, but these guys “simply loaded these bales of cocaine into cargo containers on the top of the deck of this freighter. They were hiding in plain sight on the main deck.” D’oh! And to think they would have raked in nearly $600 million for this trip, had they not been so obvious.

$20 Million – Marijuana – 2010

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Finally, in true Weeds fashion, no less (because television and movies make real life more relatable, right?), authorities discovered 30 tons of weed (approximately $20 million) in a 600-yard tunnel under the California-Mexico border in November of last year. The tunnel, which came complete with rail system, lighting and ventilation, would have been more than fit to house several families from New York City’s mole people population. The space connected a warehouse in Tijuana to one in San Diego, which now explains how they sedate the beasts at the San Diego Zoo.  It also explains how San Diego’s economy became so dependent on “international trade.” 30 tons of weed.  That equals at least 5 male elephants, which don’t bring nearly as many repeat customers.  Interestingly enough, two days prior to the bust, California constituents voted against a proposition to legalize the personal use of marijuana. To think they could have donated all that green to charity. Sigh.

With today’s technology, crime can sometimes be complicated. Forget the old “club-a-guy-over-the-head-for-his-wallet” crime. Assuming you steal a guy’s I.D., your greatest weapon against him will probably be a computer. Here are 15 criminals that probably should’ve stuck to smash and grabs.

Man Steals Identity of Sex Offender

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James Perry, a Florida man worried about his drunk driving arrests, did the “smart thing” and stole his neighbor’s identity. Apparently, he forgot to do a background check because his neighbor turned out to be a sex offender that hadn’t registered with the cops. Later, he paid for his mistake when he got arrested for disorderly conduct. Nice going, Lex Luthor.

Mayor McCheese Cracks the Case

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If you’re going to steal someone’s wallet, it’s probably a good idea not to use the credit cards at the nearest McDonald’s. Estellamarie Ruiz apparently could not resist the aroma of burgers under a heating lamp. Sadly, this did not end up a Happy Meal, as the cops quickly found her chowing down with the receipts still in her possession. The Hamburglar would’ve done it better.

Bill Gates Gives Away His Money

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As we all know, billionaires love to give away their money. But geek billionaires, like Bill Gates, can’t give away too much money or the jock billionaires will see it as a sign of weakness. That’s why you’d have to be an idiot to fall for this identity theft scam, where the fake email tells you that Microsoft has just randomly awarded you half of a million dollars. That’s about as likely to happen as Windows Vista being able to talk to your printer.

Thieves Use a Cop’s Check

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When you pass bad checks at the Safeway, it’s probably a bad idea to use the name of the head of the local task force in charge of capturing identity thieves. These Einsteins of crime, already on probation, were quickly apprehended. No word yet on whether or not they remembered their discount card during the crime.

Needs More Training

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You have to train your employees, especially to be aware of identity theft. A group of thieves came into a store and rang up $8,000 worth of merchandise. The card set off an alarm, so what did the clerk do? He called the number…that thieves gave him to confirm the credit card. Looks like someone is not making assistant manager this year.

Mail Stealers

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You’d think that tiny, tin box the mailman stuffs your gas bill in would be safe from thieves. Wrong! Even at an apartment building, two thieves jacked it despite video cameras. A $1000 reward was offered for their arrest. Hell, for that kind of reward, it might be worth rigging your mailbox with a tiny bear trap. Don’t worry, your mailman is an experienced professional who would probably never fall for that.

Practice Makes a Moron

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A Minnesota man filed tax returns for other people without their knowledge, taking their tax returns. His excuse? It was just practice! Maybe next time he should practice not being dumbass.

Hacking the Osbournes

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There’s only one thing dumber than hacking someone’s email, hacking a celebrity’s email and then forwarding all her emails to your account. According to Kelly Osbourne’s Twitter, that’s exactly what a mysterious hacker did. The only question now is, did the hacker make a mistake or does he just not know any actual celebrities?

Reach Out And Touch…the Cops

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It’s bad enough if you used a cop’s name on a fake check, but calling the cops to try and make fake credit cards is much worse. Apparently, some criminal genius in Seattle dialed wrong and the savvy cop that got the call led him right to jail. Try again, Al Capone.

Freeze, Pizza Man!

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When a Georgia woman realized her credit card was gone and being used by someone else, she called the cops. The thieves were caught because they used the stolen card to pay for a pizza they were ordering to their own home. No effort there. They won’t be getting free garlic knots and dipping sauce where they’ll be going. Jail almost never has dipping sauce.

There Must Be 50 Ways to Get Arrested

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When you steal an ATM card, it’s a good idea to know the pin number. One determined thief returned to the ATM machine, making 50 attempts to guess the pin number. Wouldn’t playing the lottery make it just as likely and legal for you to win?

Call the Cops on Yourself

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When your laptop is stolen, it’s a good idea to call the cops…unless your laptop happens to have over 30,000 identities listed on it. Hint: maybe asking the cops to locate evidence of your other crimes is not the smartest thing you can do. Maybe while you’re at it, see if the cops can find your giant bag of weed, your stolen car and where you buried that dead prostitute.

The Prosecutor’s Card

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While a friend was in court for a hearing, this moron (or man with giant-sized cajones) stole the credit card of the prosecutor and used it to rack up $1100 in purchases. I’m guessing this probably means the prosecutor won’t go easy on him.

Dumb Cyber Criminal of the Century

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Some people are stupidly open with Facebook, Twitter and other social media because they forget it’s so public. But when you attempt to extort money from a billion dollar insurance company, you might not want to build a website and post your plan for everyone to see. Yes, it actually happened. And you thought those chatty James Bond villains were stupid? Hopefully, his cellmate will make good use of his website building skills.

Despite the world’s trials and tribulations, it seems like a lot of inventors are hell-bent on creating products which are nothing more than a worthless gimmick. This is because people would rather try and buy their way to health and happiness than work toward it. Money-hungry inventors and investors are all too eager to give the lazy and stupid what they want: useless crap which promises to improve the quality of life while really serving no more purpose than a dust-gathering end table in an unused room. Here are 15 of the most worthless inventions to ever separate a fool and his (or her) money.

The Dumbell Cane

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Like olde tyme fitness in an olde tyme way? Then you need the Dumbell Cane from the early 1900′s! Invented by what we assume was an olde tyme scientist, the Dumbell Cane was essentially a very heavy cane with a nickel top. This was more likely used to club unruly man servants and those jerks on the Hi-Wheel bicycles.

Get a Grip Wine Glass Grip

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Have you ever said to yourself, “Gosh, I’m too stupid to properly hold a wine glass!”? Do you wonder how you might make it abundantly clear that you are a clod in front of a group of sophisticated wine drinkers? Look no further! The “Get a Grip” wine glass grip puts a bright red grip on your wine glass that says to the world, “I am probably a toddler, and you should call child services right now.”

Prosthetic Dog Balls

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Do you feel bad about what you did to Rover? No, not the peanut butter thing, the other thing when you took him to the vet and got his nuts removed? What is your best friend going to lick for the rest of his life? The answer is Neuticles! Neuticles allows your dog’s junk to return to its former glory. Now he’ll have something to do while you visit your therapist.

Cleavage Coverage

Let’s face it: boobies are distracting. You don’t want to be doing a kidney operation when the nurse leans over to help and gives you a clear view of her meat jugs. Fortunately, there’s Camiband! Now when that hot chick goes to work, she can wear this and pretend people take her seriously.

The Flatulence Deodorizer

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After years of failure with corks, the inventor of this gadget decided to go in a different direction. Why not stop butt gas near its source? The Flatulence Deodorizer is kind of nice way of saying “Fart Tampon”. But unless your gas is SBD, the noise is probably still going to give you away.

Cat Wigs

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Finally, something for bald cats! Cat Wigs come in a variety of shapes and sizes. It’s the perfect gift for your crazy cat lady that isn’t quite crazy enough. It’s probably the same kind of people that tried to order Kitten Mittens. It is highly doubtful that a cat would ever tell its owner about a desire to own a wig and mittens, and much more likely that weird single women across America are struggling to force these stupid inventions on their poor, squirming cats who want nothing more than to be left alone to their windowsills and strings.

The Dog Sack

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Like your dog enough to take him on a drive, but not enough to let him in the car? The 1950′s had the answer… Kind of. It’s a Dog…Sack…thing. Just fasten old Rover in this bag and I’m sure he’ll remain perfectly still while you barrel through traffic at 60 mph. It’s a good thing pets were disposable in those days.

Phone Fingers

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It’s not really clear what demographic of people would be interested in this product, but for those have a weird rubber fetish and/or love the tiny finger condoms used at the dentist, Phone Fingers is the way to go. Why look like an idiot pounding the touch screen while wearing gloves, when you can look like a douche from the not-too-distant future? It’s truly a product that says to the world, “I’ll buy anything that’s in a Sky Mall catalogue.”

Subway Chinrest

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No, this isn’t a device for Jared, the fast food spokesman if he gained back all his weight, it’s actually a device for people to lean their chins on in the subway. It was marketed in Japan, the only country where this might not look completely insane. But finally, Bill O’Reilly has something to hold up his giant forehead if he gets too tired.

The Pizza Fork

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Sadly, this is not a fork made out of pizza, which would at least be delicious. It is instead a fork with a pizza cutter on the handle. It’s sort of like a lame Swiss Army Knife for people too lazy to wash utensils AND cook.

The Plow Gun

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We don’t know what kind of farm the inventor was running to build this, but it must’ve been pretty bad. When you have to take your turnips hostage or shoot your mule in a hurry, this invention from 1826 is for you. Either way, you’re not getting on a plane with this baby.

Fork Alarm

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And you thought the Pizza Fork was going to be the dumbest fork on the list. This invention has a timer that allows the user to know when its time to take another bite. Still, you have to understand that it was patented in 1995, a crazy era for forks and timed eating. Seinfeld was still on the air and if you could be “Master of Your Domain” you at least had to be master of your fork.

Helicopter Ejection Seat

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No one wants to go down with the chopper, but is it better to get ripped to shreds instead? The Helicopter Ejection Seat probably had good intentions, but the guys that invented it just didn’t think it through. Maybe a Helicopter trap door would work better.

The Prostate Gland Warmer

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Patented in 1918, the prostate gland warmer was suppose to stimulate a man’s “abdominal brain”. Instead it ended up more like an alien probe sans the alien. From the looks of that invention, it may have been adapted for the ladies later on.

The Useless Box

Even more useless than a computer floppy drive or Ryan Seacrest, the Useless Box performs as advertised. It’s a robot whose only function is to turn itself off. Now if only they could somehow adapt it so it would work on Joe Biden’s mouth.

But in all fiction lies a grain of truth–real-life dysfunctional families prove that fact all the time. And the more money the family has, the worse it seems to get. The families below offer some impressively painful examples:

20. The Favres

Meth, manslaughter and machismo–what do all of these things have in common? Why, the Favre family, of course.

Arguably the most famous member of the Favre family is Brett himself. Whether or not you like football, this guy is pretty impressive, on the field at least. His career spanned 20 years and four teams–the Atlanta Falcons, Green Bay Packers, New York Jets and the Minnesota Vikings.

But his personal and family life are much more sordid. Favre’s 1996 Vicodin addiction was the first, but not the worst, piece of the football player’s misconduct. Favre also seems to think he’s God’s gift to women who like tall strapping lads. He got slapped with three separate sexual harassment suits, one from a former New York Jets sideline reporter–she received pictures of Favre’s man parts on her cell phone–and two others from team massage therapists.

Not willing to let her brother hog all the limelight, sister Brandi, who has previous weapon-related charges, was arrested at a meth lab this January. And let’s not forget big brother Scott. He actually killed a buddy while driving drunk. He has also been quoted as saying that he’s “retiring” from people “knowing who the f*ck he is” based on his little brother’s celebrity. Right.

19. The Sheens

Sheen family patriarch Martin seems to have his head on pretty straight. His son, Emilio, whom you might remember from such Hollywood ’80s staples as The Breakfast Club, seems like a levelheaded guy as well.

This begs the question: What in God’s name happened to Charlie? While the other members of the Sheen/Estevez clan handle the strain of their celebrity with a minimum of damage, Charlie almost seems to relish getting into trouble. The Two and a Half Men is firmly implanted in the ranks of celebs who treat rehab and/or jail like it has a revolving door.

It’s ironic that his character in Two and a Half Men was loosely based on Sheen’s image as a media whore with substance abuse problems, because now, Two and a Half Men is on hiatus while he goes back into rehab–after trashing a hotel and scaring his escort bad enough that she hid in the closet until the fuzz arrived.

Sheen now augments his rehab efforts by living with two porn stars. He says his situation is “just filled with just wins” and that he’s “honored to be mentioned in the same sentence” as Hugh Hefner. Oddly enough, he never mentioned acting. We’ll see how long it takes him to get back on the ball (or off his balls) this time.

18. The Agassis

“Tennis is your life. You will eat, sleep and crap tennis. Tennis will be your best friend and your most amorous lover. And if you do not play, well, that is not a consideration. You will play, and you will be good, dammit. The very best!” Andre Agassi’s drill-sargeant father isn’t recorded as saying this all a la Full Metal Jacket’s R. Lee Ermey, but he might as well have.

Day in and day out, the elder Agassi ran his son mercilessly through his own brand of tennis boot camp. Who knew that watching two adults sprint around, batting a tiny ball over a net was so insane?

Daddy’s constant tennis hard-lining did have the the expected result, in that it turned Andre into a kind of tennis-playing superhero. He even cultivated a deep, dark hatred of the sport, similar to the rage that drives the Dark Knight. But Batman never snorted meth when the rigors of bringing the Joker back to Arhkam Asylum (and having him escape…again) got him down.

17. The Barrymores

Image: David Shankbone
Young stars should never be managed by their immediate family. The Barrymores will be happy to provide a stark example of just why this is a stupid idea.

Bear in mind that the Barrymores predating Drew weren’t exactly talentless hacks. John Barrymore, Drew’s grandfather, was one of the most famous and much sought-after actors of stage and (early) screen in his day. Unfortunately, he was also a raging drunk.

And then we come to the generation that spawned the adorable little blonde girl, Gertie from E.T. It wasn’t her debut, but it was most certainly her breakout role. John’s son, Barrymore Jr., was also an actor, but never held a candle to his sire’s success.

What did Mama Barrymore do? She knew her hubby was a wash, so she used her daughter like a meal ticket. Parties, hobnobbing with the elite of the elite, probably some drugs too.

Drew got into drugs, probably as a coping mechanism, and because all the rich kids were doing it. But after she turned 15, she got herself legally emancipated from the coattail-riding Barrymore matriarch. The rest, as they say, is history.

16. The Hearsts

Newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, along with archrival Joseph Pulitzer, helped define journalism as we know it today—despite the fact (or maybe because) their style involved sensationalist “yellow journalism.”

Hearst padded his success by buying lots of really expensive and sometimes weird properties, including Hearst Castle and the Beverly House. He married the daughter of a brothel owner, Millicent Willson, then cheated on her openly with actress Marion Davies, with whom he illegitimately bore actress Patricia Lake. Other Hearst pastimes including verbally trashing Adolph Hitler and being blamed for the Spanish-American war.

With a history like that, no offspring can escape controversy for long. In Hearst’s case, it was granddaughter Patty who hit the notoriety jackpot. She was kidnapped in the ’70s by a guerrilla terrorist group called the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). Their demand in ransom was that Patty’s father donate what amounted to $400 million in food to the poor folks of California, where the Hearsts were living.

Unlike some wealthy sorts (see the Gettys), her father made a fair effort, though he “could have done better,” according to his daughter. She was with the SLA long enough to develop Stockholm Syndrome. She robbed a bank and got thrown in jail. She was supposed to serve 35 years, but her sentence was commuted twice–once to seven years, and the second time by President Carter to only to time served. Later still, President Clinton issued her a pardon.

Now, how’s that for a sensational story?

15. The Osbournes

You probably wouldn’t expect that, of all the entries on this list, Ozzy Osbourne’s family would be one of the most well-adjusted, would you? The Osbournes proved, during their reality show’s run from 2002-2005, that the Prince of Darkness and his family are amazingly normal.

That’s not to say that the show wasn’t without its strife and shenanigans, however. At the core of the Osbourne family philosophy (which Ozzy himself lamented the lack of many times during the course of the show) is a simple idea: to be left the hell alone. This is why The Osbournes didn’t have the same mansion-cum-fishbowl feel as many other reality shows.

Sure, Sharon’s ever-increasing mob of pint-sized quadruped friends tended to get underfoot and roam all throughout the house, like an inopportune, surprise-leaving tide of canine superiority, but this wasn’t even the best part of the show. Something else this show had in contrast with its contemporaries was that one of the cast was the producer as well. Sharon had final say about what was in or out.

Jack and Kelly led fairly normal lives, even if Jack spilled the beans on the ‘unscripted’ nature of the show, much to his mum’s chagrin. Kelly threw a wobbly (got angry, British slang) at her brother more often than not, but when do siblings not fight? And at the head of the table, you had Ozzy, as befuddled as ever, with a surprising dose of ‘teddybear’.

Aww. Kinda tarnishes the whole Iron Man image, doesn’t it?

14. The Windsors

There’s not a royal bloodline in the books without an equally blue-blooded strain of dysfunction. The Windsors’ most famous example to date involves Charles the fairytale Prince to Diana’s Cinderella in 1981.

For a few years, all was bliss, or so we were all led to believe. Then Charles decided to honor his wife and the bonds of matrimony by shacking up with mistress Camilla, who he later married. Princess Di returned the favor and landed a lover of her own. Their divorce rivaled Edward III’s abdication in 1936 for sheer spectacle–and went forward for probably the same reasons as Edward’s passing the throne to George VI.

The annals of family debauchery go back much further than Charles and Diana, with Windsors marrying their first cousins and doing God knows what else behind closed doors. If Prince William and Kate Middleton hold true to the royal legacy, expect to see even more dysfunction.

13. The Bushes

La familia Bush arguably rivals the Kennedys in terms of scandals and pure dynastic insanity. One of the biggest Bush faux pas in recent memory is the Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s and 1990s. Here, Neil, George (Senior and Junior) and Jeb, along with a whole slew of politicians–many of whom are still in office–were implicated in various financial debacles that ended up costing taxpayers $153 billion bucks.

Neil was the main focus of the investigation, which concentrated on questionable and outright illegal business practices designed to enrich the Bush clan and their cronies. Luckily for Neil, Papa Bush saved his sorry backside from the Big House. By this time, Bush Sr. had been elected to the White House, and had announced the beginning of Desert Storm.

Jumping ahead a few years, we have George Jr. in the hot seat. Even if we spare an analysis of the man himself, George Jr’s daughters have shown a delightful knack for keeping the Bush family’s impeccable sense of propriety alive and well.

Case in point: While it may not be unusual for underage people to drink (they’ve been doing it for years), when Jenna was 19, she got busted for underage drinking in her daddy’s home state. So, get this, the Secret Service cozied up to their Mexican counterparts so that Jenna could flee the fuzz in Texas and go barhopping south of the border. Now if that’s not international cooperation, we don’t know what is.

12. The Crawfords

What is it about success that turns people into overbearing, abusive drunks? Career fixation is one gateway neurosis, especially a meteoric rise like the one that Joan enjoyed in the early and mid 20th century.

In her 1978 book, Mommie Dearest, her adopted daughter Christina laid the Crawford home bare. In it, she alleged that both Joan and her brother abused her physically and emotionally. That got Christina kicked out of her mom’s will, something she claimed in the book that she wouldn’t let happen.

Meanwhile, the other two Crawford kids and a host of Joan’s Hollywood friends, including Marlene Deitrich and Cesar Romero, denied the allegations. In the end, however you slice it, Joan was career driven. Whether or not you believe she had her kids as a publicity stunt to further her career, her booze-fueled tantrums could make Christian Bale’s Terminator Salvation shenanigans look like a kiddie play.

11. The Gettys

If family loyalty means anything to you, you probably aren’t a member of the Getty clan. The original Jean Paul Getty was an exceedingly wealthy industrialist in the States. When he died in 1976, worth more than $2 billion, he was ranked the 67th richest American who ever lived.

Indeed, in the Gettys’ case, ink is thicker than blood. Back in 1973, Jean Paul’s 16-year old grandson, Jeann Paul Getty III, was kidnapped while vacationing in Rome. A ransom of $17 million was ordered over the phone.

The miserly Getty refused to pay it. He claimed that his grandson was merely trying to mooch off of him. He said that if his grandson had been kidnapped, and the senior Getty gave in to the kidnappers’ demands, it would be putting his 14 other grandkids at risk. (We assume his 14 other grandkids were fine, moral, upstanding kids who wouldn’t dream of ripping dear old Granddad off.)

The kidnappers lopped off one of the boy’s ears and sent a letter along with the ear, demanding a reduced $3.2 million. In the letter, they threatened to send Jean Paul III back to his family in little bits and pieces if Gramps didn’t pay up.

The senior Getty still had a hard time protecting his own flesh and blood over his own interest (accumulation, that is). Eventually, he agreed to pay the kidnappers $2.2 million, the smallest tax deductible amount allowed by law.

The traumatized Getty III couldn’t cope with his dismembering adventure in the Eternal City. After he came home, he doped himself to the gills with drugs. After overdosing on Valium, methadone and alcohol, he suffered a massive stroke that left him paralyzed; he lived like this for another 30 years.

10. The Gottis

John Gotti, the media-loving “Teflon Don” of New York’s notorious Gambino crime family, had quite the family history before being thrown in the slammer in 1992. The truant son of a gambler held one legitimate job during his entire career, but that didn’t last long. Brothers Gene, Richard and Peter were also part of John’s crime family. John was reportedly jealous of Gene for being “made” (murdering someone to join the Mafia) before he was, and for being a better gambler than him. Brother Richard was convicted of statutory rape and for trying to extort money from Steven Seagal.

With that kind of foundation, how could the brothers’ many kids not be messed up? Gotti’s son, John Gotti Junior wasn’t much of a man in his father’s eyes. The heir to the Gambino throne, Junior was kind of inept. Apparently, everyone in his family hated him and thought he was an “imbecile,” a “babbling idiot,” and worse. He’s not doing too bad now, though—he’s in talks to make a movie and has penned a children’s book named “Children of the Shaolin Forest.”

John’s daughter Victoria arguably fared better, starring in the reality TV series Growing Up Gotti. She also faked breast cancer and had her home foreclosed on. Cousin Richard G. Gotti racketeered money from a pre-school he and his wife ran. The stories go on, as you’ll see in a couple of years when the biographical movie on Junior comes out. (Note that it may feature fellow dysfunctionista Kim Kardashian.)

9. The Jacksons

The world of the Jackson family, one of the most famous families in the history of modern music, is one of debauchery, animosity and betrayal.

When he was alive, Michael reportedly hated his family, except for his mother Katherine and youngest sister, Janet. LaToya, in her autobiography, wrote about physical abuse, jealousy, and racism. When the book came out, Janet called it “a load of crap,” and younger sister Rebbie said it made her “ashamed to be a Jackson.” Michael, meanwhile, said the physical abuse part was true on Oprah.

Maybe the rest of his family could explain why Michael’s private life was such a twisted fairy tale, one that no sane kid would ever want to be a part of. We aren’t just talking about the numerous kids who visited on day trips but also about his three children, Prince Michael I, Paris Michael Kathrine and Prince “Blanket” Jackson II. On the surface, Michael’s former home, Neverland Ranch, is a child’s fantasy. Amusements, rides, a “petting zoo” in the basement, just to name a few. But what about the garage full of windowless vans? That just screams pedo with an ice cream truck and a kidnapping fetish.

The moral of the story: Musical talent does not a happy family make.

8. The Hiltons

It seems that an obnoxious propensity for getting your face plastered all over the news, the cover of tabloids, and even on YouTube (yes, we are looking at you, Paris) goes hand-in-hand with wealth and privilege. If you lack talents outside of socializing and being seen, you become a so-called “celebutante” like Paris.

Paris seems to reaffirm her questionable ethics and business acumen every time she opens her mouth or tries a new, soon-to-fail venture. Cases in point: Her Chihuahua Tinkerbell, uh, wrote a book called “The Tinkerbell Hilton Diaries.” She turned her homemade sex tape into a DVD (okay, maybe that wasn’t so dumb). A bunch of her personal belongings, including diaries and medication, made it online after she refused to pay the $200 or so fee for the storage locker they were stored in. After getting a DUI, she drove like a madwoman on a suspended license, and was finally thrown in the slammer for it. She’s been caught traveling with pot and cocaine.

But when her mom joins in the fun, like some creepy elder groupie, it just looks plain wrong. And the family tangent doesn’t stop there. Uncle Nicky Hilton slept with Zsa Zsa Gabor—while his dad, chain founder Conrad, was married to her. Another son, Barron, felt he wasn’t left enough money after Conrad died; he contested his paltry $500,000 inheritance and won more. In a twist of irony, Barron himself plans to leave most of his fortune to his father’s charity, because he is reportedly embarrassed by Paris’ behavior. Karma is a b*tch indeed.

7. The Hogans

Hulkamania’s running wild, but for all the wrong reasons. Hogan and his wife split up after the end of their reality show, Hogan Knows Best, and he shacked up with some other woman (in his defense, their age difference isn’t quite as telling–only 22 years. He’s 57). However, his now ex-wife, who is 51, shacked up with a 21-year old.

Furthering the drama–though in a distinctly age-appropriate fashion–Hogan’s son Nick has a need for speed, kind of like Goose and Maverick from Top Gun. Like Goose, Nick’s friend died horribly when Nick did something stupid. And now he must live with the guilt every day, just like Maverick.

Last but not least is Brooke, Hogan’s daughter/Nick’s sister. She’s doing what she can, but rather than shack up with a guy old enough to be her father, she started a crummy music career and, in a blaze of originality, a reality show of her own to raise funds for her musical talent called Brooke Knows Best. Maybe American Idol is to blame, along with YouTube, since so many people think they have the stones and the talent to get by. But a family history of reality flops and PR stunts certainly helps, too.

6. The Kardashians

The pedigree for crazy shenanigans and questionable life choices is strong in this family. To start, Robert Kardashian was once part of O.J. Simpson’s team of top tier lawyers. You all know how well that worked out. Together, he and wife Kris had three daughters, whose name all begin with K.

After Robert’s death, Kris married former Olympian Bruce Jenner (why she didn’t pick somebody like Kevin Kline is beyond us). But what started the Kardashians’ true rise to “super stardom” as the front-runners of a mediocre, brain-rottingly bad reality show?

Before Keeping Up With the Kardashians, virtually nobody knew who the heck they were.Then daughter Kim went and did the nasty with former R&B singer boyfriend Ray J, all caught on tape. Silly her for not keeping that tape locked up tighter than a nun’s virtue.

What of the rest? Khloe is an unrepentant drunk with no sense of decency (do you ask your mom if she performs oral sex on her husband? We didn’t think so). Considering that the show entered its third season not long ago, we can’t help but compare this messed up clan, in their hunger to expand and conquer all aspects of good taste and decency, with the Cardassians, a race from Star Trek. They have a similar all-consuming desire to mess your sh*t up and look smug and self important while doing it.

5. The Spellings

Everything from Gun Smoke to Beverly Hills 90210 had 1980s and ’90s-era TV and film producer Aaron Spelling’s hand in it. As such, he was fabulously wealthy.

Yet life at home wasn’t all cupcakes. Daughter Tori refused to talk to her mom (Aaron’s wife) Candy for years. Oddly, both mother and daughter released their memoirs–Stories From Candyland and sTORI Telling, respectively–when they weren’t speaking.

When Tori’s dad died in ’06, she never showed up for the funeral, then made some creepy appearance on the cover of US Weekly. Did she mention her father and his passing? No, that’s what makes it so weird. She claimed her mom was “with some male friend.” Did her estrangement damage her perception that much? Yeesh, it sure sounds like it.

4. The Kennedys

Ah, the Kennedys. This dynasty known for its many members who gave tirelessly of themselves in diverse and long-lasting (in most cases) political careers. They are also known for the many and varied scandals that lurked just below the surface, sometimes bursting into the light like a geyser of depravity.

A majority of the gents in the Kennedy clan were prone to sowing their wild oats with as many women as was humanly possible, not unlike a porn star, but cleaner, we hope. But political hanky panky wasn’t the only thing the Kennedys tried to keep hidden away to preserve the family’s perceived sterling image.

Take, for example, “Rosemary” Kennedy, born in 1918. Sibling to the future Commander-in-Chief, she was different. In a family known for its competitiveness in all things, Rosemary’s mood swings and rebellion were seen as unpalatable. When she was 23, Daddy Joe secretly had her lobotomized, tamping out the spark of whatever might have been. A now-familiar series of plane crashes, car wrecks, assassinations (and rape, stillborns, cocaine, and ski accidents) followed.

Genetic recklessness? Family curse? The mystery remains. Maybe Jack’s famous line should have been, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what the leader of the country can do to you.”

3. The Lohans

Love her or hate her, Lindsay Lohan has a knack for legal troubles and ruining her reputation with every stunt she pulls. But maybe we should go to the root of the problem–her parents.

Mom (Dina) and Dad (Michael) made a habit of yo-yoing back and forth between being together and breaking up so many times, it’s a wonder that Lohan and her younger sibs didn’t all run away to join the circus. They finally divorced for good (we think?) in 2007, but who knows how long that will last.

The parents of celebrities have never been, so far as we know, stable, rational or equitable people. They often pull the same stupid stunts as their kids. Take Michael, for instance. A former trader on Wall Street, and owner of his father’s pasta company, the senior Lohan served jail time for stock fraud and a DUI, among other things.

And Lindsay’s mom? She was a media whore, riding on the coattails of her eldest daughter in order to get a taste of the life afforded by Lindsay’s numerous movies (starting with The Parent Trap in 1998).

Lindsay really could have been something special, but instead, she had to go and ruin the ride. If she had at least gotten herself emancipated, she might have done better. With Lindsay’s legal troubles putting her career in jeopardy, Dina has turned her fickle attentions to Ali Lohan, Lindsay’s younger sister, in the hopes of making the girl a singer and just as famous (or infamous?) as Lindsay herself.

Problem is, Ali has neither the inclination nor the chops to do what her sister has done. It all goes back to the parents. Of course Dina thinks that riding her daughter into the ground in a saddle of celebrity is a good idea. But what do the Lohans know about those?

2. The Spears

Let’s play make believe. You are the mother of three children. You pride yourself in the wholesome, proper way that you bring up those kids.

One of those kids makes it big at a pretty young age, during the late ’90s. She becomes a teen pop sensation almost overnight. Yet as her fame increases, her life of excess and her mismanaged career take their toll. Note that you, dear mother, were on tour at one point to help manage her career.

Then, your other daughter, who is unwed, goes and gets pregnant. Imagine that, taking irresponsible cues from her superstar sib! Do you, the mother, even have a leg to stand on when it comes to the topic of good parenting? Yet you still have the brass to put out a book about how you’re mother of the freaking year.

I you can take any consolation, Britney has followed in your footsteps. You saw how she treated, then lost her kids from K-Fed, right? And let us not forget the wildly immature string of marriages preceding her shacking up with Federline (who, in one of the most contentious “lesser of two evils” custody cases, ended up with their child after she went back into rehab).

Oops. She did it again. And will probably keep on doing it.

1. The Simpsons

OJ Simpson is arguably one of the most prominent former football players of his generation. Yet most of OJ’s celebrity comes from the media circus created by his high-speed chase down the 405 in LA after the murder of former wife Nicole and her friend Ronald in 1994.

The second act of the fiasco began about sixteen months later, with the trial. Yes, the trial that saw OJ acquitted because the “glove does not fit.”

But that mess, one of the biggest debacles in the history of law, was not the end of the legal shenanigans. OJ fled to Miami, where he was eventually busted for assault and burglary. On a separate occasion, the fuzz caught him speeding in his boat through what amounted to a ‘manatee crossing’. He was acquitted of those charges too.

But the slippery OJ would soon get caught once again. In 2007, he and three other men broke into a Las Vegas casino to steal sports memorabilia that OJ claimed had been stolen from him. A kidnapping was also involved.

Naturally, his two associates testified against him, and now the Juice is no longer loose. He’ll be locked up at least until 2019 when he gets his parole hearing, but more than likely, he’ll stay down until 2045.