History Main / BrotherhoodOfFunnyHats

* The Knights of the Golden Light in ''Strangehaven''.

* In ''ComicStrip/MyCage'' office dope Jeff is a member of the "Hammerhead Lodge"; in one strip Norm tells him he pictures them sitting around wearing Viking hats and drinking beer at their meetings. Jeff laughs at the insinuation, while thinking ''must kill Norm, he knows too much.''

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* The MudWrestling event in ''Film/AllTheMarbles'', which is about a female ProfessionalWrestling TagTeam, is organized by The Kiwanis Club.

* Constance from the ''Constance Verity' Trilogy has the attention of a lot of secret societies with world domination on the brain, her old butler Jenkins having been a part of one of the "[[NebulousEvilOrganisation bad ones]]." Strangely enough, a lot of them want to blow up New Jersey for some reason.

* Pierre Bezukhov joins the Freemasons in ''Literature/WarAndPeace'' at the insistence of one of his mentors, to find some guys are [[ContemplateOurNavels actually into it]] and other guys...not so much. He gets in a huff later when Boris joins the Freemasons purely to advance his social standing.

* Creator/SinclairLewis' ''Literature/{{Babbitt}}'' explains in bitingly satirical terms the importance of the Brotherhood of Funny Hats to the upstanding 1920s businessman. The brotherhoods to which Babbitt himself belongs--the Elks and Rotary--aren't particulalry BOFH-ish, but he does mention that the Masons, Shriners, etc., serve the same purpose and which club you join is more or less inconsequential.
* In ''Stark'', Ben Elton has a character attend a meeting of the Ancient Loyal and Stupid Order of Dingoes. Many of these are also members of the Chapel of the Charitable Chickens who sing ''The honourable Cluck Cluck Song'' every hour on the hour.

* The [[SentientVehicle sentient steam engines]] in ''Literature/PointNoughtNoughtSeven'' have the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotives. The story ends with the main character being inducted into the Brotherhood and being declared worthy of singing their funny song.

* ''Series/TheHoneymooners'' featured a fraternal order known as The Raccoon Lodge.
* Each episode of ''Series/TheRedGreenShow'' ends with a meeting of the Possum Lodge, whose motto is "Quando omni flunkus, moritati" ([[CanisLatinicus pseudo-Latin]] for "When all else fails, play dead").
* One episode of ''Series/MamasFamily'' featured Thelma infiltrating a snake-themed Brotherhood her son had joined, called "The Order of the Cobra".
* A YouGoGirl episode of ''Series/PunkyBrewster'' started with Henry coming back from his meeting of the Brotherhood of Funny Hats, complete with ridiculous bison-headdress.

* Parodied in ''Series/TheThinBlueLine'' with Grim's group, "The Todgers", an exaggerated expy of the Masons whose rituals involve wearing a dress and kissing a frozen turkey's bottom.
* In ''Series/EverybodyLovesRaymond'', Frank Barone belongs to one of these. Though actual funny hats were in short supply, the geriatric members of the group made up for it with activities like [[{{Squick}} swimming in the nude]].

* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' has The Badger Convention, a Brotherhood of Funny Hats that goes around annoying people with [[http://snltranscripts.jt.org/80/80dbadger.phtml childish pranks.]]

* Hayden's boss in ''Series/{{Coach}}'' was a member of one of these. Hayden was invited to one meeting to make a speech in favor of his boss becoming the new head of the order, and ended up getting appointed leader for life because their goose mascot honked during his speech.
* The 'Keepers of the Kingdom' fill this particular role in the ''Series/{{Riget}}''-inspired ''Series/KingdomHospital'': a secret order of people dedicated to keeping the hospital running well, at all costs. [[JerkAss Stegman]] is eventually invited into the group; it [[LaserGuidedKarma doesn't end well for him.]]
* ''Series/AllInTheFamily''
** Archie is a member of the Kings of Queens lodge.
** In a Season 8 episode another "civic" organization invites Archie to join: The [[FunWithAcronyms Kweens Kouncil of Krusaders]].
* Creator/RobertHolmes {{Revision}}ed the Time Lords as a darkly comic variant in the ''Series/DoctorWho'' story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin The Deadly Assassin]]". As far as ''they're'' concerned, they're an omnipotent AncientConspiracy, and they do (in theory) have the power to back it up... but in practice all they do is have pompous ceremonies, wear ridiculous costumes, moan about politics and their back problems, and have no interest in doing anything either good or bad to anybody beside internal hierarchicalist backstabbing. Except for their secret police, who are more proactive and also corrupt, torturing monsters.

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': "[[Recap/MidsomerMurdersS5E5 Murder on St. Malley's Day]]" has 'The Pudding Club'; an exclusive club restricted to members of the elite Devington School's students who are pursuing careers in diplomacy. On the surface, it's just a "boy's club" that regularly eats "puddings".[[note]]In the British sense of the term, which means anything from pies to desserts.[[/note]] [[spoiler:In reality, it's a front for an illegal art-smuggling ring, with the members using their positions to smuggle valuables out of foreign countries and into the school proper, to be sold off to finance the school whenever it needs the money.]]
* ''Series/MurdochMysteries'': In "Victor, Victorian", it is revealed both Brackenried and Crabtree are Freemasons. While some members of the lodge regard it as SeriousBusiness, most (including Brackenried) regard it as an excuse to get out of the house and fraternize with male company without their wives being present.
* ''Series/EerieIndiana'': In "The Loyal Order of Corn", Edgar joins the Loyal Order of Corn Lodge, Eerie's version of the Loyal Order of Moose. The members wear hats modeled after corn stalks and new members such as Edgar are referred to as "seedlings." The [[{{Pun}} kernel]] Mr. Radford is the nominal leader of the Order but its true leader is its long serving bartender Ned, who turns out to be an alien explorer stranded on Earth. He founded the Lodge in order to unknowingly enlist the humans' help in building a tachyon portal so that he could return to his own planet.
* On an episode of ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' Norm joins a fraternal organization called "The Knights of the Scimitar".
* ''Series/TwoPointFourChildren'': The episode "The Man Who Knew Too Much" features Ben, suffering from a HollywoodMidLifeCrisis, attempting to join a secret society for plumbers called the "Brotherhood of the Plunger", complete with having to put plungers all over their body as part of the ritual.
* ''Series/Lodge49'' follows the misadventures of a fraternal group called the Order of the Lynx who slowly begin to discover that [[AncientConspiracy there's a bit more to their history then mere funny hats]]...
* In ''Brush Strokes'', Lionel belongs to one of these, and his membership of his lodge is SeriousBusiness to him. He dies accidentally from a fall when participating in one of the order's rituals. His regalia include a pair of gold compasses (an allusion to the Freemasons' logo). However, the head of his lodge is titled 'Salamander General' while Lionel hopes to advance to the 'Blue Grotto 5th Phase.' Neither of these terms feature in Freemasonry.

[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
* In the ''Series/BearInTheBigBlueHouse'' episode, "The Yard Sale", Doc Hogg reveals that he is the great imperial boar of the Woodland Valley chapter of the "Swiners". At the end of the episode, he makes Bear and his friends honorary Swiners as a reward for raising enough charity money to build new homes for the muskrats through their yard sale.
* ''Series/FraggleRock'': Mokey's attempts to get into one of these (which seems to alternate between incredibly serious and incredibly silly) make up the story of one episode.
* ''Series/SesameStreet'': Telly Monster belongs to the "Triangle Lovers' Club", who do in fact wear silly hats like beanies and fezzes. Their leader is the Grand High Triangle Lover.
[[/folder]]

* Back in its day, one of the most well-known examples was the Mystic Knights of the Sea lodge in ''Amos 'n' Andy'' (1928-1960); both protagonists belonged to it, and the lodge's leader, George "the Kingfish" Stevens, was the third central character of the series. The Kingfish's catchphrase "Holy mackerel!" continues to be used to this day.

* As illustrated by the page quote, the Fraternal Orders from ''TabletopGame/{{Illuminati}}: New World Order.'' Given the [[AllMythsAreTrue All Conspiracy Theories Are True]] nature of the game, they were probably intended to represent the Freemasons, but come across as being more like Shriners. Like all the other groups in the game, they end up as puppets of a more AncientConspiracy.

* [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090408 Knights of Jove]] in ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'', while successfully gone underground, eventually became mostly a secret fan club for old men. Until the Mongfish family took a keen interest in them, that is.
* ''Webcomic/FruitIncest'' has the Trenchcoat Union, a league of bandits that behave like one of these. [[http://fruitincest.com/archives/bandits/ Their introduction]] even references this page.

** ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo'' parodied this in an episode with the Brotherhood of the Gnu (pronounced "guh-noo" by its members).
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': The Stonecutters from "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E12HomerTheGreat Homer the Great]]", a hidden group operating within Springfield, noted for their bizarre rituals and customs (which look suspiciously like fratboy hazing) and silly privileges (for instance, they know the ''real'' number you call is 912). They may provide the page image, but they actually straddle the line between this trope and AncientConspiracy. Their IAmSong reveals that they're behind a lot of secret activities, but these range from harmless to just plain weird -- as you might expect from a group that has a kegger every night. Despite their claims, however, they're only ever shown getting drunk, and when Homer takes over and is convinced to get them to actually do something productive, all the other members abandon the Stonecutters and form ''another'' secret organization without Homer.

* In ''WesternAnimation/CampLazlo'', Scoutmaster Lumpus is a member of one of these, the Legume Council.

* The ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' episode ''Park Managers Lunch'' had Benson being initiated into one of these.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'', some of Billy's nerdier acquaintances have a Brotherhood of Funny Hats that, with [[TheGrimReaper Grim's]] help, gets upgraded to "snake-demon summoning cult".
* At least one ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' episode had the Loyal Order of Wombats, of which Grandpa Lou was a member.
* Grunkle Stan in ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' constantly wears a fez, and it's implied that he belongs to one of these; in an early episode, he complains that "the guys at the lodge" won't go fishing with him. The official book ''Dipper and Mabel's Guide to Mystery and Nonstop Fun!'' implies that said group is called the Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel and Stan probably made it up as a part of his persona as the "Man of Mystery".
--> ''It's almost as if someone with zero knowledge of history just jammed a bunch of mysterious looking stuff together. Whenever I ask Grunkle Stan about it he always changes the subject.''
** In ''Literature/GravityFallsJournal3'', the Author reveals that the fez actually belonged to Stan's father.

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': "Murder on St. Malley's Day" has 'The Pudding Club'; an exclusive club restricted to members of the elite Devington School's students who are pursuing careers in diplomacy. On the surface, it's just a "boy's club" that regularly eats "puddings".[[note]]In the British sense of the term, which means anything from pies to desserts.[[/note]] [[spoiler:In reality, it's a front for an illegal art-smuggling ring, with the members using their positions to smuggle valuables out of foreign countries and into the school proper, to be sold off to finance the school whenever it needs the money.]]

** [[http://www.homestarrunner.com/helmets.html Ever and More!]] revolves around a meeting of a quite literal Brotherhood of Funny Hats, "The Broternal Order of Different Helmets". As the name implies, all the members wear [[CoolHelmet different types of helmet]], from "Supreme Overlord" Homestar's viking helmet to The Cheat's [[UsefulNotes/BritishCoppers Custodian helmet]]. It's largely an excuse for the guys of Free Country USA to sit around drinking Cold Ones and singing songs.

* The UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan began as a jokey fraternal order among bored Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee shortly after the end of the Civil War that made public appearances in [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Mississippi_ku_klux.jpg/200px-Mississippi_ku_klux.jpg bizarre]] [[http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/exhibits/reconstruction/reconstruction_images/kkkrobe_p.jpg costumes]] (the iconic "conical hat and white robes" didn't appear until the mid-1910's) and mostly kept to themselves before some more violent anti-Reconstruction types realized that their anonymity provided an excellent cover for intimidating newly freed black people, whether that was by pretending to be ghosts of dead Confederate soldiers or just plain beating and lynching them. This Klan was forcibly disbanded by the early 1870's though, and it wasn't until 1915 that the group was revived. It's been pointed out that [[ForWantOfANail if Pulaski had had an Elks lodge, then the Klan might never have been born]], [[ValuesDissonance although racism and violence would likely still have been an issue]].

[[folder: Fan Works]]