From naked burglars to prophets of Doom - Epic fails of 2016

23 December 2016 - 19:06 By Bruce Gorton

Here are some of the year's epic fails.

Pokemon Go

Pokemon Go has been an almost total success apart from one niggling problem – its launch.

From finding a Koffing in a holocaust museum to bodies under a bridge‚ there is no shortage of odd stories associated with the game on launch‚ but the big issue was one that should have been foreseeable.

The game’s launch was met with server crashes all through its first month of operation.

As one wag put it‚ how could the developers possibly have foreseen that a mobile game based on the third largest gaming franchise by sales (topped only by Tetris and Mario) would become one of the most popular mobile apps ever?

The game eventually became more stable over time as the initial rush died down. Now instead of Nintendo fans complaining about the Pokemon Go servers being down‚ they’re complaining about the Super Mario Run servers being down.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7

What had had been until then a pretty good year for Samsung turned into one it would rather forget when the batteries of its flagship Galaxy Note 7 started to go up in flames just weeks after its August 19 launch.

After a recall failed to solve the problem‚ Samsung eventually threw in the towel and announced in October that it was pulling the plug on the entire line. Since then‚ it has been issuing increasingly insistent messages to Note 7 owners to return the phones for a full refund.

Fortunately for South Africans‚ the doomed device never arrived on our shores.

The debacle is expected to cost Samsung about $17 billion and that's not counting the significant damage to the South Korean tech giant's reputation.

Naked thievery

A thief in Port Shepstone robbed a liquor store wearing a t-shirt over his face and some white socks – and nothing else. Warning, the video contains nudity.

Video posted to YouTube by SouthCoastHerald.

According to Basil Lanka‚ a director at LAZER 911‚ the crook probably thought the cameras wouldn’t pick him up if he was naked - either that or he didn’t want the cameras catching what he was wearing.

While his attempt to hide his identity was unconventional to say the least‚ it appears he managed to get away with several bottles of very expensive whisky.

Crazy pastors

Their attention-seeking antics were‚ at times‚ revolting.

From Dettol to Doom‚ snake-eaters to Ponzi scams‚ there have been just too many crazy pastors for this one entry‚ which is why TimesLIVE has a top five just for them. Go check it out.

WATCH: From snakes to Doom - 5 pastors that made bizarre headlines in 2016 Pastors are meant to lead and give us spiritual guidance, but some pastors have taken things a little too far. Here are five pastors that made bizarre headlines in 2016.

True Love

When Lerato Kganyago hit the cover of True Love‚ the event wasn’t met with much love.

The cover was heavily Photoshopped‚ resulting in an instant Twitter backlash over how it wasn't representative of how good looking Kganyago really is.

True Love decided to respond to this‚ by then releasing the unedited photos. Somebody really should have told the magazine about what you do when you find yourself in a hole – “stop digging”.

Kganyago responded to this by saying the magazine was trying to shame her for her curves.

Needless to say‚ she was the ultimate winner in that battle.

This wasn’t the last battle True Love had over less-than-loving‚ less-than-true representations of women on its cover.

Zahara has recently blasted the magazine for the cover line "Zahara: marriage‚ drugs and selling records". According to Zahara‚ drugs didn’t come up in her interview with the magazine.

"Before the interview we had agreed on what we would talk about. In the interview we talked about hair‚ body and marriage. I was excited because this was the first time I revealed certain things about my love life but drugs and alcohol was never discussed‚" she told Tshisalive.

- TMG Digital