I-Mockery is a pop culture humor site owned and operated by Roger Barr (aka: -RoG-) that has existed online in various forms since 1996. Before then, it was a printed periodical called Visionary Darkness. Free copies of Visionary Darkness were distributed in local high schools and record shops. It later became a web site on Geocities which housed a variety of humorous articles and rants. Barr also registered other sites on GeoCities under several aliases and made them all a part of the Visionary Darkness web site. After a few years of building up the popularity of these sites, Barr registered the I-Mockery.com domain name in August 1999 to house all of his humor sites under the same roof (and to avoid GeoCities' increasingly slow performance). The I-Mockery name was created as a spoof of all the corporate web sites that started with "I" or "E" at the time. The name loosely translates to Internet-Mockery.
Over the years the site has expanded greatly, but still continues to live up to its original slogan: "Dedicated to making a mockery out of all things adored by the general public. Dedicated to exposing people who take themselves far too seriously. Dedicated to giving due credit to works of genius that have never enjoyed the spotlight."
Features (Minimocks) – This section contains a variety of earlier reviews of movies, photographed adventures featuring Roger and other staff members such as Jason Grunert (aka: Protoclown) getting into all kinds of mischief, articles about bizarre toys & food products, nostalgia and more. One of the staples of this section is the often amusing variety of animated gifs that can be found within many of the articles.
Editorials (Visionary Darkness) – This section is a large collection of rants and raves, with topics of mockery ranging from the Gorton's Fisherman to Celine Dion to feminine shaving razors.
Shorts – This section was created in response to the Minimocks section of the site. The Minimocks had eventually become anything but "mini", with some of the pieces being in excess of 3–5 pages long. This naturally caused delays in how often the site was updated, as many of the Minimocks would take well over a week for the writer to complete. Thus, the "Shorts" section was created as an area where similar content could be featured, but created at a much faster pace. This section also gave the writers more room to cover a wider variety of topics including parodies of the infamous McDonald's web advertisements, and toys.
Games – This section contains links to I-Mockery's flash games and videos, including Trick-Or-Treat Adventure, Domo-Kun's Angry Smash Fest, Castlevania: Priest Battle, Kill The Old Man From Zelda and I Will Beat Pacman! It also includes links to some of their more popular gaming-oriented articles as well as originals articles, including "Sexual Moments In Video Game History", "Nintendo: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly" and "Cooking With Popinski". Also present is I-Mockery's "Rom Hack Reviews"
Comics – Over the years I-Mockery has produced a variety of web-based comics. First, there was "The Guy Who Can't Draw Comics" which claimed to be the world's first and only completely artless comic strip. Then came "Pixel Pals" which quickly drew in a fairly large fanbase from the gamers with its Nintendo Entertainment System character humor. In recent years, Roger teamed up with Louis Fernet-Leclair (aka: -PoX-) to create the "PickleMan" online comic book series. These are full-sized comic books, complete with UPCs and clickable hidden secrets throughout each story. The PickleMan comics are written by Roger and drawn by Louis. Recently the two unveiled a special, non-profit printed version of the comic as a keepsake for the fans of the series. The comics section of the site also features columns by Jason Grunert(aka Protoclown)("Tales From the Longbox") and Max Burbank ("Hey Dork! Let's Talk Comics!") which cover both classic and modern comic book series. I-Mockery had a booth at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con where they unveiled some new print comics.
Mockeries – This section contains "mock sites" that often targeted music scenesters, including ravers, punks, metalheads and goths with gags and mocking commentaries. These sites often generated hatemail (including death threats) from people involved in these scenes, lifestyles and religions. GeneralZod.net is their popular satire of what General Zod, the villain from the film Superman II, has been up to in more recent years. ElSerpento.com is their spoof of a self-proclaimed Mexican Wrestling legend who can physically beat up anyone and anything while also holding his breath for 45 seconds. Other mockery sites include "Albums That Sucked", "Cynical Greeting Cards", and "Martin Yan: Homicidal Chef".
Forums – The forums, which reside at I-Mockery.net, have always been a hotspot for a wide variety of people, many of which who come simply to argue with others for the sake of some good laughs. For years, it was well known that any newcomers would receive "the newbie beatdown" FROM EVIL ROBOT, WHO RULES in which all the self-proclaimed "veteran" mockers would verbally tear these people apart. These days, newbies come in by the truckload and do not seem to have to endure the same initiation mockeries that their predecessors did. The forums have gone through a variety of changes: First they were hosted in a very basic forum format with InsideTheWeb's free forum program. During this time period, the forums existed solely for readers from the Winky section of I-Mockery to argue about vegetarianism vs. meatatarianism and straight-edgers. The forums then opened up to all of I-Mockery's viewers when it moved to the ezboard software, which was free at first, but ezboard soon began charging to remove ads. With the large number of people visiting the forums, the fees eventually became too outrageous, so I-Mockery moved to the phpBB forum format until the software proved to no longer be stable. The forums are currently running using vBulletin software, which has been fully integrated with the rest of the site.
Blog – This is where RoG updates his readers with site news.
Weeklies – This section launched in January 2008 and was created as an area where the writers could quickly post reviews of video games, movies, comics and music for their readers to discuss on a weekly basis.
The Pickle Hat – The Pickle Hat became a staple of I-Mockery almost overnight. After the article entitled "Achieve Godliness With a Pickle Hat" was released, readers started sending in letters to the Gedney company requesting the pickle hats. Some people tried collecting UPCs from Gedney pickle jars, which was the original way you could get a free hat. Gedney also allowed people to simply send in $1 in exchange for one of the paper pickle hats. Combined with his goggles, Roger started wearing them with the pickle hat in most of I-Mockery's future photo pieces. This also lead to the creation of the PickleMan comic book character who also wears a pickle hat and "Wacky Space Goggles" that Roger is almost always seen wearing on-site. Currently, there are plans for a PickleMan flash game in the works and a teaser trailer has already been released.
M.U.S.C.L.E. Revisited – This was one of I-Mockery's largest projects at the time. The goal of "M.U.S.C.L.E. Revisited" was to take all 233 of the original popular pink M.U.S.C.L.E. (Kinnikuman) toys from the 80s and give each of them names and biographies.
Rom Hack Reviews – I-Mockery's rom hack reviews quickly became one of the most popular features on the site. It focuses on ROM hacking of classic NES games, but generally the hacks that are done poorly and/or in poor taste. The first reviewed hack was called "Knife Boy" – a hack of Paperboy in which the main character delivers bloody knives to his customers instead of newspapers. The rom hacks featured here are often known for involving sexual innuendo, drugs, nazis, profanity and violence. Sometimes I-Mockery host a "Week of the Rom Hack" in which a new rom hack would be reviewed for every day of a particular week and this was often featured on the popular web site Fark.com
Domo-Kun's Angry Smashfest – Domo-Kun's Angry Smashfest was a collaboration between Roger Barr and Tom Fulp of Newgrounds. The game features Domo-Kun in a quest to defeat the Power Puff Girls for getting him in trouble. There are many nods to classic video games in this title, including Street Fighter, Golden Axe, Duck Hunt and more. There are also many easter egg (media) hidden within the game, including an alternate ending for those who beat the game twice. In May 2009, the game was updated on Newgrounds to include trophy awards to assist people with finding the hidden easter eggs in the game.
Marshmallow Peeps – Marshmallow Peeps have become a regular topic of discussion on I-Mockery. It started out with "The Quest For Peeps" in which the writers actually drove out of their way to find the Peeps tour bus. Then came the Marshmallow Peeps in Outer Space flash game, which was a tribute to the classic Space Invaders and Asteroids arcade games with a Peep theme. The site also reviewed the "Marshmallow Peeps Marshmallow Maker" machine. In late 2005, Barr was interviewed for a documentary on Marshmallow Peeps entitled Power of the Peep.
Sexual Moments in Video Game History – I-Mockery's staff collaborated to create this large list of "Sexual Moments in Video Game History", which contains much have sexual innuendo.
Extreme Beverage Testers – This is a review by the I-Mockery staff of Jones Soda's line of holiday sodas, which were done with GIF animations. They have reviewed Jones' Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day sodas and the first non-Jones brand beverage so far, a Steven Seagal energy drink called Lightning Bolt.
Ivan Drago: Justice Enforcer – This game, whose story is written by Roger Barr, art by Louis and programming by BoMToons.com, is a side-scrolling beat-em-up starring Ivan Drago of Rocky IV fame fighting crime in an American city populated with knife wielding robbers, Segway riding executives and killer dinosaurs, eventually leading to showdowns with Apollo Creed and Rocky Balboa. The game features special moves, unlockable characters and a mini-game.
Trick-or-Treat Adventure Quest – A point-and-click adventure game, it is the story of a boy named Little Johnny and his quest to make a Halloween costume and get as much candy as he can.
Rainbow Puke – An I-Mockery spin-off site which asked artists around the world to contribute pictures of puking rainbows. An art teacher at Virginia Commonwealth University assigned his entire class to participate on this site and their graded works can be seen on a special page.
Human Centipede: The Game – In May 2010, I-Mockery released a flash game parody of The Human Centipede film which mimicked the classic Centipede arcade game.
Halloween has become one of the things I-Mockery is best known for, primarily due to their feverish celebration of the holiday each year. The entire site is redecorated for Halloween and every new article that appears on the site during this time is related to the holiday. Each year, their Halloween celebration has gotten longer. In 2005, I-Mockery's Halloween season began on September 1, giving them a full two months to create nothing but Halloween-oriented pieces.
Halloween Collection contains reviews of horror movies, product features, the adventures of "Count Pop" and other spooky things, but it also has the staff's annual collaborative "Select Your Destiny" stories. These stories haven grown in size over the years (some well over 100 pages) and feature bizarre plots, loosely based on Halloween themes and the "Choose Your Own Adventure" children's books. Only one of the choices on each page will allow the protagonist to progress, the other choices lead to certain doom of some kind. The stories also often feature small flash games which must be completed in order to continue in the story. In addition to all of the aforementioned, I-Mockery's Halloween Collection also contains two other sub-sections: "The Halloween Grab Bag" and "The Greatest Moments in Horror Movie History".
The Halloween Grab Bag tends to contain smaller articles covering the latest Halloween costumes, masks, novelties, candies and happenings at the time. FrightCatalog has often contributed materials to I-Mockery to poke fun at in this section.
The Greatest Moments in Horror Movie History section covers some of the most grotesque, hilarious and memorable scenes from horror movies.
As further proof of his Halloween fanaticism, Barr also founded ZombieWalk.com as a place where zombie walks and flash mobs could be organized. He also organized Richmond, Virginia's first annual Zombie Walk in 2005. He also plans on eventually filming an independent zombie movie.
I-Mockery held large petitions on the web to get Comedy Central to release Upright Citizens Brigade and Strangers with Candy on DVD. While both shows were canceled after only 3 seasons, they developed a large cult following, and I-Mockery was able to get thousands of signatures which were all forwarded to Comedy Central. Upright Citizens Brigade personally thanked I-Mockery for its help in getting the DVD set released. In a similar manner, I-Mockery got many of its fans to vote in Amazon's DVD Decision 2006, to get the movie Gymkata released on DVD.
On May 1, 2009, Barr started a new live web show called Doc Mock's Movie Mausoleum in which he plays the mad scientist, Doc Mock, who shows obscure public domain b-movies and z-movies while interacting with a live audience online. Each week, a different guest (often comedians from Upright Citizens Brigade) joins Doc Mock to commentate on the movie. Other cast members include Miss Diagnosis (Marie Barr), a nurse who handles all the chat room comments, and Licky (Ethan Newberry), a one-eyed mutant who works the control booth. Recent guests on the show have included Matt Walsh, Paul Scheer, Toby Huss, Matt Besser and Nathan Barnatt. The show currently airs Thursday nights at 8 pm PST on theStream.tv. Recently, Bloody Disgusting published an interview with Barr about the creation of Doc Mock's Movie Mausoleum.
All the members of I-Mockery's staff contribute their time to write for the site on a volunteer basis. The following is a list of those who have worked on the site more frequently over the years:
Roger Barr / -RoG- (founder/writer)
John Bower / Dr. Boogie (writer)
Jason Grunert / Protoclown (writer)
Max Burbank (writer)
Louis Fernet-Leclair / -PoX- (artist, also did artwork for The Alphabet of Manliness)
Marie Barr (artist, also runs StrangePuppets.com)
BoMToons (Game programmer for recent large games on the site)
