The Hall of Shame 06.18.08: The Top Ten Stupidest and Craziest Things Jack Thompson Has Said or Done, Part 1

Posted by Vincent Chiucchi on 06.18.2008

With Thompson's career as a lawyer likely to end soon, the Hall of Shame looks back at the stupidest things he's done that led up to it.

With his attacks against the game industry and gamers for nearly a decade, Jack Thompson has become public enemy #1 in the eyes of gamers. From outright lying to name calling, Thompson has done whatever he can to blame video games for all the problems in the world. When he doesn't get his way, and he usually doesn't, Thompson will usually rant and rave about how children are going to suffer because of the decisions the courts decide to make. Well, after all his ranting and raving, the Florida Bar has had enough of Thompson's bullcrap and recommend that he banned from the bar for ten years. Considering he walked out on his own hearing over trivial crap like the position of a podium, it's likely we'll never have to see him try to sue people again. He plans on going into politics and will likely continue his charade, but considering the last time he ran for office he lost to Janet Reno for Dade County State Prosecutor of Florida because of his antics, it's likely he won't mean anything to anybody except Fox News. As for what those antics were, he wanted Janet Reno to publicly admit whether she was gay, bisexual, or straight, and then when he lost, claimed that the Switchboard of Miami (that Janet Reno was part of) was bringing porn to grade schoolers. This happened in 1988 to 1990. That's right...Jack Thompson was crazy way before he ever started a beef with the game industry.

So with Jack Thompson's career in law likely to be over, the Hall of Shame pays tribute to the man by listing the "Ten Stupidest and Craziest Things Jack Thompson Has Said or Done." This week will be numbers 10-6, with the rest coming next week.

10. Dear Mrs.Zelnick – Thompson writes to Take-Two Chairman's mother


Can you see Strauss Zelnick in this pic?

Ever since Grand Theft Auto decided to let you have extremely fake simulated sex with prostitutes, it has become the whipping boy of anti-game lobbyists who think video games are evil. Any time you listen to one of these people's opinions on video games, they always bring up Grand Theft Auto like it was the only M-rated game ever made that tried to corrupt our gaming youth. With so many attacks against GTA, Jack Thompson has almost become synonymous with the franchise along with Take-Two and Rockstar. In fact, in GTA4, you have to kill a lawyer at one point and Niko says "I don't kill people. Video games do." Thompson of course complained that they put him in the game, but that's not the craziest thing he did involving GTA4. Instead of taking his complaints with Take-Two and the Florida Bar who've both had pretty much stopped listening to him, he instead wrote to the mother of Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick.

Here are some of the highlights of the letter:

-With GTA4 getting perfect scores, Zelnick said his mother couldn't write better reviews. So Thompson asks that Mrs.Zelnick play it or get a gamer to do so, although most gamers are on death row for playing this murder simulator and it would be hard to find one who hasn't killed someone.

-Asks if her son has a Ted Bundy badge since he claims to be a Boy Scout, then later says that Zelnick is more like a Hitler Youth rather than a Boy Scout.

-Using quotes from the Bible, asks Mrs.Zelnick if she trained his son to make millions of dollars by purposely marketing GTA to kids on the internet and on WWE TV, or if Mrs.Zelnick just didn't beat her son enough.

-Wants her to talk to Mrs. Crump in Alabama, one of the mothers of the dead policemen killed by a teenage boy who Thompson believes was unwittingly trained by GTA: Vice City.

-Wishes her a Happy Mothers Day, which is two weeks after Zelnick unleashes porn and violence upon other mothers' boys.

Thompson however did not actually send it to his mother, but rather Strauss' attorney. I'm pretty sure he threw in the garbage like all the other junk mail he gets.

9. Go rape a child – Thompson proves his hypocrisy.


Mr.Hansen would like to have a word with you Thompson.

Another reason why people think Jack Thompson is crazy is because he will sue or send cease and desist orders to anyone who ever says anything bad about him (except me apparently), claiming he's being harassed. Apparently Jack Thompson really has nothing better to do then search his name to see what people are saying about him, and these days he really won't have much to do once the ten-year ban kicks in. There are two main problems with Jack when it comes to these harassment charges. The first is that he never actually wins them because the judges are smart enough to not waste time on how some internet trolls are posting stupid comments. Second, for someone who doesn't like getting threatened or made fun of, Thompson does this plenty of times against gamers.

Take for instance the time Thompson decided to make fun of a gamer who committed suicide. On the MetalGearSolid.org forums, one member announced he would commit suicide, and despite the pleas of others to not do it, he ultimately did. This really had nothing to do with Jack Thompson until Jack Thompson decided it should. When the gamer committed suicide, Thompson wrote a letter about he should've filled his empty heart with God instead of games, told gamers to get a life, and how he died because gamers were too stupid to figure out how to dial 911, likely because it would involve leaving the computer. Now, I've seen people make jokes about suicide, but this joke is coming from a lawyer who wants to be taken seriously. When you start acting no better then internet trolls, it's no wonder the Florida Bar doesn't want you to be a lawyer anymore.

So of course with comments like this, someone is bound to say that they want to kill Jack Thompson. Like the comments made against him during the Virginia Tech incident on Kotaku. When Thompson saw these threats, he immediately sued Kotaku, only for the lawsuit to be dismissed the next day for failing to follow the proper federal court procedure for amending a complaint. Oh, but the fun doesn't stop there. Not only does he make fun of gamers for killing themselves, he also accused Jim Sterling of Destructoid of being a child molester. Okay, he didn't outright call him one, but these are the exact words from one of the conversations they've had:

Thompson: Why don't you just molest children directly rather than through Rockstar. It would be more personal that way

Wow. For a guy who wrote a book called "Out of Harm's Way", this is really surprising. Or not.

Now, considering that Thompson is able to sue (well not really, but he pretends like he can) over comments about us wanting to kill him, it would make sense that Sterling could've sued Thompson for encouraging child molestation, which is a HUGE deal in this country. Thankfully for Thompson, Sterling did not file any lawsuit against him.

8. The Qur'an = Terrorism – At least according to Jackkk Thompson.


Muslims in Jack Thompson's mind.

What really annoys me about people who blame video games for violence is that these same people will praise works such as the Bible and Shakespeare. Shakespeare's works are just as violent as most video games, and the worst of them all is Titus Andronicus, a play which features a rape scene, the rape victim getting maimed, beheadings, and people getting cooked into a pie that is served to the victims mother. Even the ones people always praise and shove down our throats multiple times in our school years all have the same kind of violence video games does. The Bible is even worse because some people will literally try to force you to read it against your will, and those kind of people are called Bible Thumpers. Jack Thompson is one of those people.

Now, Jack Thompson will think that video games will have a strong connection to a murder if the person ever played video games in their lifetime. But suppose someone who commits murder has a connection to the Bible, like oh say...Michael Hernandez. Hernandez was a 14-year-old who murdered two classmates in 2004 and constantly wrote in his diary about praying to God. So should the Bible and Christianity be to blame?

Thompson does say that a book and religion could be blamed, but it isn't the Bible:

"The Bible doesn't promote killing innocent people, Grand Theft Auto does. Islam does. Islam promotes the killing of innocent people. The Quran requires the infidel, whether Jew or Christian, to be killed. ... That's a core essence of the religion. ... Muhammad was a pirate who killed infidels and who advocated the killing of infidels. Not a nice guy. Osama bin Laden is in keeping with his fine tradition."

Strangely enough, he goes after video game companies more then people who worship Islam. Probably because he assumes all Muslims are terrorists who will find out where he is and blow up his house via suicide bombing, killing him, his wife, and his kid.

I wonder if Thompson ever goes on airplanes anymore.

7. I AM THE NIGHT! - Thompson turns out to have always been crazy.


Thompson's secret fantasy?

Thompson has also been known to pull crazy stunts that leave people wondering whether the man is mentally sane or not. In fact, he once had to take a psychological exam in which he passed. So apparently he isn't crazy; just stupid. But it doesn't just relate to video games. He's been doing stupid stuff way before anyone really gave a damn about the Grand Theft Auto series. In 1989, 2 Live Crew released their album "As Nasty As They Wanna Be", and it was their most popular and most controversial album of all time. Their songs were viewed as so obscene that Jack Thompson had asked Florida Governor Bob Martinez to look into this album on whether or not it violated Florida's obscenity laws. This led to the album getting ruled as obscene, banning it from retailers. This led to the arrest of people who sold the album and the arrest of members in the group. For the first and probably last time, Jack Thompson actually had it his way; at least until 1992 when the ruling on the album was overturned.

But what did Jack Thompson exactly do that it makes an appearance on this list? In his correspondence to opponents, Thompson would send a photocopy of his drivers license, only with a picture of Batman replacing his.

"I have sent my opponents pictures of Batman to remind them I'm playing the role of Batman. Just like Bruce Wayne helped the police in the movie, I have had to assist the sheriff of Broward County."

So Thompson thinks he can compare to Batman huh? Let's just see about that.

Tale of the Tape
Batman	Jack Thompson
Became a superhero because his parents were killed and he vowed to stop crime in Gotham.	Became an attorney because his believes video games, music, and other forms of media causes kids to commit crimes.
Has an amazing IQ and prepares himself for any possible situation that may occur.	Despite passing the bar exam to become a lawyer, can't seem to remember what exactly he's allowed to do.
Biggest villain is The Joker, an extremely violent sociopath who loves to kill people close to Batman, like Robin.	Biggest villain are gamers, people that Thompson thinks become violent sociopaths because Grand Theft Auto told them to.
Vigilante ways has made him disliked by the police.	Vigilante ways has made him disliked by gamers, Janet Reno, the Florida Bar, the FBI, and anybody with common sense.
Is part of a larger oraginization of crime fighting known as the Justice League.	Loves to appear on Fox News who also can't get their facts straight on video games.
Is a no-nonsense superhero.	Is full of nonsense.
Uses many tools to help him fight crime such as the Batmobile.	Uses many tactics to help get his way such as exaggerated reports, lying, and baseless legal threats.

Overall, Thompson is nothing like Batman. Or maybe that's what he all wants us to think...

6. Jack Thompson fails at parenting – Wait, he's a parent?!


They're basically the same person.

Being a parent is hard. Even good parents can wind up getting a kid who turns out to be the spawn of Satan no matter what they try. But the least that parents can do is know is not blame other people who are not responsible for their child, mostly the media. Don't you just hate it when parents sue the media for the content that their kids watched and blame them for all the problems their kids cause? These are the kind of parents that just outright fail at their job, especially when there are ratings and warning labels on nearly everything AND there is even technology that gives parents control over what their kids can do. If these parents can take the time to educate themselves about how they can use this technology to improve their parenting, America would be a better place to live. Or at least look a lot less stupid.

Believe or not, Jack Thompson actually has a son. Sometimes, in order to prove how retailers are purposely trying to sell M-rated games to minors (which according to the latest FTC numbers, only happens 20% of the time), he'll send his under-aged son to retail stores and have him buy an M-rated game without showing his ID. For example, he sent his son to Best Buy to buy BioShock, and then he sent his son to Target in order to get Halo 3. He was successful both times and loves to brag about it, saying it proves that M-rated games will be sold to minors no matter what the ESRB, Take-Two, or retail stores say.

So let me get this straight: Jack Thompson knew that these video games were not meant to be sold to people under the age of 17, and thinks all games of this rating will train kids to kill people, YET he willingly gave his own son the money to go to these retail outlets and have him purchase these murder simulators?

Talk about bad parentings. What Jack Thompson has proven is that he knows his kid is getting stuff they shouldn't yet takes no actions to stop it and in fact encourages it, plus he will exploit his family for his own purposes. I think The Thompsons need to go to a family therapist or something. I would say Dr. Phil, but he encourages exploitation. Just imagine the irony if one day Thompson's son starts a school shooting or murders someone. What is Thompson going to blame? The video games that he made he son purchase? Or will he conveniently make up some other excuse?

That's all for this week. Tune in next week to see what I believe are the top five stupidest and craziest things Jack Thompson has ever said or done.