Dumb Laws in Popular Culture
In "The Seven-Beer Snitch", an episode of The Simpsons, the police seek to send more people to jail on obscure laws because Mr. Burns is annoyed that a lack of inmates are costing him and the city a lot of revenues. They arrest Homer Simpson for violation of a dumb law on the books which states that in Springfield tin cans may not be kicked more than five times, as it would constitute "illegally transporting litter." Ironically, Homer was kicking the can out of frustration for being denied employment as a guard at the very same prison he was sent to for violating the law. Chief Wiggum also mentions a law that all men must be hatless during daylight hours, but when Smithers cannot remove his hat in time, Wiggum chuckles and says "If I didn't arrest you that night in the park, I'm not going to arrest you now."
The comic character Jughead Jones has had an occasional appearance as Professor Jughead, when he presents various weird laws.
On the TV series Parks and Recreation, the show regularly mentions the many archaic, forgotten, idiotic or downright bigoted laws that the town of Pawnee has passed during its long, pathetic history. In one case, Donna Retta is furious to learn that African Americans are banned from walking on town sidewalks; in another, Leslie Knope is disgusted when the town's election monitor reminds everyone that a tie vote in a City Council election between one male and one female candidate will result in the man being awarded the seat and the woman being put in jail.
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Famous quotes containing the words dumb, laws, popular and/or culture:
“Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.”
—Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)
“His talk was like a spring, which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses:
It slipped from politics to puns,
It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.”
—Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Our culture has become something that is completely and utterly in love with its parent. It’s become a notion of boredom that is bought and sold, where nothing will happen except that people will become more and more terrified of tomorrow, because the new continues to look old, and the old will always look cute.”
—Malcolm McLaren (b. 1946)