Woefully tenuous jokes

[magval]

The way the fake hands and remote-controlled wheelchair are written into the Father Ted episode always seemed a bit shit to me, even though it had the self aware 'completely ludicrous situation' line

Worth it for the exclamation "these are FAKE hands", I honestly believe.

[ProvanFan]

Adam and Joe cracking each other up is incredibly endearing.
This is a favourite:
https://youtu.be/qI9-94GJOKk

Love the uploader's description. I wonder what he makes of them now?

[ProvanFan]

From Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors which I finished earlier this evening. Not really a spoiler but I'll link instead of embedding in case it somehow bothers someone (e.g. the kind of tosser who's into visual novels)

https://i.postimg.cc/6Q63nDMv/20201110-221352-HDR.jpg

Presumably it worked better in Japanese

[wrec]

In the Count Arthur Strong TV episode The Radio Play, a character in the play complains that after excessive sunbathing, "I'm turning into a crisp". Strong delivers it as "I'm turning into some crisps" to an explosion of uproarious canned audience laughter.

Can hardly express how much this line annoys me. Nobody has ever said "I'm turning into a crisp" rather than "burnt to a crisp" and the only thing the line conveys is utter contempt for the audience and comedy itself. It didn't help that the series was accompanied by Linehan's protracted meltdown about laugh tracks. I strongly suspect Chris Morris was referring to this on Buxton's podcast when he mentioned the cognitive dissonance between unfunny material and hysterical laugh tracks.

Dunno if people on here are familiar with the Irish series Killinaskully which featured a few Ted actors, but the one episode I saw was based around mistaking a passing Filipino tourist for new parish priest Fr. Philip Eno. What made it worse was that the idea was obviously and pointlessly derived from the Fr. Brian Eno cameo in Ted.

[idunnosomename]

Love the uploader's description. I wonder what he makes of them now?

gazman? it's benjamin308. just to let you know, I've bought the tickets for sludgefest, as well as chillax, wickaworld, inoffensive electronica festival, wet weekend, and pimps in the park

CIAO!!!!

[JesusAndYourBush]

I remember one from school which is so awfully constructed that it starts with a little bit to help you understand the punchline.

"In Indian*, the word for your bum is 'bond'."

_{* Because of course there's a language called Indian.}

"So a kid goes to his dad and asks 'Can I have some money to go and see James Bond?' "
"And his dad says 'Why do you want to pay to see James Bond when you can see my bond for free' "

[Menu]

The worst one that springs to mind is the plot where Michael thinks Rita is working for a mysterious British spy called "Mr F" but it turns out that it's just an acronym for "Mentally Retarded Female", fucking hell, cringing just thinking about that.

I've never come to terms with the liberal use of 'retard'/'retarded' by Americans, even the loveliest of them. It always pulls me up short. Especially as they are usually so careful about their word choices otherwise. A really strange blind spot.

[The Cloud of Unknowing]

I've never come to terms with the liberal use of 'retard'/'retarded' by Americans, even the loveliest of them. It always pulls me up short. Especially as they are usually so careful about their word choices otherwise. A really strange blind spot.

Same here. Very odd when they feel the need to change titbit to tidbit, titmouse to chickadee and cock to rooster.
They don't have any qualms about s*****c either, although that does seem to be mostly adjectival, not having the same uncomfortable history as it does here.

Dumb pantywaists.

[Menu]

Same here. Very odd when they feel the need to change titbit to tidbit, titmouse to chickadee and cock to rooster.
They don't have any qualms about s*****c either, although that does seem to be mostly adjectival, not having the same uncomfortable history as it does here.

Dumb pantywaists.

My brother has Down's Syndrome and you wouldn't believe how often it crops up in otherwise warm-hearted shows. Makes me sad for him to have to hear it and I hope it doesn't start catching on here like other Americanisms have. And, yeah, 'spaz' is everywhere too.

[FredNurke]

Same here. Very odd when they feel the need to change titbit to tidbit, titmouse to chickadee and cock to rooster.

'Tidbit' is actually the original form of the word, with 'titbit' being a later development which doesn't seem to have ever had much currency in North America.

[Fr.Bigley]

My brother has Down's Syndrome and you wouldn't believe how often it crops up in otherwise warm-hearted shows. Makes me sad for him to have to hear it and I hope it doesn't start catching on here like other Americanisms have. And, yeah, 'spaz' is everywhere too.

But isn't spaz just the shortened down old name for scope?

[The Cloud of Unknowing]

'Tidbit' is actually the original form of the word, with 'titbit' being a later development which doesn't seem to have ever had much currency in North America.

I vaguely remember reading that and thinking that it became titbit which America didn't take to, but I can't find anything to back that up now. But yes, tyd from tender originally, you're right.

For long jokes with contrived puns, some excruciating 'feghoots' here:

http://trove42.com/5-great-feghoots-waste-time/
_{^{too long; didn't laugh}}

[Mr Banlon]

I remember one from school which is so awfully constructed that it starts with a little bit to help you understand the punchline.

"In Indian*, the word for your bum is 'bond'."

_{* Because of course there's a language called Indian.}

"So a kid goes to his dad and asks 'Can I have some money to go and see James Bond?' "
"And his dad says 'Why do you want to pay to see James Bond when you can see my bond for free' "

I made the woefully tenuous "My name is Bond, teri bund" joke over in the 'james bond except he is completely without decorum' thread.

[Dayraven]

Presumably it worked better in Japanese

The original pun is 'budou' (grape) and 'voodoo', which is a much better soundalike at least (Japanese doesn't usually bother distinguishing v from b.)

[Jumblegraws]

I've never come to terms with the liberal use of 'retard'/'retarded' by Americans, even the loveliest of them. It always pulls me up short. Especially as they are usually so careful about their word choices otherwise. A really strange blind spot.

Am I wrong in thinking it's become considerably less acceptable in the past five years or so? I remember being shocked by Seth McFarlane's cheerful use of the word when he was a talking head on The 100 Greatest Cartoons about fifteen years ago, but I'm under the impression he'd get pulled up for that on either side of the Atlantic nowadays?

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

It's not woeful, but pretty tenuous, from Fry & Laurie:

Also from them:

"I dunno, anyway I flipped ... emptied a bowl of trifle over her pretty little head."

"And she got custody."

[neveragain]

Not tenuous, just funny puns (see also 'Henrietta').

[AsparagusTrevor]

Am I wrong in thinking it's become considerably less acceptable in the past five years or so? I remember being shocked by Seth McFarlane's cheerful use of the word when he was a talking head on The 100 Greatest Cartoons about fifteen years ago, but I'm under the impression he'd get pulled up for that on either side of the Atlantic nowadays?

Glenn Howerton of 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' expressed regret over using the R-word in earlier episodes, and it was even bleeped out in when a clip from the Christmas episode was shown during their clip-show spoof episode (right before the F-bomb was shouted about twenty times un-bleeped)

[The Cloud of Unknowing]

Not tenuous, just funny puns (see also 'Henrietta').

And "picked a buttock up".

[famethrowa]

And "picked a buttock up".

And my favourite, "the gentlest breeze, and mildest camemberts...."

(see also 'Henrietta').

Did he!

[Menu]

But isn't spaz just the shortened down old name for scope?

Yes, 's*****c'. That bit in IAP1 when he calls his obsessed fan a s*****c feels quite jarring now. Or maybe I've just become a pearl-clutching old cunt. A friend of mine tried to reintroduce the word into our conversations but I had to put my foot down.

[Menu]

Am I wrong in thinking it's become considerably less acceptable in the past five years or so? I remember being shocked by Seth McFarlane's cheerful use of the word when he was a talking head on The 100 Greatest Cartoons about fifteen years ago, but I'm under the impression he'd get pulled up for that on either side of the Atlantic nowadays?

Ah really? I hope so.

[Menu]

And "picked a buttock up".

I first saw that monologue on ABOFAL when I was a sexy teen, and I thought it was the cleverest joke I'd ever heard. I couldn't understand how Fry could even conceive it. I was in awe. Actually I think I still am, even though it's basically a sort of pun isn't it. And I fucking hate puns.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Benny Hill did something similar,

Benny as Chinese guy doing *the voice*.
Someone says "It's so lovely that you call your wife little white buttercup."
Benny: "No not little white buttercup, lift your right buttock up, she's sitting on my hand."

[Menu]

Benny Hill did something similar,

Benny as Chinese guy doing *the voice*.
Someone says "It's so lovely that you call your wife little white buttercup."
Benny: "No not little white buttercup, lift your right buttock up, she's sitting on my hand."

Ah interesting. Kudos to Benny. I wonder if Fry came to it independently. Jemfred might know but he hasn't been around here for ages.

[Jockice]

Yes, 's*****c'. That bit in IAP1 when he calls his obsessed fan a s*****c feels quite jarring now. Or maybe I've just become a pearl-clutching old cunt. A friend of mine tried to reintroduce the word into our conversations but I had to put my foot down.

Lest we forget the much-loved The Young Ones used the word 's*****c' regularly. As a diisabled teenager who had to go to school the next day and hear utter pricks do their Rik and Vyvian impressions, well, it wasn't great.

(On a personal note I've always hated that word - I found even saying it to myself difficult - but have come to terms with it, especially since my last diagnosis was that I apparently have a rare syndrome that actually has the word 's*****c' in the title. There's no escape.)

[Janie Jones]

Returning to the subject of the thread, these used to be called 'contrived jokes' and my older brother was a big fan. Here's his favourite, I may have posted it on CaB before but it bears repeating:

Two competitive eaters of river fish, Stefan and Fife, are head to head in the finals of the World Tench Eating championship. They have to compete to eat as many tench as possible in one minute. Fife is the favourite but disaster strikes on his 8th tench as it gets caught on a tooth and he only manages to swallow it just before time runs out. Stefan beats him by one! He is violently ill afterwards but he's the new world champion! And the headline in the paper next day is:

Spoiler alert

Once tooth freed for Fife, sick Stefan ate nine tench

[close]

[notjosh]

A much slicker joke like that is:

One-two-three cat and un-deux-trois cat had a boating race. Who won?

Spoiler alert

One-two-three cat, because un-deux-trois cat sank.

[close]

[Gulftastic]

A much slicker joke like that is:

One-two-three cat and un-deux-trois cat had a boating race. Who won?

Spoiler alert

One-two-three cat, because un-deux-trois cat sank.

[close]

Add 'see?' to the end.

[Cuellar]

I remember a joke from primary school that relied on the absurd premise of a nun being called 'Fuckherharder'.

Ludicrous.