Dear Internet,

I got you in 1996 and it was love at first sight. I stayed up all night long going through your pages and then slept through high school during the day time.

The internet of 1996 was so much different than now. Before all the steroids got in the game and before all the big internet contracts. Back in my day the internet really meant something, nowadays it's all frizzle and gimmicks. I'm telling you...in my time...to find something funny you had to scour like a pro. Today you kids can load up sites which gather up all the funny crap out there and order it for you in neat little thumbnails. All these ebaums, and your ytmndogs, and your what have you. Boy I tell you internet, you're spoiling these kids...they don't appreciate the comedy anymore. These youngsters see hundreds of funny vidoes and image macros every day. In my time, I had to walk 2 miles in the internet-snow just to find a URL that could make me laugh out loud (we used to spell that out back then).

Boy...I remember seeing my first meme. It was called "Ate My Balls" and it was the funniest motherfucking shit around. Some great human guy had the great idea to edit pictures of Mr. T and add comic-esque talkie bubbles or thinkie bubbles to the pics. What was Mr. T talking or thinking about? Eating balls. This wonderful website was archived by flamesgif.com it seems. If an internet historical landmark society existed, this would without a doubt be included.

Mr. T Ate My Balls (original): http://flamesgif.com/archive/ate_my_balls/mr_t.html

Copy cats started to take other celebs and make them ravenous ball eaters, and by the end of 1996 every celebrity imaginable had an "Ate My Balls" page. I remember "Fred Rogers Ate My Balls" was specifically funny though it seemingly has gone missing from the archives.

Respected internet journalist Mr. Milo Miles did a write-up of "Ate my balls" (circa 1997) entitled "'Ate my Balls' ate my balls."

Ate my Balls set the groundwork and floor tiling for what would be an explosion of internet silliness. Another great fellow took it upon himself to build from that foundation and make "Mr. T vs Superman" which delighted all readers. It kept two constants from the "Ate my Balls" framework, the comic motif and the Mr. T factor. Copy cats of the meme made Mr. T battle other people/characters and explored new techniques...but some constants remained in all comics. Mr. T never lost, he usually uttered "jibber-jabber," "helluva tough," and he dispatched his enemies by throwing them into exotic far off locations. The premise usually consisted of the villain offending Mr. T by trying to destroy a youth center or tampering with the world's milk production. Before long the copy cats spread the meme to cover vast ground and every celebrity or fictional character imaginable was defeated in a fight by Mr. T.

my contribution to internet "comedy" (as such)

That great site archive.org has spidered through the internet of yore and has archived all somewhat popular sites that were ever uploaded in its vast database of data. It has an entry on July, 7th of 1997 for the original Mr. T vs. Superman but the photos are all broken sadly. It seems to be lost forever.

During this meme, I thought it would be fun to participate instead of just watch it unfold. In 1997, I made my own Mr. T comic, which had Mr .T defeating Hitler and ousting the Nazi regime from Germany. I put it on a site called Fortunecity until they deleted it out of nowhere. Fortunecity deleted mine, and another site called "Mr. T vs. Marilyn Manson" by some guy, I remember, after they received complaints that they were offensive. I then took the comic and uploaded my "Mr. T vs. Hitler" on to Geocities. The first three pages are archived on archive.org but the final two pages have broken pictures it seems.

(My foray into the world of Mr. T comics, with broken pics though: http://web.archive.org/web/20011117051300/http://www.geocities.com/dr_hork/mr_t-index.html)

I remember the site's "guestbook" being filled with silly responses and a strange amount of angry germans who were offended by the word "kraut" apparently. Good times...

Down the road, when Newgrounds came out someone paid hommage to this meme by making Mr. T fight Tupac. In fact it was a dude from a flash site called Slitfinger.com, if I remember correctly, and it was very well done. Brian Beaton of Slitfinger also made some great cartoons called "Scrotum" which featured a dog who had trouble staying alive. Ah, those were the days.

"Scrote"

Newgrounds has a whole section devoted to Mr. T, which includes ones made later on in 2002-2004, the best Mr. T comics in fact. A pro wrestler named "Chase Lightning" gave tribute to these memes of olden times by revamping them into animated comics but kept true to the precepts and rules. He tributed Mr T vs Superman (of course), Mr. T vs Hitler, and many more. The part with Bill and Ted is genius, if you ask me.

Ah, internet...what a long time ago this was. No Facebook, or Youtube...just silly things that remind me of being a teenager.

Football Dad

I'm surprised "Football Dad" is still on the internet, a tribute site to the greatest family sitcom that ever hit TGIF. Remember TGIF? Family Matters, Full House, Football Dad, Step by Step...good family sitcoms from the olden times on something called "television". I look back in wistful detente as I vividly recall the episode of Football Dad where Max and Bobby go to beach and play some catch. Seems like so long ago now. I bet even tough guys showed an emotion or two while watching the finale all the those years ago, I know I did.

It looks like REAL ULTIMATE POWER is still online, a site which made me laugh so much for some damned reason. Internet, where has the time gone? Seriously, how come you're not as awesome as this anymore?

You kids these days and your ghosts, and your "fail" nonsense, and your stupid advice dogs...you have it so easy but you still make crap. There's no more Mr T on the internet...how did that even happen? The internet and Mr. T used to go together like coffee and milk. Back in my day, things were better. You know what I mean? The internet used to make sense, we had our "memes", but we never called them "memes" because we knew "meme" is a stupid word.

I think she's disrobing...but I'm unsure.

You're spoiled brats, all of you, look at all the pornos you teens have in this era, it's everywhere! Back in my day, we appreciated the internet porn because we knew it was a blessing and never took it for granted. Before the internet we had to settle for magazines, and scrambled pay-tv porn where the chicks had blue skin and squiggled all over the darned place. You didn't know what was going on 90% of the time, but you knew some dude and chick(s) were totally banging and for a second or two the wavy squiggles would settle for a moment and you'd totally see some blue tinted vagina!

For crying out loud, back when I was going through puberty you'd have to stay up until 1 in the morning and wait for those phone sex ads to come on just to get a boner! The ads with the chicks in bathing suits and the Rod Stewart music playing in the background.

Holy Motherfucking Shit! YES!

You'd get lucky sometimes and in the day time there'd be an exercise show where the babes were wearing spandex! Or if you were really really lucky, the TV would run a rerun of that episode of Picket Fences where Lauren Holly is in that black bikini and is offering offering you chocolate cake and a game boy...and almost reaching out of the screen to hand you them! Gosh darn it...when internet porn came out, boy howdy, we certainly did not take it for granted...that's for damn sure.

My lands! You think the internet was plucked off some tree? You think the internet was dumped on us from some big truck? No! We worked hard to make the internet this awesome! You youngens probably think there was always internet, well there wasn't...in fact I remember very well when there was no internet at all. My generation knew the value of an internet, and we worked hard to fill it with hilarious shit and porno.

You young people should pull up your bootstraps and start filling the internet with funnier shit and better porno! Ask not what your internet can do for you, but ask what you can do for your internet.