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Things that seem to be punchlines in US comedy...

Started by Starlit, January 08, 2021, 08:23:03 PM

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kalowski


beanheadmcginty

Top tip for anybody confused by the grade system in American schools, the UK equivalent is just the number below it. So 8th grade is what we call Year 7.

kalowski

Quote from: icehaven on January 11, 2021, 08:49:58 PM
Edit: Just looked it up again and realised adding 5 to the grade gives you the child's age. So first graders are 6, second graders are 7, fifth graders are 10 etc. Still never getting my head round all that Freshman/Sophomore/Senior year crap though.
Quote from: beanheadmcginty on January 12, 2021, 06:31:00 AM
Top tip for anybody confused by the grade system in American schools, the UK equivalent is just the number below it. So 8th grade is what we call Year 7.
One of these must be wrong because there's no way kids are 13 in year 7. My lad is in Year 7 in September and he's just about to turn 11.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: kalowski on January 12, 2021, 06:22:53 AM
"Check out Poindexter here."

One of those insults that's funnier if you have absolutely no idea what it means (it's presumably not racist; if so, I take that back).

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: beanheadmcginty on January 12, 2021, 06:31:00 AM
Top tip for anybody confused by the grade system in American schools, the UK equivalent is just the number below it. So 8th grade is what we call Year 7.
Ah, like shoe sizes

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Retainers/braces held in place by external rods connected to enormous metal collars.

Jerzy Bondov

Not really a punchline but there's an early episode of Scrubs where Dr Kelso is kicking off because they've treated someone without health insurance and at the time I had absolutely no idea what was going on

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

Quote from: beanheadmcginty on January 11, 2021, 10:35:12 PM
A man called Gallagher smashing watermelons

Richard Harris demands screenplay rewrite from Jack DeWitt.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

New Jersey is a right fucking shithole, and most people who live there are, unsophisticated thick cunts, and if you go to Coney Island, you'll probably get murdered. I think " How I Met Your Mother" made a couple of jokes like this.
( although Coney Island's in New York, I think).

Bad Ambassador

Quote from: famethrowa on January 09, 2021, 05:20:40 AM
A recent twatter favourite, as a reply to a lengthy passionate opinion or screed: "Sir, this is a Wendy's drive-thru"

Doesn't work as well in countries unsaturated by drive-through restaurants.

My favoured UK version of this is to substitute Wendys for Sketchleys.

EOLAN

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on January 12, 2021, 08:21:18 AM
New Jersey is a right fucking shithole, and most people who live there are, unsophisticated thick cunts


Even the musical Hamilton would drop-in knowing references to New Jersey as described above. While unashamedly banging on about New York being undoubtedly the most wonderful marvelous perfect city in the world.





Jumblegraws

Infomercial phone numbers with a slogan worked into them, "1800-DOCTORB, the 'B' stands for 'Bargain!'" to use a Simpsons example. I don't think I ever saw a phone keypad that used lettering until mobile phones became mainstream and as a kid I thought american phones must also have a lettered keyboard attached or something.
ETA: possibly this is more my own limited experience, did/do the British equivalent of infomercials ever do the numbers and letters thing?

Marner and Me

Quote from: icehaven on January 11, 2021, 10:56:00 PM
The thing I read said Freshman was 9th grade, so I think you might mean college but I meant high school.
Yeah freshman I took was generally your first year of anything. So I follow ice hockey when players goto the CHL (16-20) Their first year of that is their freshman year (bearing in mind an 18 year old who plays his first year will be a freshman, yet a 17 year old who is in his second season it will be his sophomore) That is my take on it.

I'm not sure which grade yanks go from middle school to high school. It could be the 9th grade, so that would mean they are freshmen.

thenoise

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on January 11, 2021, 09:03:52 PM
Likewise. It must surely be a contender for the most-referenced show in American TV history.

And that's something we don't really do over here, is it? Sitcoms mentioning other sitcoms and comedy shows. The Office is an obvious exception, as Brent specifically nicks jokes and catchphrases from well-known comedy sources, but apart from that and Vyv's rant about The Good Life in The Young Ones, I can't think of any other examples off the top of my head.*

*Actually, Partridge mentions Robin's Nest at one point, doesn't he? There are probably loads of other examples.

Men Behaving Badly certainly had a discussion about The Good Life - namely, how anyone can be married to Felicity Kendell and find time to plant all those potatoes in between all the lovely sex they would be having.

American sitcoms seem to be populated by people with an encyclopedic knowledge of popular culture, despite never watching TV.

Phil_A

It's a bit weird in retrospect that Goodness Gracious Me had "Check please!" as a catchphrase, when that's a thing no-one in British restaurants ever says, opting instead for the less cryptic "Could we please have the bill?" To our ears, it makes the character sound like he's asking them to give him a cheque, which would just be a nonsensical state of affairs.

buzby

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on January 08, 2021, 09:39:43 PM
I dunno about that, my Great Uncle had a Chevette just like this one:

It was a hunk of crap though, that much is true.
The Chevette was built on GM's T-Car platform and was their first 'World Car', with variants of the T-Car being built by their subsidiaries all around the world. In the UK it was a relatively unremarkable competitor to the Ford Escort, but in the US it was regarded as a 'joke' car (much in the same way they would later view the Yugo, or we would view the Skoda). It was introduced there in the aftermath of the fuel crisis as a competitor to the Honda Civic and VW Golf/Rabbit, and as a way for GM to comply with the new CAFE legislation (which was an effort to force manufacturers to improve the average fuel efficiency across their ranges).

In an effort to maximise it's fuel economy to have the biggest offset to GM's CAFE score, the engines were massively detuned, and combined with the primitive emissions-reducing technology at the time (as states like California had introduced 'Smog' regulations), it meant that the Chevette was offered with either a 1.4 or 1.6 lite engines, developing 50 or 63 hp respectively. They were seen as cheap, slow and nasty, the sort of car you would only drive if you had no other alternative.

Quote from: Jumblegraws on January 12, 2021, 10:10:02 AM
Infomercial phone numbers with a slogan worked into them, "1800-DOCTORB, the 'B' stands for 'Bargain!'" to use a Simpsons example. I don't think I ever saw a phone keypad that used lettering until mobile phones became mainstream and as a kid I thought american phones must also have a lettered keyboard attached or something.
ETA: possibly this is more my own limited experience, did/do the British equivalent of infomercials ever do the numbers and letters thing?
British phone dials had letters on them (though not in the same layout as US ones) up until the widespread rollout of Subscriber Trunk Dialling in the early 70s.
            1          2          3          4          5          6          7          8          9          0
                     ABC       DEF      GHI       JKL      MN       PRS      TUV      WXY       O
The 3-digit local area code (for example, the 709 in  the Liverpool city centre number range 0151 709 xxxx) were usually arranged to spell the first 3 letters of the exhange name (ROY in that example, which is the Liverpool Royal telephone exchange), which was something that was carried over from the era of using operators to dial calls for you - you would ask them to dial the exchange name followed by the line number (i.e. "Royal xxxx").

As the dial letters had pretty much become extinct by the end of the Seventies, we never had the 'numbers spelling words' thing like the US. Companies here go for memorable numbers instead.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: buzby on January 12, 2021, 11:16:44 AMIn an effort to maximise it's fuel economy to have the biggest offset to GM's CAFE score, the engines were massively detuned, and combined with the primitive emissions-reducing technology at the time (as states like California had introduced 'Smog' regulations), it meant that the Chevette was offered with either a 1.4 or 1.6 lite engines, developing 50 or 63 hp respectively. They were seen as cheap, slow and nasty, the sort of car you would only drive if you had no other alternative.
I don't know what my Uncle's excuse was, as he didn't have kids so presumably could have afforded something a bit better. At the time he owned it (up to the mid 80s), he was working his last job before retirement, driving a bin wagon. I always thought after going around town in such a huge thing that going home in the Chevette must have been a right let down.

JaDanketies

Quote from: kalowski on January 12, 2021, 06:22:53 AM
"Check out Poindexter here."

Did you know that Nimrod is actually a famous hunter in mythology; Bugs Bunny once called Elmer Fudd 'Nimrod' as a sarcastic reference to this, nobody got the joke, and now Nimrod means idiot.

Billy

"My name's (NAME) and I'm an alcoholic"
"I'm sorry, this is triple-A"

Used in Third Rock from the Sun and The Simpsons within months of each other, making me wonder if 'triple A' was some extreme Alcoholics Alcoholics Anonymous (or Alcoholics Anonymous Anonymous) for the really bad cases.

Ironically the gag would work even better here as there's no extra A in either organisation so the mistake is easier to make.

Jumblegraws

Quote from: buzby on January 12, 2021, 11:16:44 AM.
British phone dials had letters on them (though not in the same layout as US ones) up until the widespread rollout of Subscriber Trunk Dialling in the early 70s.
            1          2          3          4          5          6          7          8          9          0
                     ABC       DEF      GHI       JKL      MN       PRS      TUV      WXY       O
The 3-digit local area code (for example, the 709 in  the Liverpool city centre number range 0151 709 xxxx) were usually arranged to spell the first 3 letters of the exhange name (ROY in that example, which is the Liverpool Royal telephone exchange), which was something that was carried over from the era of using operators to dial calls for you - you would ask them to dial the exchange name followed by the line number (i.e. "Royal xxxx").

As the dial letters had pretty much become extinct by the end of the Seventies, we never had the 'numbers spelling words' thing like the US. Companies here go for memorable numbers instead.
Thanks for that! I became aware of that lettering system as I got older when I saw it on some phone keypads but didn't know of its origins or the fact that it was essentially vestigial. 

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Marner and Me on January 11, 2021, 10:25:01 PM
They're gopping
Freshman/rookie is your first year, Sophomore is the second year/Senior depending on what you're doing but usually your last year.
Then what about "junior"? I live in the US, and work at a fucking university, yet I'm still not 100% sure.

Magnum Valentino

Quote from: Billy on January 12, 2021, 01:05:01 AM
Any gag that requires knowledge of where different states/cities are in relation to each other, like the following made up example:

"I'm gonna drive down to Joe's tonight"
"Where does he live?"
"Seattle"

Big audience laugh as the sitcom is set in Miami, with a younger me wondering what the problem is.

I like this joke structure, seen also in Saxondale, when Keanu tells Tommy his flatmate's just gone out to the shops, Tommy asks when he went as he needs to speak to him, and he replies "February".

Jumblegraws

Quote from: Billy on January 12, 2021, 01:05:01 AM
Any gag that requires knowledge of where different states/cities are in relation to each other, like the following made up example:

"I'm gonna drive down to Joe's tonight"
"Where does he live?"
"Seattle"

Big audience laugh as the sitcom is set in Miami, with a younger me wondering what the problem is.
Much of the humour of the Muppets song Movin' Right Along was lost on me as a child because of this.

DrGreggles

Quote from: Billy on January 12, 2021, 12:16:18 PM
"My name's (NAME) and I'm an alcoholic"
"I'm sorry, this is triple-A"

Better and earlier version of that was on Fry & Laurie:
https://youtu.be/M1iEBpbUEnk

Marner and Me

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on January 12, 2021, 01:12:08 PM
Then what about "junior"? I live in the US, and work at a fucking university, yet I'm still not 100% sure.
Fuck knows then. Tbf the ice hockey reference I used is Canadian, however I assume like everywhere else, they have been infested with Americanisms.

JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: beanheadmcginty on January 12, 2021, 06:31:00 AM
Top tip for anybody confused by the grade system in American schools, the UK equivalent is just the number below it. So 8th grade is what we call Year 7.

I'm confused by the UK's "year x" numbering too.  They hadn't introduced that system yet when I left school in the 80's.  (I always assumed we copied the American system with that one.)

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on January 12, 2021, 07:32:41 AM
Quote from: kalowski on January 12, 2021, 06:22:53 AM
"Check out Poindexter here."
One of those insults that's funnier if you have absolutely no idea what it means (it's presumably not racist; if so, I take that back).

Before I knew the correct meaning I discovered that Poindexter was the name of a Rear Admiral in the Iran Contra affair, so I made up my own joke for that one before discovering the real meaning is just something like 'nerd'.

EDIT: After Googling, it seems that just like the aforementioned nimrod, Poindexter is also from a cartoon, a nerdy character from Felix The Cat.


Jockice

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on January 11, 2021, 11:30:43 PM
I think, as mentioned earlier, we were all at the mercy of regional variations. I'm a Scottish person. The Love Boat, for example, was an STV afternoon staple for many years, but possibly not that familiar to '80s kids living elsewhere. It's a Byzantine maze.

I lived in three ITV areas during my childhood. Scottish, Border and Yorkshire Televisions. None of them ever showed Sesame Street while I was there. So to this day I have never seen a full episode. I could see it in the listings for other areas but didn't know exactly what it was. And it wasn't easy to find out things like that in the 70s.

Anyway, on the original topic, someone majoring in (ridiculous subject).

Jockice

Quote from: DrGreggles on January 12, 2021, 01:38:08 PM
Better and earlier version of that was on Fry & Laurie:
https://youtu.be/M1iEBpbUEnk

And earlier than that comedian Mark Hurst (previously known as Mark Miwurdz) used to start his sets with a 'my name's Mark and I'm an alcoholic...oh.sorry, wrong meeting' gag. Seems to be quite a comedy staple nowadays but I'd never heard anyone do it before him.

non capisco

Quote from: JaDanketies on January 12, 2021, 11:51:23 AM
Did you know that Nimrod is actually a famous hunter in mythology; Bugs Bunny once called Elmer Fudd 'Nimrod' as a sarcastic reference to this, nobody got the joke, and now Nimrod means idiot.

Fe-fee-fe-fee-fe-fee-fe-fee...fuck my hat, folks!