For fans of surgically enhanced hooters
In 1989, scientists at the Hamilton Ontario Organization for Technical Research (or HOOTR) were charged with determining the average number of licks required to reach the chewy center of a popular brand of lollipop. The experiment they designed would employ a medium-sized population of lab owls, each of whom would be given a sample of the sucker and then consulted for their opinion.
According to Dr. Waylon Pendersnit, a researcher who worked on the project, HOOTR was unique in using owls for its research.
“Most labs would use rats or mice,” Pendersnit said. “And there are some benefits there. First of all, rats are a lot more interested in suckers than owls are. But we could find no rodent species with the innate wisdom we were relying on for our experiment to work. Plus we’d already bought a bunch of mortarboard caps for the subjects, and they would have been way too big for rats.”
Everyone agrees that the experiment went horribly awry when the late Dr. Heinrich Messer convinced the team that, instead of using a large group of different owls for one or two consultations each, they should build a single, technologically enhanced super-owl they could use for as many consultations as needed. This owl would be tougher, longer-lived, would have greatly increased maneuverability and firepower, and would speak to the researchers through a neural translator in twelve languages.
“I don’t know why we listened to the late Dr. Messer,” Waylon Pendersnit would later observe. “I mean, the guy didn’t have his act together at all. The main thing I remember about him was that he was late. Yeah, we should have listened to the punctual Dr. Todd Cohen. He was much better organized. And he warned us not to do it.”
Unfortunately, Dr. Cohen’s admonitions went unheeded. Once endowed with superior strength, speed and intellect, the owl quickly broke free from its restraints, killed three of its handlers, stole the data they’d collected, and disappeared into the forest, where it established a secret base from which to launch reprisal operations against all those who dare to tinker with nature.
Wear this shirt: to freak the bejeezis out of your hamsters.
Don’t wear this shirt: over to Alan Moore’s house and tell him this is how the Nite Owl looked in the movie.
This shirt tells the world: “Owl be back.”
We call this color: Roy-owl Bl-who, but we’re not proud of it.
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