UnNews:Cleaver craze of 2008 finally dies down

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17 February, 2009

Due to the elections coverage last year, this sweeping craze was never recognised overseas.

The Cleaver craze was started by a street performer in Tallahassee, FL (he is now performing adverts for a leading cutlery company). The craze simply involves juggling meat cleavers, typically 3-5 cleavers at a time, although some talented individuals claim they have juggled with 30 cleavers, sometimes more.

Many finishing moves have been invented, the most popular being catching a cleaver in your teeth (whilst the remaining are caught by hand). Another finishing move to the trick involves catching all the cleavers behind your back, which is fairly difficult (Cleaverjugs.com rate it 2/5 stars for difficulty). One artist, who goes by the nickname 'Bubba No-Fingers', has his own finishing move which involves juggling with 10 cleavers and letting them all fall on to his fingers as a finishing move. He has only performed this manouvre once.

Naturally, there have been some reports of severed limbs, and sometimes deaths. 153 people have been killed by this craze, and a further 147,800 have suffered severed limbs (most often finger loss). Despite the apparent rich ground for controversy, both John McCain and Barack Obama have voiced there support, with John McCain often making unverified claims about his 'obvious cleaving talent'.

Since the turn of the year, the death toll has risen to 1344, with over one million injured. Barack Obama finally saw the light and banned the craze in early January 2009, saying it was "quite dangerous".

There have been unverified reports in this last week that people in North Korea were juggling meat cleavers, but further research proved that this had been the case for over 500 years in Korea.

Whatever you are doing in the kitchen, do NOT be tempted to pick up your cleavers, eye their sharp, enticing, yet comforting blades, and juggle with them. You're only hurting yourself, and potentially many others.

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