Cheesy Corn Chips

Two best friends share a first kiss, backed by a postcard-perfect sunset. A car chase twists through the streets of Paris before plunging through the Arc de Triomphe—while driving in reverse. The team of lovable and klutzy misfits pulls out a victory over the top-flight bullies, right at the buzzer. Such stories make us roll our eyes and groan but also hold the irresistible appeal of one more nacho chip or candy corn.

This month's challenge celebrates the corny and the cheesy in popular culture, the sappy and sweet and schmaltzy and saccharine. To participate, you will choose a prompt from a collection of corny, sentimental, and heartstring-rending pop-culture selections and use it to create a fanwork. As always, you can use any part of the prompt to inspire your fanwork and interpret it any way that works for you. Note that fanworks themselves do not need to be fluffy, sweet, or sentimental.

This challenge opened in February 2023 .

Prompts

Choose your prompt from the collection below.

View Prompts

Quotes

• "There have been five great kisses since 1642 B.C., when Saul and Delilah Korn’s inadvertent discovery swept across Western civilization. (Before then couples hooked thumbs.) And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy, because although everyone agrees with the formula of affection times purity times intensity times duration, no one has ever been completely satisfied with how much weight each element should receive. But on any system, there are five that everyone agrees deserves full marks. Well, this one left them all behind."
  - The Princess Bride, William Golding
• William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?")
• "Love is a lot like a backache. It doesn’t show up on x-rays but you know it’s there."
  - George Burns
• "So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you."
  - Paulo Coelho
• "Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time."
  - Maya Angelou
• “'And what would humans be without love?' 
  RARE, said Death."
  - Terry Pratchett, Sourcery
• "Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans."
  - John Lennon
• "You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money
  Love like you’ll never get hurt
  You’ve got to dance like nobody’s watchin’
  It’s gotta come from the heart if you want it to work."
  - Susanna Clark & Richard Leigh
• "There is an element of truth in every idea that lasts long enough to be called corny."
  - Irving Berlin
• "This happens to be that the power of laughter and love would beat out the power of fear every time."
  - John Goodman
• "I have observed, throughout life, that a man may do an immense deal of good, if he does not care who gets the credit for it."
  - Father Strickland
• "It may be confidently asserted that no man chooses evil, because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks."
  - Mary Wollstonecraft
• "Aha!—so far from being a madman, he was saner, you see, than the average of our race; for he had a warm spot in him for cats. When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction."
  - Mark Twain
• "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him."
  - Proverbs 26:4
• "Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him."
  - Proverbs 26:27
• "Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humour are without judgment and should be trusted with nothing."
  - Clive James 
• "He counted under his breath, and had only reached two when a cartwheel rolled out of the smoke and away down the road. This always happens."
  - Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

Songs

• Meatloaf, "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" lyrics | video
• Bonnie Tyler, "Total Eclipse of the Heart" lyrics | video
• Shania Twain, "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" lyrics | video
• Right Said Fred, "I'm Too Sexy" lyrics | video
• Tiffany, "I Think We're Alone Now" lyrics | video
• Vangelis, "Chariots of Fire Title Theme" video
• Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You” lyrics | video
• Shania Twain “Still The One” lyrics | video
• Chicago, “You’re The Inspiration” lyrics | video
• Bette Midler, "Wind Beneath My Wings" lyrics | video
• Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, & Sting, “All For Love” lyrics | video
• The Bangles, “Eternal Flame” lyrics | video
• Enrique Iglesias, “Hero” lyrics | video
• ABBA, “Take A Chance on Me” lyrics | video
• The Foundations, “Build Me Up Buttercup” lyrics | video
• Starship, “We Built This City” lyrics | video
• LEN, “Steal My Sunshine” lyrics | video
• Bobby McFerin, “Don’t Worry Be Happy” lyrics | video
• Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin’” lyrics| video
• Rent, “Seasons of Love”  lyrics | video
• The Refreshments, “Banditos” lyrics | video
• Barenakedladies, “Odds Are” lyrics | video
• Arlo Guthrie, “Alice’s Restaurant” lyrics | video (warning for use of the f-slur)
• Europe, "The Final Countdown" lyrics | video
• Kuana Torres Kahele and Nāpua Greig, "Lava" lyrics | video

Movie Clips

• Titanic, "The Promise"
• The Notebook, "Kiss in the Rain Scene"
• A League of Their Own, "Racine Belles Win the Game"
• When Harry Met Sally, “I’ll Have What She’s Having”
• Casablanca, “Of All The Gin Joints”
• The Sound of Music, “Sixteen Going On Seventeen”
• Love Actually, "Sam and Daniel Watching Titanic"
• The Mighty Ducks, "Flying V"
• It's a Wonderful Life, "Auld Lang Syne"
• Charlie’s Angels (2000) trailer
• Rocky, "Training Montage"
• Blades of Glory, "Fire and Ice Routine" (featuring the corny Aerosmith song "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing")
• Fast and the Furious, "10 Minutes of Car Chases"

Advertisements

• Always, "Like a Girl"
• Pfizer, "Be Brave"
• Pantene, "Follow Your Dreams"
• Water Is Life, "4-Year-Old's Bucket List"
• Purina, "Puppyhood"
• Extra, "Birds (Origami)"
• Thai Life Insurance Company, "Just in Time"
• Anheuser Busch, "Homecoming"

Other Video

• "The Present" (short film)
• "WiNDUP" (short film)
• Professional Wrestling. Any professional wrestling will do. It's all corny. This is just one possibility.

Images (Art)

• Frank Dicksee, "La belle dame sans merci"
• Gustav Klimt, “The Kiss” 
• Watchmaker de Choudens, "Watch"
• George S. Harris and Sons, "Comin' Thro' the Rye"
• Knapp & Company, "Snow Balling"
• Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, "In the Country Winter"
• Katsukawa Shunchō, "A Young Man, Two Young Women and a Girl at a Picnic Party"
• Jean-Claude Duplessis and Antoine Caton, "Vase"
• Kitao Shigemasa, "Boys Playing with a Basin of Fish and Turtles"
• Henry Julien Detouche, "In the Brambles (Dans le Ronces)"
• Vittorio Reggianini, "An Illicit Letter"
• Vittorio Reggianini, "La Soirée"
• Bessie Pease Guttman, "The Awakening"
• Andrew Lang, "Illustration from The Blue Fairy Book"
• John Henry Fuseli, "The Nightmare"

Images (Stock Photos)

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