Remember when the Internet ate your balls?

Ah, the mid-1990s.

Remember grunge, lousy sitcoms (except Seinfeld) and websites that looked like this? Remember testing how many miles information could ride on the new superhighway?

Remember using it to make endless jokes about eating balls?

Photo credit: Microsoft Clip Art

Ah, yes, “Ate My Balls” sites. It started with Mr. T, and then grew like mold atop spaghetti under a carelessly closed Tupperware lid. At the peak of AMB madness, Yahoo counted more than 230 sites about tasting the testicles, nibbling the nads, and chowing down the cojones. A whole bunch of people were connecting with their inner Beavis and Butt-head back then.

(Remember: Comedy is not pretty. Comedy is not nice. Comedy is not politically correct. Comedy is not about showing our best side.)

Photo credit: xddorox (Flickr)

Who was eating all of those balls? Those whom you might expect (Homer Simpson, Boss Hogg, Mike Tyson) and those you wouldn’t (Santa Claus? The Family Circle? Rush – the band Rush???) Internet funsters had Mother Teresa praying for your balls, Bill Gates buying your balls, and the Borg assimilating your balls. Even the Titanic was eating balls (how, I had no idea).

(An aside: why no "Ate My Ovaries" pages? Why is eating balls funny and eating ovaries not? What’s wrong with expanding the so-scary-it’s-hilarious idea to both sexes?

Say it with me: “Mr. T Ate My Ovaries.” Oh, that’s why.)

Photo credit: Big Box of Art

Even the Meandering Mouse was into eating balls – ummm, writing about eating balls. I sat down at the old Gateway computer in 1997 and wrote pages and pages of limericks, mostly about hungry mouths and balls coming together. Unfortunately (for you, maybe not for me), most of them are now trapped in a 3.5” floppy. I wrote limericks about radio hosts John and Ken, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks (before they dropped the “Mighty”), and Biggie Smalls (probably because his name rhymed with “balls” – I’m just guessing).

These are the only two limericks that I recall completely:

This meal is delicious to chew
For black, white, Christian, and Jew.
What is this meal
With such widespread appeal?
It’s an old-fashioned ball barbecue!

And:

It’s written all over the walls.
It’s heard throughout the halls.
What is this phrase
That’s become the new craze?
It’s “Mr. T ate my balls!”

Huh huh huh huh huh. Heh heh heh heh mmm heh.

Alas, AMB pages went the way of Geocities and dial-up. It’s a shame, because the number of celebrities who could use the humility only ball-eating can bring has made a hockey-stick-shaped increase.

Some critics called AMB pages “useless.” This is how I answer:

Any image that makes you bust your nut – I mean gut – laughing is anything but useless!