Teddy Bear Killaz

There are a whole lot of reasons that I’m glad I’m not a teenager today, starting with the insane security moat they now create in front of stages, and this story forwarded to me by Mama Shakes reminds me of another reason up there at the top of the list, too:

Two students are suing to return to school after they were expelled for making a movie in which evil teddy bears attack a teacher.

The teenagers were among four students expelled from Knightstown High School over the movie, titled ''The Teddy Bear Master.''

But Knightstown Principal Jim Diagostino and Supt. David McGuire don't see the humor, and note that the teacher who is threatened in the movie has the same last name as a real teacher.

''That's crazy to think that's a threat to anyone,'' said Linda Imel, 42, whose 15-year-old son, Isaac, and his friend Cody Overbay, 16, have filed the suit.

In the movie, the ''teddy bear master'' orders stuffed animals to kill a teacher who had embarrassed him, but students battle the toy beasts, according to court papers.

''It's a 14- or 15-year-old boy's idea of humor,'' said Jackie Suess, an attorney for the ACLU of Indiana, which is representing one of the students.

Oy. That totally sounds like one of the idiotic movies Mr. Furious and I used to make as teenagers. (Also in Indiana!) People were always being killed by stuffed animals in our movies. And who else do teenagers in a small town lampoon but annoying classmates and teachers?

One of the movies we made was about our insufferably autocratic history teacher whose head was always shoved so firmly up his own arse in a gymnastic feat of self-love that his students regularly accused him of thinking he was God. In the movie, called “Mr. Douglas* is God,” two students (me and this other dude called Dave) die in a car accident and arrive in heaven to find out that the teacher really is God—and that heaven smells like Taco Bell (just like his classroom did).

That probably would have gotten us in a bit of trouble if the administration found out about it (although my parents, who were teachers at the high school and old friends of Mr. Douglas, thought it was hilarious), but not expelled. On the other hand, my girlfriend and I had a long-running series of cartoons about a civics teacher who, much like South Park’s Kenny, died in horrible ways every day. Like, once his colon exploded because it was filled with too many porkchops, another time his own moustache strangled him, another time his limbs each sprouted angels’ wings and flew away to get away from his incessant babbling. We didn’t even choose him because we hated him. He was just easily caricatured, because he had a big square head and a giant moustache, and provided enough irritation during his dreadfully boring class to provoke our sardonic series.

Those quite certainly would have gotten us in trouble, yet we passed them back and forth in his class every damn day, not even being all that surreptitious about it. I don’t think we ever considered how much trouble we’d be in if we got caught. Back then, I sincerely doubt we would have been expelled, because it would have just been considered incredibly rude and impertinent, which it was, and not automatically assumed to be threatening, which it wasn’t.

In any case, I did far too many stupid, rude, and impertinent things when I was that age that I’m glad I’m not that age now, when such things are inevitably presumed to be threatening. Especially because I know every stupid, rude, and impertinent thing I did would have been all over the internets—so I never would have gotten away with anything.

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* Name totally not changed.