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The weird college classes in this episode of the List Show will have you double-checking your registrar. You'll learn about some of the strangest classes ever offered.

The List Show is a weekly show where knowledge junkies get their fix of trivia-tastic information. This week, John studies some of the most bizarre classes that have been, or still are, available in colleges around the country.

mentalfloss.com article on orange: http://mentalfloss.com/article/29942/which-came-first-orange-color-or-orange-fruit

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Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to my salon. Hey there, Wil Wheaton. This is Mental Floss.

1. So do you have a thing for dazzling, undead, stalker types? Because if so, Harvard Extension class, Vampires in Literature and Film, is probably tailor-made for you. Get it? Taylor-ed. Tay-Taylor Lautner. He has a V-shaped torso. It was a pun. What? I like his torso. Anyway, in addition to Edward and Bella, the course also covers, you know, some mmmm-more established vampires. Like the ones by Byron and Stoker. 

And that's just the first of many classes that I will be introducing to you today that you will wish you could enroll in, instead of Econ101.

[intro music]

2. If your brand of horror is less vampire, and more teenagers fighting to their graphic and untimely deaths, don't worry. You still have a place at Harvard Extension, where they also teach the Post-Apocalyptic Novel and Film. Ah, Harvard, where you can study pizza zombie.

3. Do Kenny's repeated and violent deaths seem more like social commentary on the plight of lower middle class American children in today's society than just animated entertainment? Yes? Then you should definitely check out Daniel College's South Park and Contemporary Social Issues, which uses the series to dissect hot button topics like euthanasia, immigration, and of course, who took the deuce in the urinal? 

4.  Oh look, a chicken! No, Mark, come back to me. I mean, Oh Look, a Chicken!, the college course, which exists at Belmont University. It's actually a course that teaches college freshmen how to focus. How to focus on what? Like how to get lucky? Oh, no. It's apparently on how to focus on school work.

5. Required materials include Firefly, Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You know that you are registered for an awesome class. I'm referring, of course to Welcome to the Whedonverse: Exploring Popular Culture through the Works of Joss Whedon which has been available to lucky West Virginia University students in recent years. But it doesn't appear to be in the course catalogue for this semester, which is too bad because we need a lot more academic research into the question whether the true OTP is Buffy and Spike or Buffy and Angel. 

6. The lucky students who manage to get into Professor Philip Nel's English 440 class at Kansas State University will get to visit Harry Potter's Library, reading not only the books, but also J.K. Rowling's antecedents, influences, and contemporaries, like Roald Dahl and Phillip Pullman. So that's what's in Harry Potter's library. I wonder what's in my library. Hm. Beauty from Ashes by Eugenia Price. Oh  no, just kidding. It's booze.

7. Johns Hopkins and Georgetown have both used The Wire to take a look at issues such as urban health problems, drug use, and philosophy.

8. If you've ever gotten the flu, you've probably been home sick and therefore you've watched Judge Judy, and you've scratched your head at some of the arguments presented. So you'd probably enjoy Arguing with Judge Judy, a rhetoric class offered last spring at Berkley. And yes, I said Berkeley. The class exams logical fallacies and discusses why those strategies are so prevalent. 

9. What show could possible be better suited to examine mid-century roles of masculinity and femininity than Mad Men? That's what assistant professor Joyce Mao thought so she stated the Mad Men and Women class in 2012.

10. Speaking of traditional feminine roles, let's check out Oberlin's How to Win a Beauty Pageant course. Contrary to the class title, of course, students don't actually discover, like, Vaseline application tips or find out how to answer tough questions about geography. Nor do they watch episodes of Toddlers & Tiaras. You would know this if you knew anything about Oberlin. Instead the class uses the pageant to analyze issues including race, gender, class and sexuality.

11-13. Many of us would love to get college credit for watching Adult Swim, Adam Sandler movies, and Will Ferrell movies-- as long as it isn't the recent Adam Sandler movies. Well at Kent State, that is possible. Adjunct professor of film, Ron Russo, teaches all three courses. 

In the Adult Swim class, students get to watch about 35 shows and write a final paper on the series of their choice.

The Sandler class reviews Sandler's comedy albums and more than a dozen Sandler/Happy Madison films in chronological order. Hopefully stopping before Jack and Jill.


And the Will Ferrell class, which just launched this fall, reviews the comedian's TV shows, films, and webisodes.

14. Back in 2007, you could take a class at Occidental college called The Phallus which discussed the phallus. The course was a survey of theories and meaning across cultures and genders. But you can't take that class anymore because it was so controversial it hasn't been offered since.

15. The University of Iowa offers a course called Disney in America, starring the likes of Cruella de Vil and Simba, in which students get to learn how Disney has influenced cultural values, ideals, created Miley Cyrus, and single-handily ruined American copyright law.

16. Alright Mike, before we even talk about this one I gotta put a quarter in the staff pork chop party fund. Xavier offers A History of the Pig in America: with Especial Reference to the City of Cincinnati, Otherwise Known as Porkopolis. The class looks at swine from their arrival with Columbus to their current meat-packing issues. Meat-packing issues.

17. If you liked any of the episodes from our Summer Bummer series, then you would be a perfect fit for Things That Go Bump in the Night, a course offered at Hampshire College in 2011. Though it sounds like it's about, like, the Boogeyman and creepy crawlies, in fact it's about all the strange things that your brain can be a part of, such as the phantom limb phenomena and the out of body experiences.

18. NYU offers a class called DJ History, Culture and Technique. Lectures include guest spots from people like Grand Wizzard Theodore, and for homework, students make mixes that will be played in the next class. If you ask me, an entire class on DJ Tanner from Full House sounds way more interesting. I mean, she had beautiful hair.

19. Just like the little Mattel gal herself, the Occidental class The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie has proved to be rather controversial. Although I don't know why because if you have seen her, she is, indeed, unbearably white.

20. Also at Occidental, Mother Goose to Mash-Ups, a class that attempts to answer all of those burning questions you've had about nursery rhymes and children's entertainment. Why are three grown, professional men in a tub together? What was the cause of London Bridge's sudden collapse? And once and for all, what is Tinky Winky's sexual orientation? The answer to that last question, of course, is none.

21. Want to take a closer look at the career of Whoopi Goldberg? Head to Bates College and enroll in Goldberg's Canon: Makin' Whoopi. I mean, I'll take any excuse to watch Sister Act 2 again.

22. If you know anyone who could use a lesson in penny-pinching, you should send them toward Alred College's Tighwaddery honors course where they'll to to explore the assumptions and values of our consumer society. Unfortunately for those who prepared for the course with TLC marathons, knowledge of extreme couponing is not a prerequisite.

23.  And speaking of the assumptions and values of our consumer society, you should also check out The Joy of Garbage a class at Santa Clara University that aims to teach you, you know, what happens to all that garbage you make.

24. At Pitzer College you can take Tattoos in American Popular Culture which examines the meaning and significance of tattoos across race, class, gender, and sexuality. Do you think they talk about Zac Efron's YOLO tattoo? Does Zac Efron really have a YOLO tattoo, Meredith? Is that for real? [Groan]

25. If you, like me, were an enthusiastic sufferer of Hulkmania and could absolutely smell what the Rock was cooking, then you should really check out M.I.T's Open Courseware class about American Pro Wrestling. And since it's an open courseware class, anyone can enroll in it. Students are encouraged to study at their own pace, which means that you have the perfect excuse to watch every episode of WWE Raw ever made, you know, in case that's something you're interested in. I will say, Mark, the Venn Diagram of massive pro wrestling fans and Mental Floss video fans, basically a circle.

26. And then there's the Sociology of Fame and Lady Gaga at the University of South Caroling which allows "Little Monsters" to examine the bizarre culture of fame in the United States through the lens of Lady Gaga.

Thanks for watching Mental Floss on YouTube which is made with the help of all of these nice people.

Every week we endeavor to answer one of your questions. This week's question comes from Pumpkins Fly. They do? Meredith says they don't which thank God.

Anyway the question is: Where does the name of the fruit orange come from? Is it the color orange or is it that the color orange is called orange because it looked like an orange and henceforth people referred to the color by the name of the orange? Or the opposite?

Well Pumpkins Fly, based on your user name and your question, I'm gonna take a gander and guess that you love the color orange. The fruit's name came first and the color's name followed. In fact, there is a Mental Floss article on the very topic that you can find in a link in the video info below.

By the way, Mental Floss isn't just a web series, it's also, like, a T-shirt company and an actual, real-life magazine. And if you go to the Mental Floss store, link in the video info below, and use the code "YoutubeFlossers" you'll get 15% off any order.

Thanks again for watching Mental Floss on YouTube, and as we say in my home town, peace out, Cub scouts.