What's Next, Saxophone Hero? I'm Game...

The video game Guitar Hero has become quite popular over the past few years, so it was bound to spawn both imitators and spoofs. Here's the best spoof so far, from a recent Onion article: Sousaphone Hero:

Despite a catchy 1890s soundtrack and realistic-feeling game play, Sousaphone Hero, the third installment of Activision's massively popular Guitar Hero video game franchise, sold a mere 52 copies in the United States in its opening week, the company reported Monday.

"In the wake of Guitar Hero's success, we thought the public was more than ready for additional popular American musical genres in a simulated-performance format, but people don't seem to be responding to marches as well as we had hoped," said Activision spokeswoman Melissa Hendleman, whose company spent an estimated $25 million developing the game for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii consoles.

Sousaphone Hero offers two dozen public-domain marches, including 1893's "The Liberty Bell," 1896's "Stars and Stripes Forever," and 1897's "Entry of the Gladiators." The bulky sousaphone-shaped controller coils around the body, and players wear white spat-like foot coverings fitted with sensors that monitor synchronized marching steps. As with the fret buttons on Guitar Hero's guitar peripheral, the sousaphone controller's three valves are color-coded to match on-screen notes the player must hit.

Read the whole thing, which is equally hilarious, especially the picture of the guy using the "new wireless controller."

And if that doesn't tickle your fancy, there's always Accordion Hero, whose website makes it almost look real.

But this one is real: In a new Japanese video game called ICED!, players can assume the role of an illegal immigrant who runs afoul of the U.S. system.

When this lady said "Not tonight, honey, I have a headache," she wasn't kidding: A woman got a pencil stuck in her head in a childhood accident, and it stayed there for 55 years.