Ratatouille, and other animated films that would be f**king terrifying as live-action

26th January 2023

ANIMATION allows filmmakers to create delightful, surreal worlds. But as live-action, some movies would become distinctly nightmarish. Such as these.

Ratatouille

Instead of the adorable cartoon rodent Remy, there’d be a bloody great black rat with giant prosthetic teeth and sinister little paws, and he’d be forcing a real man to make a pie. An entire generation would be put off French cuisine for life. And imagine the truly horrifying amount of rat’s piss visibly matted into the terrified actor’s hair.

Pokémon

The tale of cute monsters would be a celebration of animal cruelty as humans keep majestic beasts in tiny, orb-shaped cages, only releasing them to fight each other to the death. It’s acceptable as a cartoon, but seeing a photo-realistic electrified, yellow rodent beat seven shades of shit out of a giant, helpless caterpillar would be the equivalent of taking your kids to a dog fight for their birthday.

Bambi

This already has one of the most harrowing openings to a children’s movie of all time. Now imagine a real deer mercilessly shot down by hunters, bleeding out onto the snow before being finished off with a hunting knife. Whole audiences would be leaving the cinema and hurling themselves under the first bus they saw. And boy, you’d regret eating those venison sausages.

Inside Out

This film serves as a fantastic metaphor to help children come to terms with such concepts as happiness, grief, and maturity, thanks to the anthropomorphised emotions living in the protagonist’s head. However, if you showed a realistic version of Bing Bong – whatever the hell that would look like – dying to a child, they’d never stop screaming.

Watership Down

What could be worse than seeing lovingly-drawn cartoon animals experience a bloody death in a cruel natural world? The answer is: seeing real cute bunnies ripped to shreds and tortured by Gestapo rabbits. It would basically be a particularly distressing David Attenborough documentary, but where the rabbits are chattier than normal.

Are you shit at being a man?

26th January 2023

HAVE you never quite got the hang of man stuff? Here are some common masculinity problems and how you can address them in your weak, effeminate way.

You hate confrontation

The thought of getting into an argument at work makes you sick with fear. To be honest, you suspect you might cry if your dentist criticises your flossing too harshly.

Solution: People who thrive on confrontation live in a permanent state of conflict. Every meal has something to complain about, every co-worker is incompetent, and so on. Emulate these bellends. It may result in a coronary aged 55, but you’ll be remembered as a man who wasn’t afraid of confrontation. Or a massive pain in the arse.

You’ve never killed anyone

This feels very much like something a real man ought to have done. (In a just way, like in a Western, not accidentally driving into a bus queue.)

Solution: Apart from joining the army (see below) there’s not much you can do. You could become a vigilante like Charles Bronson, but if you live in a picturesque village in Wiltshire there may be a shortage of lowlife street punks.

You’re physically weak

A constant source of worry. Not only do you not live up to male stereotypes, you’re unable to defend yourself if physically threatened.

Solution: Take up bodybuilding. The only problem is, once you’re ripped you need to make the effort worth it by asserting your physical dominance over other men by starting fights. It’s just bad luck for the weedy student in the kebab shop whose head you had to kick in.

You can’t do sex like in Hollywood films

Your lovemaking is not a two-hour extreme workout, causing your partner to reach ever-higher levels of ecstasy until she screams uncontrollably.

Solution: Sorry, but that’s just an average, run-of-the-mill shag for real men. Your only option is to buy a spray off the internet that makes your penis numb and hope your knob doesn’t turn blue and fall off.

You’re not an alpha male businessman

The mark of a successful man is business cliches. You need to wear a Rolex, say things like ‘We’re playing with the big boys now’ and do business deals on a yacht with a woman in a bikini nearby. The most dynamic thing about your job is occasional free biscuits.

Solution: Get a job that requires you to wear a suit, then just pretend you’re Gordon f**king Gekko. Every deluded sales tosser and middle-management nobody does it.

You’ve never been in the army

Growing up male is basically being indoctrinated to join the army, with Action Man, war films, Andy McNab books and a billion other pieces of propaganda. Even if you’re not desperate to be cannon fodder, you should want to join the RAF.

Solution: Join up. You can be surprisingly old (anything under 50) if you’re physically fit. However there are still many obstacles, such as upending your entire life and cowardice. Luckily, if you’re unable to join the army for whatever reason, there are socially acceptable ways to channel your military fetishism, such as collecting books about the Nazis and samurai swords. Probably best to stick with that.