Thursday, March 10, 2016

Crossover Combat: Franklin versus Washington






VS




I used to live outside of Philly, and like everyone there I was required to pay obeisance and worship Ben Franklin at his giant throne in the Franklin Institute. Despite that fact, when asked to resolve a dispute between two friends over who was the best Founding Father, I was able to do so ably and impartially by citing the following facts, much as I did with Jane Austen:



Washington vs Franklin



1.) Wartime Leadership

None of the troops under Franklin’s command during the Revolutionary War froze at Valley Forge.
Advantage: Franklin

2.) Peacetime Leadership

Washington’s third term went so poorly that many modern historians do not even acknowledge its existence.
Advantage: Franklin

3.) Patriotism

Washington failed to capture or kill Bin Laden when he was president. Ben Franklin invented a time machine and retroactively erased twenty-nine terrorists from existence.
Advantage: Franklin

4.) On hunting the Most Dangerous game

George Washington was renowned as one of the greatest horseman of his age, which assisted him in his favorite hobby, hunting. Many historians believe he would arrange meetups on Craiglist, abduct his victims when they arrived and fly them to his private island by helicopter, where he would hunt them for sport.

Ben Franklin was too fat to hunt people
Advantage: Franklin

5.) Slavery

It is well-known that George Washington released his slaves upon his death. He did not release his House Elves however, and hundreds of them still labor at Mount Vernon.
Advantage: Franklin

6.)Inventions

Franklin had eleventy billion inventions., including swim fins, the lightning rod, Daylight Savings Time, Snapple (each bottle contains a spark of the lightning from his kite), Jazzercise, bifocals, the Franklin stove, Philadelphia’s first fire brigade and Philadelphia’s first Fight Club.

George Washington didn’t invent anything, but tried to take credit late in life for some peanut related developments from a man with a similar name.
Advantage: Franklin

7.) Legacy

Stupid Washington launched his Christmas attack on Trenton and we’re still hearing about this “War on Christmas” from Bill O’Reilly two hundred years later.
Advantage: Franklin

8.) Diet

Franklin was a vegetarian for most of his life. George Washington was a cannibal.
Advantage: Franklin

9.) Monetary Value

One Franklin is worth 100 Washingtons.
Advantage: Franklin

10.) Appearances in advertising

The only work Washington can get is shilling mattresses on Presidents’ Day

This commercial where a giant Ben Franklin fights a kaiju cheesesteak is pretty much the best thing ever, as well as being an accurate depiction of life in Philadelphia.


Advantage: Franklin

I hope these little known facts have proved illuminating.

1 comment:

  1. Regarding the myth about the cherry tree, most historians now believe that George Washington was Saruman's chief legbreaker at Orthanc. Saruman dispatched him to assassinate Treebeard the Ent, whom Saruman hated for his endlessly cheerful disposition ("Rid me of that cheery tree, would you, George?").

    However, since Washington insisted on wearing a wooden hearing aid, he misheard "cheery" as "cherry" and his error changed the history of Middle Earth.

    ReplyDelete