http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrotherhoodOfFunnyHats

Who illustrates this trope the best? We do!

— Flavor text for the "Fraternal Orders" card, from the Collectible Card Game Illuminati: New World Order "You think they look funny, what with their silly hats and their little carts. If you knew what those hats actually stood for, you'd never laugh at anything, ever again..."

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In the media, fraternal orders and secret societies tend to go one of two ways: they're either a front for a sinister and fearful Ancient Conspiracy, or they're... the Brotherhood of Funny Hats.

These guys are more interested in living it up and "having some fun with the guys." (Er, platonically.) They go to lodge meetings (wearing funny hats, of course), throw wild parties (which may or may not conflict with the schedules of the protagonists and necessitate a Two-Timer Date, if they're members), memorize the new secret handshakes, and put new members through convoluted, embarrassing, and/or painful hazing rituals. If they pull any strings, they do it for members of the brotherhood because hey, they're just those kinds of guys.

It's not all fun and games, though. Sometimes there's a fierce pecking order in place, with more ambitious (and less scrupulous) members trying to claw their way to the top. And on rare occasions, the image of drunken, loveable middle-aged men is just an act, and they really are a front for an Ancient Conspiracy.

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Hats are not actually mandatory, but—when present—can generally be relied on to be silly. For whatever reason, fiction requires that innocuous Brotherhoods like this are exclusively male. Mixed-gender groups or all-female sororities always have an ulterior motive.

While this is by no means a Dead Horse Trope there is apparently something a little retro to it, and such societies seem to appear more frequently in works set in The '50s (such as American Graffiti or Peggy Sue Got Married) than in works set in the present.

See also Gang of Hats.

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Examples

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Comic Books

The Knights of the Golden Light in Strangehaven

Comic Strips

In My Cage 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.

The Bloom County Moose Lodge featured in exactly one strip, commenting disapprovingly on the Rolling Stones' proclivity to "wear weird clothes," "make strange noises," "and act loony." They then signaled their agreement to "condemn the whole nasty situation" by making the Secret Moose Mating Call. BLOOP! BLOOP! BLOOP!



Films — Animated

The Boxtrolls: The Cheese Guild, who rule Cheesebridge like a fiefdom and hold tastings of the finest cheeses. They're known for their tall white hats. Snatcher and his men wear equally silly-looking red hats.

Gamma Mu Mu (the rival frat house/skater team) in An Extremely Goofy Movie was depicted as one of these briefly in a montage. Predictably, Goofy's role as a candle bearer does not go over so well.

Films — Live-Action

Laurel and Hardy were members of the titular order in their movie Sons of the Desert. It was such a success that their fan club Appreciation Society took the same name. In a short with a similar theme, they belonged to a lodge who wore British style "Hunting Pink" and sang A Hunting We Will Go at the start of each meeting. Interesting to note that Oliver Hardy was a Freemason in Real Life.

Appreciation Society took the same name. The fraternal order to which Peggy Sue's grandfather belongs in Peggy Sue Got Married. "Girl's gone — let's play cards!"

The Mud Wrestling event in ...All The Marbles, which is about a female Professional Wrestling Tag Team, is organized by The Kiwanis Club.

Literature

In The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by E. Lockhart, the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds is pretty much a drinking society with some elaborate, silly rituals (some of which turn out to be meaningful) that occasionally pulls lame pranks... until Frankie takes charge. Then the pranks become epic and politically charged.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, as shown in Guards! Guards!, has many secret societies, most of whose members would like to be part of an Ancient Conspiracy, but are really just in it for the mysterious robes. And in one case, in the society that is important to the plot and winds up being incinerated by the dragon it summoned , to chant "mystic prunes". Going Postal features a sequence where the protagonist is initiated into the postmen's secret society, which involves an ominous-sounding and rather painful hazing ritual known as "The Postman's Walk". It's mentioned he's previously joined several Brotherhoods of Funny Hats with names like The Men of the Furrow, as a prelude to defrauding the other members. As mentioned in Lords and Ladies, Lancre, centre of all rural folklore, has a Brotherhood of Funny Hats so ancient and secret it doesn't even have a name. According to The Discworld Companion their regular meetings at an earthworks called The Long Man may be an ancient rite, or simply represent man's ancient desire to get out of the house and have a couple of pints. This pretty much describes how the Unseen University was run before Archchancellor Ridicully came into the picture, a bunch of wizards who were only concerned with eating, sleeping, wearing the clothes that pointed out that they were wizards... Oh, and moving higher in the University by making an opening with the "removal" of senior wizards.

Pierre Bezukhov joins the Freemasons in War and Peace at the insistence of one of his mentors, to find some guys are 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.

In Teresa Edgerton's Goblin Moon, the Glassblowers guild has an offshoot of scholars and wearers of goofy ceremonial robes, paralleling what the Real Life Freemasons are like.

Sinclair Lewis' 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 point is made that in small-town Australia there isn't much to do except belong to funny clubs.



Live-Action TV

Music

The Ali Baba Temple of the Shrine in "Shriner's Convention" by Ray Stevens.

by Ray Stevens. Frank Zappa claimed in the liner notes for The Lost Episodes that the title The Grand Wazoo refers to whoever it is in one of these organizations who has the biggest, stupidest hat.

Professional Wrestling

The majority of SHIMMER's events are held at the Berwyn Eagles Club .

Podcasts

In The Hidden Almanac, the Sacred Order of the Bull Moose is a fraternal order with funny little rituals, levels of secrecy, and several well-attended annual events including the Waffle Dinner and the New Year's Fun Run. The waffle dinner features a Lottery of Doom to select the member who will be hunted down and sacrificed to the moose gods in the fun run.

Puppet Shows

In the Bear in the Big Blue House 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.

Fraggle Rock: 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.

Sesame Street: 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.

Radio

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 Catch Phrase "Holy mackerel!" continues to be used to this day.

Tabletop Games

Secret Societies in the role-playing game Paranoia all attempt to achieve Ancient Conspiracy status, but far more often end up as examples of this trope instead.

As illustrated by the page quote, the Fraternal Orders from Illuminati: New World Order. Given the 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 Ancient Conspiracy.

Theatre

In Bye Bye Birdie, Rose bursts in on a meeting of Shriners after dumping Albert F. Peterson, and teases them mercilessly—until they get sufficiently excited that she has to fend them off instead.

Video Games

The Order of the Harvest Moon (no relation) from the adventure game Harvester is the sinister version. The initiation process requires you to commit vandalism, breaking and entering, petty larceny, arson, and manslaughter, and the Order turns out to be a front for a cult of nihilists who have trapped you in a VR simulation with the intent of driving you crazy and turning you into a serial killer

Suikoden V has a rare distaff version. SAPPHIRE is the Secret Alliance for the Protection of Pretty Hunks In Real Endangerment. They consist of various female characters who enjoy ogling male characters. Their motto is "To observe! To protect! To observe some more!"

Hypnospace Outlaw has HORUS, which seems like a sinister conspiracy but is just a bunch of executives competing to hide their symbol in public places and see who who notices.

The Henry Stickmin series has the Toppat Clan, a criminal organization introduced in Infiltrating the Airship known for wearing many kinds of top hats that Henry is tasked with taking down by the government. They are the main antagonistic force of the series, and play a large role in not only Airship, but in Completing the Mission as well.

Web Animation

Homestar Runner: 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 different types of helmet, from "Supreme Overlord" Homestar's viking helmet to The Cheat's Custodian helmet. It's largely an excuse for the guys of Free Country USA to sit around drinking Cold Ones and singing songs. In the Strong Bad Email "fan club", the "Deleteheads" wear hats shaped like Delete keys.



Web Comics

This Shortpacked! strip.

Shortpacked! strip. Knights of Jove in Girl Genius, 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.

in Girl Genius, 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. Fruit Incest has the Trenchcoat Union, a league of bandits that behave like one of these. Their introduction even references this page.

Western Animation

Real Life