Ah, birthdays: A time of celebration, friends, cake, and, of course...
...dying animals.Notice how, even if the elephant were able to escape the tar pit/Swamps of Sadness, there's a lion coming over to finish him off. See, that kind of thing sends a message. A message that says,
A) this baker has clearly never seen The Neverending Story, and
B) "Don't forget the tissues, Mom & Dad, 'cuz this'll make little Suzie cry for sure."
Josh W., I may or may not be having Artax flashbacks, and I may or may not need some of those tissues. Also, John won't stop singing The Circle of Life. That's definitely not helping.
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Love the Neverending Story reference. You never fail to amaze me with movie references. :-)
ARTAX!!!!!!!!!
It appears there is another dead critter under the price tag. How sad :(
I love how super cheery the writing is. It is completely mismatched with that image. Also, what do you think the 'tar' really is? Blech!
OMG that scene with Artax scarred me so badly as a kid.
And the scarring hasn't faded much as an adult, I must say.
ARTAX!!!!
*squints* Is that not a (patoooie!) cupcake cake? Will the poor elephant rip in half, or topple to his death when hungry party-goers finally reach the centre? Will the lion get his own dinner, or be left frozen and hungry in the wasteland of empty cupcake wrappers?
Oi.... Creativity misplaced on this one, I think, eh?
Nothing says 'Happy Birthday' quite like a mouldy dog turd - yum, yum!
The ciiiiiirrrrrrrrcle of liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife…
…which you'd think would indicate somehow that you can't make a round cake out of round cupcakes.
I guess that the intention was "bathing in (glorious) mud or dirty water" rather than "dying in a tar pit".
Never fear! Only FEMALE lions hunt. The males don't. So, they're probably just sharing hot weather survival tips!
While the Artax reference would make me tear up, my kid wouldn't shed a single tear over this cake. He would think it was like his book - Simba and Nala Help Bomo, where the two lions help a baby elephant that is stuck in the mud get out.
Ah! Artax!!! Noooo!
I still cry when I see that.
Be positive! Why dont you think that its the elephant taking a bath in the pond and the lion is guarding his privacy!
OK see that wont spin! I would love to know the story behind the cake.
The elephant is drowning in green Jello... uh, very... creative! And, oh look! theres another dying animal under the price tag! (I can't even tell what sort of animal it's supposed to be...) I think the lion really doesn't like green Jello because look! He's eating grass. Strange? No actually. Haven't you seen the south african vegetarian lions? No? Well then your life isn't complete.
This jungle-themed CCC (patooie) is the poor man's version of "The Lion King." Well, #13.88 does seem like a hefty price to pay for the animal figurines.
-French Bean
Why is it that the rank amateurs know that if you're piping blue gel for a body of water, you MUST make the icing underneath it white, so it doesn't look like the tar pit of death, but the "professionals" (and I use the term loosely) can't figure that out? Or do they just not give a rat's red rump?
WV: sestrate -- apparently the baker who did this can't sestrate.
*twitch* That scene still feels me with dread and despair!
I wonder if Mr. Elephant is going through the same 5 Stages of Death like Mr. Giraffe -- clip is from Robot Chicken (cursing featured)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usm9SpnHYJQ
Since it's FRIDAY and I want to be happy, I prefer to think the poor elephant is just bathing in the Bog of Eternal Stench ala Labyrinth...because nobody DIES in Labyrinth...
On an unrelated side note, Anonymous' comment about a rat's red rump had me snorting! :) Happy weekend!
Circle of Life...LOL...that is exactly what started running through my head upon seeing this wreck!! I guess some wrecks just have their own soundtracks!
Donna,
"SMEEEEELL!!!"
Thank you. Thank you very much.
john (you remind me of the babe)
Maybe the tar is just a polluted river?
How VERY educational. It's just like visting the Brea Tar Pits in LA. Norine
I was totally thinking Swamps of Sadness the second I saw that cake!
You've got me crying before 8am on a friday morning! Artaaaax!!! I should never have followed the link. That was so disturbing to me as a child, heck-I still am disturbed by it.
I never would have gotten over Artax if they didn't show Atreyu riding him at the end of the movie. When I saw that movie, I had a horse that looked just like Artax.
@Joe Polowin, love the Flanders and Swann reference. "Mud, mud, glorious mud!/Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!"
Gosh, am I showing MY age!
However(ahem!), back to the subject at hand. That is a pretty gruesome cake. The poor kid will need years of therapy.
...that's farked up!
If you need a good laugh to cheer you up, go to you tube and look up the never ending story music video. HILARIOUS!!
As if the drowning elephant and patient lion (yeah, it's just a matter of time...) weren't traumatic enough, this has all the markings of a dreaded CCC! Say it ain't so!
Bahahaha.... awww...
tar-pits are not appetizing.
and now I have to go watch NES - but fast forward through the whole Artax scene because I don't want to traumatize my daughters (If I'd wanted to do THAT I could just show them this wreck)
WV - dereccal - "dereccal" really set them to cryin', better not share.
I'd guess that's a gorilla under the label, between the lion & elephant. Hiding its face in shame, obviously.
Did you catch Americas Got Talent this past week? Hannibal Means rendition of the Circle of Life?
Ha, funny how these kind of things will just pop up all over the place at once.
In the interests of zoological accuracy, I would like to point out that were a lion to attack a non-infant elephant, the result would be a pile of lion goo.
I am still traumatized by that scene! We bought The Neverending Story on dvd recently and I made great use of the "skip" button. It's a much better movie now. (sniffle)
I need cake.
I wonder...does anyone step back when they're done decorating a cake to get the full picture? Because if they'd done that with this cake, they might not have put it out on the display shelf.
Although for a party at the LaBrea Tar Pits, it's perfect! XD
PS: I need to watch 'Neverending Story' again. =)
OMG! That is so sad! I love documentaries and I CANNOT watch those! Turn it off! Turn it off!!!!
When I was about ten, I flooded part of my back yard with a hose until I had an impressive mud pit. Then I sloshed through it for like two hours screaming, "Aaaaaartaaax!" My parents were not amused when they got home.
forget the dead critters, I'm crying because it's a CCC.
Drowning in a tar pit is the new "over-the-hill"
John: "SMELLLLL BAAADDDD!"
Ok, now I have that song running through my head! :)
I kind of like the life lesson in this CCC. The sticker is hiding a gorilla who is watching the elephant's demise. He's not helping the elephant, he may even have engineered the situation, and he hides behind "it's just business."
Now pay attention kids because this is what adulthood is: either a gorilla tricks you into killing yourself for his amusement -OR- you destroy an elephant for your own gain.
The lion about to eat the gorilla represents the inevitibility of death, regardless of your own success.
The circle of life indeed.
Ahh, and I had Hakuna Matata floating through my brain.
Artax, red rumps, Labyrinth, and the WV's are getting to me this morning. Must go find cake.....
~~Di
WV: slysi - I think the wreckerators are trying to put one over on us on the slysi.
So, does the elephant have legs that are smashed down taking up valuable cupcake space? Or is it a legless elephant? Pulling an elephant off a cake only to find it was a quadruple amputee would be the cracking point for me.
Your noting of the lion reminded me of this story:
There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and says, "This is the BEST strawberry I've ever tasted!"
It has nothing to do with the wreck, but I absolutely love that story.
I'm actually reading the Never Ending Story right now! I saw it as a kid and only recently found out it was a book first. A German book.
On the bright side, there's SO much frosting that you almost can't tell it's a CCC.
WV: buriml. HBD, anml burial.
I love Neverending Story! The Swamp of Sorrows was such a sad sceene! I always cried! Poor Artax! It still makes me tear up to this day :o(
Obviously this child's mom rented out the labrea tar pits in L.A. for this kid's birthday party.
The bounce house, the splash park, the bowling alley and the skating rink were all reserved months ago.
what makes it neverending story? its an elephant, not a horse and its a lion not atreyu. I think its more jungle/tar pits/evolutionary than anything else. it really doesn't make me think of neverending story at all, and I've read that book/seen that movie umpteen times...I think you might just be projecting ; )
I'm hoping that isn't the price for that one!
http://www.allaboutcake.co.uk/
the circle of life,Artax...I'm laughing so hard I'm crying...pass the tissues.
Anyone know the Flanders & Swann tune (originally written for a love-struck hippopotamus, but hey, we're not sticklers are we?):
Mud, mud, glorious mud!
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.
So follow me, follow, down to the hollow,
And there we shall wallow in gloo-oo-or-i-ous MUD!
Or tar, if you prefer.
Maybe the kid is a huge fan of the La Brea tar pits, and the bakery substituted an elephant for the wooly mammoths and a lion for the sabertooths for a dramatic re-enactment of the tableau at La Brea. Maybe they even rented an asphalt machine to waft the scent of cooking tar through the room for that touch of authenticity. And then they filled a kiddie pool with molasses and made huge sulfurous bubbles slowly bloop to the surface. So lifelife! I don't know about you, but that sounds like one heck of a party to me! (especially the part where the neighborhood brat is pushed, er, falls, into the tar pit and slowly disappears under the surface, never to be seen again.)
Instead of "Circle of Life" perhaps "Circle of Poo" from South Park...
Oh poor elephant... Maybe it's just my eyes, but it looks like that reads 'Hoppy Birthday' as well. But that could just be the angle and glare from the plastic case.
Everyone's comments are cracking me up. And I knew there was a reason I have blocked out what happens in NES (I used to watch it a lot and now can't for the life of me remember what happened - probably a good thing!)
~Suzzie
Wow, that is depressing! :(
And I think Jo-Ann's must have somehow known there would be an evil CCC Wreck today, I woke up to see this as their FB status:
Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores FRIDAY POP QUIZ! The ideal cupcake = (A) 50% cake + 50% frosting? (B) 75% cake + 25% frosting? (C) 25% cake + 75% frosting? (D) They come with cake?
*cringe* There was actually someone who said they only use the cake as a vehicle to get the frosting into their face! I bet he would make a great Wreckorator!
Holy crap. The Swamps of Sadness scene in "NES" is still traumatizing all these years later. Still remember the first time I saw it . . . Picture this:
Slumber party circa 1986. Four 10 year old girls. A VCR and a movie rental from Blockbuster. After the squealing died down about how cute Atreyu was and how much we all wanted a horse "just like Artex," that damn scene comes on and suddenly we've gone from being an overly-sugared crowd of preteens to a gang of wailing little girls, one of which (not me) went home early because she was so upset.
Damn scene still makes me cry to this day.
Why, oh why, did I click on the related Labor of Love? Oh yes, I will be having nightmares for sure! Good God who thinks of these things-then eats them?!
I think I love John. Sounds way much like my hubby!
I can't seem to count 24 cupcakes WITHOUT having several actually beneath the elephant/Slough of Despond.
Do they sell little flat-bottomed doomed creatures to set atop cakes---those Barbie picks with no nethers come close---or would they just plunge the little plastic feet down into the cupcakes?
Of course, if it's for a child, all the little animal figures are playing cheerfully, frolicking in the Cool of the Pool, all innocent and happy.
It's all in the eye of the intender.
My secret word today is chripes. Indeed so.
Anonymous said...
Never fear! Only FEMALE lions hunt. The males don't. So, they're probably just sharing hot weather survival tips!
Actually that ia only Male lions that are part of a pride. lone male lions hunt all the time.
http://www.gtfo.ro/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/join-the-darkside.jpg
Well come to the Light Side we have NORMAL cupcakes!!!!
Let me say that if you didn't cry at the Swamp of Sadness then you aren't human! For all those crying remember Artex is brought back at the end.
And that reminds me....
Rockbiter: "They look like big, good, strong hands. Don't they? I always thought that's what they were. My little friends. The little man with his racing snail, the Nighthob, even the stupid bat. I couldn't hold on to them. The nothing pulled them right out of my hands. I failed."
Atreyu: "No you didn't fail. I'm the one who was chosen to stop the nothing. But I lost the Auryn, I can't find my luck dragon, so I won't be ableto get past the boundaries of Fantasia."
Rockbiter: "Listen, the nothing will be here any minute. I will just sit here and let it take me away too. They look like big, good, strong hands. Don't they?"
I love that movie!
Artax is the first thing I thought of when I opened the page. Poor, poor Artax. I was like eight when I first saw that movie and I cried like a baby at that part. this elephant isn't helping the therapy.
That decorator has some issues for sure...traumatic and disturbing !
Looks like a party at the La Brea Tar Pits to me - every kid's birthday dream party.
Ell oh ell @ the Neverending Story. Good times, good times.
Don't know if you're a So You Think You Can Dance watcher, but on Tuesday they had a cake to celebrate their 150th episode....it wasn't a wreck exactly, just the saddest cake ever to appear on prime time television. A big white sheet cake with a printout of their logo (all black) with tiny, black, crappy lettering. EMBARRASSING.
TURN AROUND, LOOK AT WHAT YOU SEEEE-EE-EE-EEE-EE-EE-EEE-E-E
IN HER FACE, THE MIRROR OF YOUR DREEAA-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-E-EAMS
I just want you to know I'm going to be singing that softly to myself through the tears all day.
ATREYYYYUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!
FALLLLCORRRRR!!!
I think the animal under that label might be another elephant, perhaps a baby, rearing back on its hind legs.
How's that for a depressing turn of events? Mom is up to her neck in tar, watching while her baby is attacked by a lion.
Aw, I cry every time I see Atreyu trying to pull Artax out of the quick sand stuff! What an awful cake! D:
OK I just have to say it:
Are ANY of the crappy plastic things on the cakes made of food grade plastic?
That's the only thing I ever wonder when I see them.
Makes me scared of cake.
I figured the dead animal under the price tag was a rhino... Killed by the rogue elephant, as they've been doing lately in some parts of Africa. The lion is simply enforcing justice by making sure the elephant pays... At least that's what I saw. :)
My 4 year old just said, "What is that? A jungle on a carrot??" LOL!
COME FOR ME, G'MORK! I AM ATREYU!
Oh, man. I love that movie.
But, I gotta tell you, that cake makes me wish The Nothing would take IT away.
ARTAX!!!!!
I wonder how many of those comments there will be by the end of the day :)
thanks jen,
I forgot about that!
I LOVE that movie, why don't they play it more on TV.
My daughter just had a field trip to the La Brea Tar Pits and came back talking about how sad she was that the mommy mastadon got stuck in the tar lake. I think I need to order this cake to cheer her up!
Maybe the person receiving this cake is really interested in the La Brea tar pits in California, where they found all the mammoth and sabertooth tiger skeletons that were preserved in the tar pits? That's actually what I thought of first...though, yeah, the Neverending Story angle does make it way more depressing.
You know, the last time I caught Neverending Story on TV, a thunderstorm was coming in.
During the scene where 'The Nothing' is being described to our hero, the storm warning interrupted the audio for the movie. So we were watching Atreyu stumbling around with The Nothing rumbling and roaring, and... 'de DO WEEP! This is an official thunderstorm warning! Winds up to 30 miles per hour...'
Probably the hardest I've ever laughed in my life. The timing was beyond perfect.
It's a re-creation of the LaBrea Tar Pits in prehistoric times. Every child needs this type of education on their birthday!
Oh dear! Death is a part of life. That doesn't mean it has to be a part of cake.
The sinking animal/Neverending Story reference made me think of this Doctor Who macro. (spoilers through The Hungry Earth, the first of this season's Silurian episodes.) Let's see someone put that on a cake!
...so apparently I'm the only one who thinks this is awesome. It's the La Brea tar pits - ON A CAKE. For no apparent reason! What more could you want?
That kid will need therapy!~
If it is ANY consolation, male lions do not do the hunting. The females do, and they do it in packs.
SO, if the pitiful elephant were to escape the bog of sadness (is that what it was called, I forget) he stands a good chance of surviving.
Neverending Story gave my kids nightmares for weeks when they were litte (Artax in the swamp, and that wolf-beast thing...)
the little guy with the racing snail is Deep Roy. He was the Oompa Loompa in the Willy Wonka movie with Johnny Depp...
I always turn to Cakewrecks for a laugh at the end of a long, long day..
Alright, I'm getting ready to go to bed soon, so I completely believe that the large elephant is playing in a pool of cool water to get away from the heat. The half hidden baby elephant is rolling in the grass. And the lion is separated from them by an electric fence. Yeah, that's what it is. A nice peaceful day at Busch Gardens. (repeat to self while falling asleep)
Man, it was YEARS before I could stay in the room during the Artax scene...
Michelle - cake as a vehicle to get icing in their mouth - Oh dear, you know my husband.
Oh my goodness! That lion is the Aslan Happy Meal toy from The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe!
My first thought was, 'tar pit'. I thought perhaps the wreckerator was going all educational on us and stuff. But then, the elephant would have to be a mastodon and the lion would have to be a saber-tooth cat.
My second thought, on noticing the telltale border of a CCC, was 'patooie!'Although I must say this may be the most artistic effort to hide the cupcakes I have yet seen. The animals and landscaping are even the same scale!
My third thought, on reading the above paragraph, was that 'hide the cupcakes' would be a fun game. Just get some cupcakes, enough frosting to plaster a house, and... we know the rest.
So the story shapes up this way: no Artax, no Swamps of Sadness. Mr. Elephant decided to take a tar bath in a generic jungle setting (any resemblance to any fictional character or setting is entirely coincidental -- nudge-nudge, wink-wink), and the non-hunting male lion stopped by to cheer up the elephant by saying, "Sorry, Dumb-o, I can't do jack to help -- no thumbs. My wife and her friends should be along any minute, though."
By the way, you go, John.
wv: domed. The frosting had to be domed to get the entire industrial-size bowlful on the cupcakes.
I'm thinking this might be a Saggy Baggy Elephant cake gone wrong.
Oh not another CCC! That poor elephant looks like it is drowning in dark blue goo. Ick. I wouldn't go near that thing if you paid me lol. Let alone want to eat it. Makes me wonder what exactly were the wreckerators trying to say with this cake? Happy birthday now an animal is gonna die? I fear these wreckerators lol.
Artax - don't leave me!!!!!!!!!! Oh, I haven't watched that in years! I love your pop culture references!!
African Artax? What the peas?
tl;tr so maybe someone already said this but.
it looks to me like someones sad attempt at a cake wrecreation of the scene outside the La Brea Tarpits.
http://www.jeffhandel.com/photo/wildlife/images/(13)%20La%20Brea%20Tar%20Pits.jpg
^^ that's it. and i can't believe this is the best pictures i could find. must go back and take better ones. but there are sabertoothed cats stalking the mammoth also, about where the camera man must be standing.
AND, it's a ccc! That makes it extra depressing.
You see, I look at this cake and go "Yay! The lion will be able to feed his adoreable little babies!" Thus not depressing at all ^__^
It's an OK La Brea Tar Pits cake, not great but OK. The mammoth sculpture is in the big artificial pond near the Page Museum. The Tar Pits web site shows a lion (I didn't remember there being one) but it looks more like a mountain lion than an African one, so probably therefore no "mane" on the males.
http://www.decopac.com/detail_12377M__5-21.html
I just found this page a couple days ago, and I'm hooked! I've been wanting to take classes in cake decorating, but I've been putting it off. Now I have some serious motivation: to never make a cake that could end up on here! Lol. I will definitely be a daily reader starting now!
I really can't watch that part of the movie. WAY too depressing. Oddly, I can see bad stuff happen to people, but not to animals. Probably the reason I'm still banned from watching Bambi, Dumbo, or Ol' Yellar. Oh, and I'm 29. :)
@C Lysager - So now, instead of being re-scarred for life remembering Artax, I get to be scarred for life AGAIN by watching this guy with a dead skunk on his head singing a song that for my entire life I was under the impression was sung by a woman.
Um... thanks?
I just can't help wondering if this "cake" was made for BP.... 'Look kinda public, animals are fiiiine with bathing in oil..'
Gina said...
If it is ANY consolation, male lions do not do the hunting. The females do, and they do it in packs.
SO, if the pitiful elephant were to escape the bog of sadness (is that what it was called, I forget) he stands a good chance of surviving.
As part of a Pride, yes. You are correct.
Lone males that haven't usurped themselves into the leadership of a pride do hunt.
aaaaaaaaaaand it's a CCC ... Depression 99% complete
-Naomi
WV : sessad
This cake makes me seeeeeeeeessad
Okay...
While I agree that this is a massive fail, I think it is more of a color fail than anything else. I think the wreckerator used that God-awful transparent blue gel to make the lake, and /failed/ to realize that on top of brown icing it would look...well, like tar. There's even a blue bleed around the perimeter of the lake.
Even so, you'd think a person would step back, look at the cake, see a tar pit, and fix it. But if every cake decorator could do that, this site would not exist! :)
NOO ARTAXX!!!!
This is obviously a cake representation of the trapped mammoth at the La Brea Tar Pits.
photo of trapped mammoth
Bear in mind, it's a MALE lion; so, technically, should the elephant escape the sticky depths, he might have just enough time to make his getaway before the female lions show up, b*tching about how they always get called just as they're getting in the bath *nods firmly* Ah... or is that genies?
So that safari one with the lion, elephant, and gorilla(hidden by tage)totally puchased that kit for our bakery today. before you laugh at us the water is supposed to be blue ;)
I'm sorry, it shouldn't - but this is totally the post I go to when I need to laugh really really bad. This one, and the post with the tiny lamb riding out Bruce Willis style. They crack me up.
Thank you for brightening my dreary day!
A hideous beast of cake. WHats happy about that birthday???? Nothing. ;) xx
Actually, I have a friend who made one like that for her paleontologist father.
Darn near exactly like that, I remember her talking about how she poised the saber tooth tigers to get stuck in the tar.
For the right person, I think that cake would be well appreciated!
MMMMM...moldy dog turds
Extracting birthday treat, but
not getting tarred death:
Awesome party game.
Happy birthday, Leos.
wv: clows
Sonto Clows is making a list.