'The Top Ten Most Mocked Celebrities of 2009': who made the list this year?

  Sarah Palin made out list of "Most Mocked Things of 2009".  What else did?

2009 was a banner year for smart-assery.  We had some insane celebrity shenanigans, some really good movies-- and some bad ones, a boy stuck in a balloon, and the most public divorce of all time shrouded in Ed Hardy t-shirts.  What made our list for the "Most Mocked Celebrities of 2009"?  Read on for the details, my gentle Examiner readers...

What is comedy if not mockery?  Poking fun at things goes back as far as...well, as far as "things" go back; people have always enjoyed mocking the things they love and the things they hate.  So, what made out list for the "Most Mocked Celebrities of 2009"?  Could be someone you're a fan of.  Let's take a look...

JON AND KATE PLUS 8:  Jon and Kate Gosselin are pretty much the reigning champions of mockery this year.  Seems like everywhere you turned, these two imbeciles were taking up space on your TV, on magazine covers, and in American courtrooms.  We've followed their very public divorce (and all the monkey business surrounding it) in a series of articles called "JK8 Snarky Commentary" (see below).  No other person, place, thing, or couple was so heavily mocked that it earned its own series of columns, and for that, Jon and Kate Gosselin top our "Most Mocked of 2009" list.

MICHAEL JACKSON:  We're fans of Michael Jackson here at the Comedy Examiner's Office, but that doesn't mean that we can't appreciate a good Michael Jackson joke when we hear it (though, to be fair, a "good" Michael Jackson joke is hard to come by these days).  Earlier this year, Jackson tragically passed away, and for better or for worse, this led to a whole new series of Michael Jackson jokes, parodies, and mocking T-shirts (seriously).  While it's very sad that Jackson's passed away, he certainly earned his place on this list.

TWILIGHT: NEW MOON:  Good Lord, did we see a lot of "Twilight" parodies this year (our favorite it embedded below).  "Twilight: New Moon" wrecked some serious havoc at the box office, earning more than the original film's entire box office take in a matter of weeks and inspiring some very diehard (and, we suspect, very lonely) fans to camp out for days in advance for tickets.  "Sparkly vampire" and "shirtless werewolf" jokes were everywhere you turned in November, and with the next "Twilight" film less than a year away, we're suspecting that "Twilight" will make our year-end list next year, too.

AVATAR:  Another movie that film geeks were rabid for, James Cameron's sci-fi epic was a late entry in this year's pool of things-being-mocked, but in just a matter of weeks it's turned into a vital piece of current popular culture.  Jokes about "cat people", "Dances With Smurfs", and "Ishtar in Space" ran rampant over the weeks leading up to the release of "Avatar", only to come to a screeching halt when people got a look at the flick and realized how awesome it was (and it was; don't try and tell us otherwise).  "Avatar" is doing huge business, and we're guessing that the next time they make one of those stupid "(Fill in the genre here) Movie" movies, "Avatar" is high on their list of targets.

SARAH PALIN:  Oh, did we have some fun with Sarah Palin this year.  Palin's the type of person that incites controversy (and mockery, don't forget mockery) every time she opens her mouth.  She single-handedly popularized the nonsensical phrase "death panels", got lampooned by Conan O'Brien and William Shatner on "The Tonight Show", and partially blamed her and McCain's loss in the previous year's Presidential election on the "Saturday Night Live" sketches targeting her.  When she released her book, "Going Rogue", the jokes got even more overwhelming.  Then there was that whole David Letterman thing.  Hey, speaking of which...

DAVID LETTERMAN:  David Letterman-- who definitely made Santa's "Naughty" list this year-- got in some serious hot water by sleeping around with some of the female members of his staff (at least, the last time we checked they were all female; who knows what Dave was up to at this point?), and he was mocked mercilessly by other talk-show hosts, comedians, and the media for his salacious behavior.  Not one to shy away from self-deprecation, Letterman joined in with a few jokes of his own about the whole scandal.  Pretty classy, Dave.  Hey, speaking of sex scandals...

TIGER WOODS:  Tiger Woods got in a car wreck.  24 hours later, about three dozen women had come forward claiming to have slept with the golf legend.  There were countless shots taken at Tiger by talk-show hosts and comedians who'd waited years to find something worth mocking in Tiger Woods, and with Tiger's sex scandal, they hit the motherlode.  Tiger's currently hiding from all the jokes on a boat named "Privacy".  Well, there's nothing ironic about that, is there? 

BARACK OBAMA:  Oh, Barack Obama, you didn't turn out to be the Second Coming, did you?  Anticipation was high when Obama took office, but there's been much criticism leveled his way in the months since he took over the desk at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  Like any good politician, Obama's made for some pretty funny sketches on "Saturday Night Live", and the show's made it a habit to open up almost every new episode with a sketch featuring Fred Armissen as the Leader of The Free World.  We're fans of Obama here at the Comedy Examiner's Office, but fair's fair, folks.  Here's one of our favorite Obama sketches:

NEW JERSEY:  Sorry, New Jersey, but this has not been your year.  With one, stupid reality show-- MTV's "Jersey Shore"-- you managed to become the laughing stock of the entire country.  When MTV can wrangle together 8 of the dumbest, sleaziest, shallowest people on the face of the planet to represent your entire state, it's time to excommunicate those 8 people from your state.  "Jersey Shore" is one of the sleaziest reality shows ever to appear on TV (and that's taking "Beauty and The Geek" into consideration), and your state is inexorably tied to that show forever.  We'd recommend keeping MTV off your shores from now on.

THE BALLOON BOY FAMILY:  Oh, but we really don't want to give them any more attention, do we?  We'll just make it brief:  The Heene Family decided that they wanted to be on TV so badly, they'd fake an elaborate freak accident involving a curious child and a weather balloon.  Sounds foolproof, doesn't it?  Well, that's the problem:  Richard Heene is a fool, and he got busted on national TV trying to segue his hoaxed "Balloon Boy" story into a TV career.  The Heene Family, perhaps more than anyone else on this list, showed us the true face of FAIL in 2009.  Enjoy that prison sentence, smart guys!

That about does it.  Sure, there were other people, places, and things that took a beating from funny people this year, but these were the heavy-hitters.  If you have a suggestion for the list-- maybe just someone or something we missed-- feel free to leave it in the comments section below.  And, remember, folks: these are all just jokes.  Nothing's supposed to be taken seriously in comedy, so please don't take any jokes personally.  And, while you're here, feel free to check out these other recent articles from the Comedy Examiner's Office:

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DOES THE "IRON MAN 2" TRAILER SPOIL A MAJOR PLOT POINT?  (WITH SPOILER VIDEO)--in which we learn that the "Iron Man 2" trailer may, in fact, spoil a teensy-little plot point for comic book geeks.  For the rest of us, this will barely register as noteworthy.  But read it, anyway.

CHECK OUT A NEW CLIP FROM "TOY STORY 3" RIGHT HERE! (WITH VIDEO)-- in which we have a new "Toy Story 3" clip to share.  Looking pretty good so far, Pixar.

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(photo: fark.com)

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