Daniel O'Brien
Daniel O’Brien also known as “DOB”, is a humorist, author, and song writer for Cracked.com.
Guest Appearances
12 Animals That Could 'Planet of The Apes' Us If They Tried
If sci-fi movies have taught you one thing about species with queen-based social hierarchies, it's that you should always kill the queen. Same goes for insects right? Kill the queen and the ant hill or bee's nest goes away. Sounds good, unless…
ListenLooking the Part - Soren and Daniel Analyze Bathroom Habits
Every morning when you wake up you (probably) do the same routine. In some order, you shower, use the toilet, shave and brush your teeth. In that respect, movie characters don't seem to exist in the same universe as us. Typically we…
ListenLooking The Part - Soren and Daniel On Movie Scars and Tattoos
Admit it: the Harry Potter movies would be totally different if he didn't have a cool scar. If Harry looked like Gary Oldman in 'Hannibal', Hermione and Ron be afraid to talk to him and even the Dementors would think twice before…
Listen17 Movies That Were Total Disasters Behind The Scenes
Understatement time: movies are hard to make. Every movie from The Godfather II to Joe Dirt 2 is the result of years and years of tireless hard work from artists, craftsmen, teamsters, executives and advertisers-- all working in high pressure situations with…
ListenLooking the Part - Baldness, Side-Parts and Facial Hair
Every cheesy soap opera gives it away from the start-- the dashing Dr. Iago Montana is back from the dead...with a goatee. We as the audience know: IT'S NOT HIM, IT'S HIS EVIL TWIN! SEND HIM BACK FROM WHENCE HE CAME! Again,…
ListenA Farewell To Cracked Editor-in-Chief Jack O'Brien
Serious Talk. It's Jack's last episode. After 11 years at Cracked, our intrepid editor-in-chief and podcast host extraordinaire Jack O'Brien is hanging up the cleats to tackle new projects, end world hunger and find the Zodiac killer. But that doesn't mean this…
Listen25 Bizarrely Specific Ways Movies Get Reality Wrong
It's not something that you consciously notice, but movies speak to us in a secret language. They use a special shorthand to convey ideas or explain plot in the most efficient way possible. There's one problem though: they do it in the…
Listen2016 Year In Review In Review
2016 is almost over. Yes the endless, rotten sh*t hurricane of a year that took away Bowie, Prince and Florence Henderson and gave us Trump, Harambe and the Zika virus is finally drawing to a close. So, to give this b*tch a proper viking…
ListenDark Secrets from the Teacher's Lounge
Did you ever have the sneaking suspicion that when your history teacher rolled out the old A/V cart for movie time that he was completely hungover? Or that that one teacher who seemed to hate you on a molecular level was giving…
ListenThe Best Fictional Universe To Be a Corpse
Congratulations! You've died in a fictional universe where the afterlife exists! How cool is that? Aren't you happy you're not in the Tarantino-verse? Instead of your soul escaping to the great unknown, you get to hang out and make pottery with Whoopi Goldberg,…
ListenChildren's TV Shows With Horrifying Implications
Last week on the site, Daniel O'Brien told us why Pinocchio was a secretly terrifying tale about a monster-boy thrust into existence by a bumbling old man who probably shouldn't be anyone's legal guardian. To become a real boy, he's expected to prove himself…
ListenWe Finally Solved the Dog vs. Cat Debate
Ever since we started letting friendly wolves and tiny tigers into our homes a few thousand years ago, society has been split into two camps: dog people and cat people. Sometimes the battle lines are drawn across gender lines; the term cat-lady…
ListenWhy We Should Wait 5 Years To Award the Oscars
Sorry, the Oscars, but you're old, out of touch and boring. We can see through your failed attempts to reach a new generation: the Anne Hathaway/James Franco catastrophe, the phony (get it?) Ellen DeGeneres selfie stunt that was totally unscripted and Samsung…
ListenWhy The English Language Is Messing With Your Head
A short list of completely ridiculous things we put up with as English speakers: 1. I before E except after C (apart from numerous exceptions that you should memorize) 2. The letters C and K making the same sound (except when they don't)…
ListenMovies That'd Be Better From a Different POV
Most disaster movies make cannon fodder out of almost every single living person on the planet who isn't a president, a fighter pilot, or the one scientist who has the key to solving the alien/meteor/whatever problem. What about the rest of us?…
ListenWhat We Learned About What We Learned In 2015
As everything in the world becomes more interconnected and as the cost of recording and storing data sharply decreases, we've seen a steep rise in the importance of statistics. It seems like there isn't a single facet of human life that isn't…
ListenWhy Time Travel Would Be Weirder Than You Think
Going back all the way to our very first episode, one of the topics that we've discussed most on this podcast is the Flynn Effect: the inevitability that each generation will be smarter than the last. We're smarter than a generation of…
Listen20 Movies That Would Be Better With One Simple Change
Search through the DVD extras of 'Back To The Future' and you'll come across one of the greatest what-ifs of movie history. The part of Marty McFly was originally played by Eric Stoltz (John Travolta's drug dealer from 'Pulp Fiction'), and they…
ListenWhy Nothing About The Presidential Election Matters
Newsflash: You only have 407 days until the 2016 presidential election. Do you think you'll have enough time to make an informed decision? We think so. In fact, you could bury your head in the sand on Mars for another full year…
ListenDumb Movie Tropes That Need To Die Already
Our main bread and butter at Cracked is pointing out the little things in movies that either brainwash our society as a whole, or are just simply so overused that they annoy the bloody hell out of us. We've covered in our…
ListenWeird Ways Repeating Sounds Hack the Human Mind
Why is it that if you hear a pop song like "I Kissed A Girl" more than two or three times, you feel like you're going insane, but when you play an old video game you can listen to the music for…
ListenWhy California Is Secretly Evil
In 1848, on the eve of the California Gold Rush, there were less than 1000 white settlers living in the California territory. Within the next 2 years, that number would jump up to 100,000, making it the largest mass-migration in US history.…
ListenGreat Movie Sequels That Don't Exist
If you recall the 2006 movie 'The Prestige,' you'll remember the plot roughly follows how two Batmen fight an army of Wolverines created by David Bowie. Look it up. The most overlooked part of the film is when Nikola Tesla (played by…
ListenInsane Internet Fan Theories
As we've previously covered on the site, before JK Rowling had even finished the 'Harry Potter' books, an interesting fan theory started popping up on Potterverse fansites. The speculation went that perhaps the chosen one wasn't our boy Harry, but actually lovable…
ListenTiny Cause, Huge Effect
We've all heard about the butterfly effect: a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, and weeks later that results in a hurricane somewhere else. But that doesn't actually happen, right? We can't prove that a butterfly can affect…
ListenBabies: Cuddly Idiots or Evil Super-Geniuses?
We love babies, and we’re also horrified by all that they imply. Babies can’t eat on their own or hold their heads up, and they go to the bathroom in their pants like drunken little monsters. But science is beginning to show…
ListenStatistics That Prove We're Wrong About Everything
You're on the 1970s game show "Let's Make a Deal," and you get to pick between 3 doors: behind one is a new car, and behind the other two are gag prizes. After choosing your door, the host shows you one of…
ListenSecrets That Created the World
Did you know James Buchanan promised to write a letter explaining every secret about his life, and then at the last minute had it destroyed? Or that the concept of "nuclear winter" was a load of B.S. invented by the KGB? Or…
ListenHow Depressing Entertainment Became the Norm
Have you noticed that all the great series of television's current renaissance are darker than the devil's taint with a suntan? You've got Game of Thrones, where every likable character dies horribly and sociopathy is cruise control for success. There's True Detective,…
Listen22 Accidents That Made the World
Accidents happen. And, sometimes those accidents lead to world-changing inventions, like penicillin, cheese and (mankind's most critical invention) Silly Putty. On today's podcast, Cracked editors Jack O'Brien, Dan O'Brien and Soren Bowie talk about the cock-ups that led to huge revelations. If…
ListenGreatest 'What Ifs' in Pop Culture
When you hear the phrase "squandered premise," a few things leap right into your mind -- 'The Walking Dead', 'True Blood', Jay-Z's god-awful mash-up albums and every 'Jaws' movie BUT 'Jaws'. On this podcast, Cracked editors Jack O'Brien, Dan O'Brien and Soren…
ListenHow Colors Control Your Mind
You're being mind-controlled right now. The CIA and the NSA aren't to blame -- just holding a cool drink can make you decide someone has a "cold" personality. Just hearing words associated with "old people" is enough to make you walk at…
ListenDumb Movies That Will Be Studied by History
The most important movies in history don’t always walk away with Academy Awards. In this podcast, you'll hear Jack O'Brien explain what Teen Wolf can tell us about the history of race relations in America, Dan O'Brien point out that Last Action Hero was basically…
ListenBad Ideas That Control the World
Police sketch artists, speed bumps, late-night talk shows and the QWERTY keyboard all have one thing in common: They're shitty ideas that have somehow gained immortality. On this podcast, Cracked editors Jack O'Brien, Dan O'Brien and Robert Evans talk about bad ideas…
ListenWhy So Many Good TV Shows Have Bad Endings
In part one of a two-part discussion, Jack O'Brien welcomes in Cracked staffers Breandan Carter, Adam Ganser, and Dan O'Brien to offer alternate endings to 'Dexter', '101 Dalmatians', and the ABC live-action puppet sitcom 'Dinosaurs' that would've made more sense than their…
ListenLyndon B. Johnson
Cracked Head Writer & Creative Director of Video, Daniel O’Brien joins Jack O’Brien (no relation) to discuss the many things you may not know about President Lyndon B. Johnson in honor of Daniel’s upcoming book, “How To Fight Presidents.” We’ll learn about…
ListenFlashbulb Memories
Today Jack O’Brien talks about memory and why we suck at it. He’ll examine the idea of flashbulb memories by chatting with senior Cracked editor Robert Brockway about a personal anecdote of his that involves mushrooms and a wolf. Then, Jack &…
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