One Giant Leap For Parody...

Forty years ago today, man landed on the Moon. Well, supposedly. You folks probably think that Obama is an American too.

I kid, but at least the loony conspiracy theorists are still interested in the lunar landing, while the rest of us give little thought to the Moon's "magnificent desolation." On the other hand, the Moon landing has been a rich source of parody. Herewith are 13 of the best.

TARDIS Moon Landing

Seems like we were beaten to the Moon by Doctor Who.

SPQR Moon Landing

Actually, no, it was the Romans who got there first. Hmm, history is hard.

Canadian Moon Landing

Wait, wait, wait — Canadians got there first? Now I'm a loyal Canuck and even I know that can't be true.

Redneck Moon Landing

See it was Americans after all. I'm kinda surprised they didn't go in a souped-up version of the General Lee.

Watchmen Moon Landing

At least we know who took that famous photograph — Dr. Manhattan.

Onion Moon Landing

In any case, The Onion sums up how I think every paper should have really reacted to the Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's feat. "Holy living fuck... Are you fucking believing this? Over," Armstrong radioed back to NASA headquarters nearly 25,000 miles away. "I abso-fucking-lutely am standing on the surface of the fucking moon."

Mooning Moon Landing

Perhaps we haven't been back because the moon wasn't everything it was, um, cracked up to be.

Giant Moon Landing

Then again, maybe they found something far too terrifying. And here I thought it would be super-intelligent chimps.

Tractor Moon Landing

One theory on our continuing lack of interest in the moon is that budget cutbacks mean the equipment astronauts would have to use these days would be considerably less than high tech.

Video Camera Moon Landing

It would be easier to dismiss the moon landing hoaxes without pictures like this surfacing. What were they thinking?!

Studio Moon Landing

Turns out they NASA really just went to Sears and got the family special with the Moon backdrop.

Rolling Moon Landing

"Hey guys I got us some McDon.... Crap are we shooting?"

Previously on Popped Culture...
Popaganda: The Pop Culture Revolution
Tank Man of Tiananmen Square
The Evolution of Satire

To Infinity and Beyond!

The space shuttle Discovery blasted in to space yesterday carrying its usual payload of scientific doodads and a crew of clean-cut, athletic go-getters (I hate people like that). I know what you’re thinking: “Oh no, not another boring space launch. Change the channel. Change the channel!”

But something in the cargo caught my attention – a lightsaber used by Mark Hamil in Return of the Jedi. The kid in me wonders if there are really raging space battles taking place overhead that they need such a powerful weapon, but the realist in me figures it’s just a publicity stunt to earn George Lucas more money to throw on the pile.

Or maybe NASA has realized a simple truth – most of our knowledge comes from pop culture, so why not hitch a ride?

My first memories of space are from Star Wars, quickly followed by Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (Bidibidibidi, hey Buck). It’s how I saw space – a wild west frontier filled with lasers, wise-cracking pilots and short little robots.

Then came The Black Hole, Moonraker (a rather silly Bond film in retrospect) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, my first introduction to Gene Roddenberry’s world. At the tine we only got two channels on TV, so I’d never seen the characters – luckily the film didn’t put me off.

From there I was introduced to the original Star Trek and its myriad spin-offs, to the writing of Issac Asimov, 2001, Dune and happily to the brilliantly funny Douglas Adams, whose Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy required you to have at least a modicum of sci-fi knowledge.

While my head may have been buried in the stars I had no real knowledge – or interest for that matter – in the realities of space exploration. So when I recently found myself in Florida, not far from Cape Canaveral, I jumped at a chance for a tour.

We saw Discovery sitting on the launch site (covered in high-tech scaffolding) and many of the Apollo rockets that took men into space. And as I sat in the control room that was used during the moon landing, I was thinking about how The Simpsons got it right in Deep Space Homer.

Assistant: Sir, the TV ratings for the launch are the highest in ten years.
Scientist: And how's the spacecraft doing?
Assistant: I dunno. All this equipment is just used to measure TV ratings.

So maybe sending the lightsaber into space wasn’t just a Lucas publicity stunt and NASA understands that to connect people to the space missions it may need a little help from pop culture.