The Snake Gag

The classic “open a can and a fake snake that’s a spring shoots out” gag is still available, with the update that the can is now unbranded popcorn. Kids today have the ongoing disappointment of hundreds of app-based Friends and Likes, but sometimes you need a real-life crappy prank to learn why commerce will always let you down. You won’t be surprised to learn that Mystic Smoke, Itching Powder, and Nail Through Finger are also still being sold. Hearing from your parents a thousand times that commercials and manufacturers and marketers always lie doesn’t convince you, but half an hour of trying and failing to conjure Mystic Smoke from a tube might start the gears turning that fantastic things only come from study and practice. Happiness can’t come from a tube, unless the tube is full of MDMA, which is illegal, because if it weren’t, it might be slightly harder for consumers to pump money into the global marketplace of garbage that keeps our economy rumbling as the earth heats around us.

(Weed is also illegal in many states, but being stuck on a couch with paralyzing anxiety while you watch How It’s Made isn’t quite as convincing.)