7 of the kookiest free WordPress plug-ins ever made

On the whole, WordPress plugins are serious stuff. Add the right ones and they can increase the number of visitors you get to your site, impact conversions and contribute to visitor loyalty. Add the wrong ones and you could find yourself facing website security issues and efficiency problems.

However, you only have to look at the photos from the recent WordCamp Brighton that feature brownie trolleys, yellow Snoopy t-shirts and post-talk pints to see that the WordPress community has a real fun-loving side.

Once in a while you can also find evidence of this within the WordPress plugin directory itself.

We’ve rounded up a few of the kookiest WordPress plugins from the past to give you a smile on your next tea break.

The one linked to the Father Ted song

The song My Lovely Horse featured in the fifth episode of the second series of cult sitcom Father Ted. The episode was a parody of the Eurovision song contest and is considered to be one of the best from the Father Ted offering.

Inspired by the Hello Dolly plugin that, when activated, displays lyrics of the Louis Armstrong song Hello Dolly in the upper right area of the admin screen, the My Lovely Horse plugin allowed users to see My Lovely Horse lyrics as they went about their site admin tasks.

Think ‘fetlocks blowing in the wind’ and ‘shower you with sugar lumps’.

Unfortunately, demand for this option was not as strong as Hello Dolly – there were fewer than 10 active installations compared to Hello Dolly’s 900,000 plus. As a result, the plugin hasn’t been tested within the last three releases of WordPress.

The one with all the unicorns

Rated five out of five stars on the WordPress directory, the Cornify plugin responded to five minutes’ of website visitor inactivity by displaying unicorns on the screen. There were sparkly gold ones, pink ones, and white ones with rainbow manes. It threw in a few extra rainbows for good measure, too.

The plugin was linked to the website Cornify that allows visitors to do everything from colour in unicorns on screen to design their own unicorn.

While the site is still live and kicking and the Cornify Chrome extension is still available, the plugin hasn’t been updated for the last two years.

The one with the Pig Latin

If you’ve never heard of Pig Latin, it’s a play language that’s formed from English by transferring the first consonant of a word to the end and adding a gobbledygook syllable like ay.

So, food becomes oodfay and love becomes ovelay.

The Pig Latin plugin allowed website owners to transfer the words on their site into Pig Latin.

While this sounds like a bit of a goof around, the plugin was created to make it easier for WordPress users to check on any untranslatable strings in themes etc.

Unfortunately, the WordPress community didn’t really see the use of the plugin. It reached less than 10 active installations and hasn’t been updated for five years. Adsay imetsay.

The one with the rude sound effects

The WP Fun plugin claimed to allow you to add ‘funny fart sounds’ to your WordPress site. While we talked about the WordPress community having a real fun side, this plugin might have gone a step to far. It was actively downloaded less than 10 times and hasn’t been updated in three years.

The one with the dark side

Another one inspired by the Hello Dolly plugin, Hello Darth, when activated, displayed quotes from Darth Vader’s IMDB page in the upper right area of the admin screen.

So, you could count on sayings such as ‘I’ve been waiting for you Obi-Wan’ and ‘Your powers are weak old man’ appearing as you carried out your site admin.

You could say these quotes are not the most positive, especially compared to lines from Hello Dolly like ‘You’re still goin’ strong’ and ‘You’re still glowin’ you’re still crowin’’, which perhaps goes some way to explaining why the plugin was installed less than 10 times and hasn’t been updated for four years.

The one with the scratch cards

The Scratch and Win Giveaways plugin allows you to add a digital scratch card to your website. While it sounds like a bit of fun, it’s actually been designed to help website owners boost leads and conversions.

Unlike the other plugins mentioned above, this one is still available. Recent updates include the addition of a St Patrick’s themed scratch card design as well as an Easter one.

To date, there have been more than 200 active installations of this plugin and it has 4.5 stars in the WordPress directory reviews.

The one with the fortune telling

Predating the Latin alphabet, runes were letters used by ancient Germanic peoples. Today, they’re used for divination and fortune telling.

The Norse Rune Oracle plugin allowed WordPress users to add a rune drawing service to their websites.

Many websites asked visitors to think of a question and then press a button to draw out a set of random runes, which the site would then interpret for them.

More than 100 active installations were clocked up by this plugin, but it hasn’t been updated for two years.

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