Jokes you don't/didn't get

[bloodteller]

i know there’s the thing of “the joke isn’t funny if you explain it” but were there ever gags in Red Dwarf you didn’t get? and if so, what?

i never quite got what Cat’s “stan and ollie” line in White Hole was about, for example. nor did i get what “see you in ten minutes?” (repeat x10) from Pete was all about, and also Rimmer’s “steers and queers, which are you boy?” joke from Meltdown

Topic

[International Debris]

Yes it, like the actual kidney bootstrap paradox, is strangely underplayed in an era which still has a fair few VIII-esque overdone moments.

[GlenTokyo]

Sort of a joke, but Mogadon, of “pan-dimensional liquid beast” fame is a benzodiazepine sleeping tablet.

Thought it as just a funny name.

Had a look at the similar formula ‘Vidal beast of Sharmutt II’ and Sharmutt is Arabic for Bitch apparently.

[International Debris]

In the cleaning montage in Kryten, what does he do to the skutter and why is it so funny? I’ve been wondering this for the best part of 25 years.

[clem]

Pokes it in the eyes to stun it so he can grab hold of it and clean it with his cloth.

[Warbodog]

I wondered what was so funny about the Skutter in the US pilot, only just noticed (checking the more recent, less blocky upload) that it gives Rimmer the finger.

[Ian Symes]

In the cleaning montage in Kryten, what does he do to the skutter and why is it so funny? I’ve been wondering this for the best part of 25 years.

I wonder if they filmed a longer struggle between the two of them, and that’s why there’s such a big audience reaction for Kryten losing his patience and poking the Skutter in the eyes in the little bit that we see.

[International Debris]

Ah, he pokes it in the eyes! I’ve never been able to work it out at all.

[Warbodog]

In Quarantine, I didn’t used to connect the double lobotomy and rubber wallpaper comments and thought the latter was just a reference to some crap/unfashionable home decor they should buy Lanstrom because they don’t like her.

[Unrumble]

Until embarrassingly recently, I’d always heard Lister say in ‘Kryten’ :
“… he gets out a brush and mattock, and starts doing me lapels!”

I assumed these were 2 small, separate cleaning implements specifically for lapels.

I’ve only this minute Googled ‘mattock’, and discovered it’s an actual tool. Though probably not one you’d want near your lapels.

Admittedly this is just a mis-hearing, rather than a misunderstanding of the meaning of the line.

[GlenTokyo]

[Rudolph]

I thought Kryten and the skutter was him just giving it a thump on the head.

[Moonlight]

Probably old hat, probably not something I haven’t already said in this very thread – but as a kid I didn’t click that Lister got the severed hand from his double in The Inquisitor and figured that Lister was just the kind of creep who’d carry around a severed human hand. I didn’t even question it.

I’ve mentioned many times before that the Japanese edit of this episode basically makes my kiddie head-canon into regular canon by keeping the “I can give you fifteen” punchline at the end but deleting minutes of scenes, including the totality of the alternate Lister and Kryten and when Lister uses the hand to unlock the door.

Petition to rename the Japanese version “Bodysnatcher”.

[Warbodog]

Did they mainly scrap Bodysnatcher because it was too dark? That stopped being a concern after a few years, didn’t it.

[Moonlight]

I think it was over complexity, mainly? Stuff like that skutter scene, which was fantastic but those things couldn’t even successfully bang their own head on the wall in real life.

[Loathsome American]

Just learned literally minutes ago that Shake n Vac is a real product—a carpet freshener? I’d always assumed it was a reference to Shake n Bake—the seasoned breadcrumbs—but…science-fictiony? Like, in the future, on a spaceship, you will not bake your chicken and pork, you will have some sort of…vacuum cooking appliance.

This has been a surprise, but a pleasant one, because I’d always thought that was a not-very-clever joke, and it’s much better knowing the Shake n Vac is actually a thing.

[Dave]

It puts the freshness back!

[si]

[Veeva]

“If anyone needs me I’ll be taking a cold shower in liquid oxygen”

1. Cat feels so disgusted in himself for lusting over the Psirens that he feels that he has to wash.

2. The prospect of “spreading his seed” has made him so excited that he needs a cold shower.

I always assumed it was some variation of the first, due to how the line is delivered. But I guess the second one makes more sense as it would be in-line with what people typically associate cold showers with.

[GlenTokyo]

“If anyone needs me I’ll be taking a cold shower in liquid oxygen”

1. Cat feels so disgusted in himself for lusting over the Psirens that he feels that he has to wash.
2. The prospect of “spreading his seed” has made him so excited that he needs a cold shower.
I always assumed it was some variation of the first, due to how the line is delivered. But I guess the second one makes more sense as it would be in-line with what people typically associate cold showers with.

Always the second one for me. Basically, he’s got so worked up at the prospect of being the main event at an orgy, that he needs to take a cold shower.

A joke in the camp of “not thick Cat” as if he literal did, I’m not sure LOX would do anything for him unless he wants to snap it off. Knows his cryogenic materials.

[RunawayTrain]

Oh, I thought it was a combination of both – he needed to calm down but the way he says it also makes me think he’s disgusted with himself, and the liquid oxygen is an exaggeration to emphasise just how much he doesn’t want to be excited by that thought again (because Psirens rather than people).

[Warbodog]

I thought the same, except I didn’t know it was a lethal exaggeration and I took it as a clumsy reference to them having to conserve water supplies by making a passable liquid with the O/G unit or something.

Psirens is my least watched episode of I-VI, so stuff like this and the duty-free shop haven’t been given much consideration.

[Rudolph]

Did they mainly scrap Bodysnatcher because it was too dark? That stopped being a concern after a few years, didn’t it.

Wasn’t it a case of it being too complicated to film and that they couldn’t come up with an ending? I remember the DVD boxset being touted as Rob and Doug reuniting to finish off the script.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I’ve just realised the ‘slides’ in Timeslides refers to the photo slides and not them sliding through time.

I can only attribute the fact I’d have originally seen Timeslides at a time Sliders was originally on TV and I just conflated the two things and just didn’t question it again for 25 years

[Warbodog]

As a kid, I was always confused about why Kryten smiles at the end of Ouroboros when he welcomes Kochanski aboard. I only had the Xtended version without the laugh track, so didn’t know whether there was supposed to be something funny going on.

I think I get it now?

[Warbodog]

If the first one is the joke, it really requires a bare arse to work. I wonder if that was the original idea and it got overruled. Welcome aboard, Chloe.

[Jenuall]

That definitely is the joke. It works well enough in terms of function, it just isn’t very good

[Dave]

Yeah, it’s the idea that he looks like he’s about to warn her that her gown is tucked into her pants, and then doesn’t.

Classic Dwarf.

[GlenTokyo]

I don’t get that.

Is it an evil/mischievous smile? Like “I’m going to make your life hell”

Is it an embarrassed sort of smile, like he’s shy about not being an arsehole?

If it’s because her bum is out then it’s just weird, why would he care? He’d surely just say “Miss Kochanski Ma’am, your gown is open” because he’s a robot.

Getting the only female cast member to get her arse out almost immediately is a timeline I’m glad we avoided, would have been unsurprising though with the general “randy teenager who is also a misogynist” tone of Red Dwarf in VII and VIII particularly.

[Warbodog]

I was so innocent. Fortunately, I entered puberty in time to appreciate all of series VIII’s hilarity.

[Pete Part Three]

If you look closely, you can see Kryten’s actually looking at the camera.  This was the pilot episode of Krytie TV.

[Dave]

If it’s because her bum is out then it’s just weird, why would he care? He’d surely just say “Miss Kochanski Ma’am, your gown is open” because he’s a robot.

[Warbodog]

If it’s because her bum is out then it’s just weird, why would he care? He’d surely just say “Miss Kochanski Ma’am, your gown is open” because he’s a robot.

[Dave]

Every time I see something from Series X Kryten looks even less like Kryten than I remember.

[loadoftottnumb]

I don’t really get what Cat is going on about in Epideme (or maybe Nanarchy) with the Ping-Pong Championship and Yo-Yo Tournament. I mean I know he’s saying ‘haven’t you fucked things up enough?’ But I don’t get the analogy.

[GlenTokyo]

If it’s because her bum is out then it’s just weird, why would he care? He’d surely just say “Miss Kochanski Ma’am, your gown is open” because he’s a robot.

You’re right, he’s a twat in that series so he’d probably mouth at Lister and Cat to have a look first, then say something “set phasers to bum”

[Warbodog]

I don’t really get what Cat is going on about in Epideme (or maybe Nanarchy) with the Ping-Pong Championship and Yo-Yo Tournament. I mean I know he’s saying ‘haven’t you fucked things up enough?’ But I don’t get the analogy.

Cat is less concerned about Lister’s loss of an arm and impending death than the effect these things will have on their pastimes.

Though it makes less sense now I think about it. Ping pong is mainly one-handed anyway, apart from serving (and I suppose balance). And a yo-yo tournament shouldn’t require an even number of players in the same way.

[loadoftottnumb]

You know what? Unbelievably I didn’t even associate the loss of an arm thing, that’s embarrassing, I thought Cat was just being #RandomLolz

[clem]

“Now, on to Dr Bob Porkman, father of the condom that calls you back…” Listening to the latest DwarfCast I realised I have no idea what this means.

[Flap Jack]

“Now, on to Dr Bob Porkman, father of the condom that calls you back…” Listening to the latest DwarfCast I realised I have no idea what this means.

I interpret it to be about “posh wanks”. Though I guess the condom being a quasi-sentient participant in the act would also upgrade a 2-way to a 3-way.

[Warbodog]

I think you buy it for your partner to wear, to make sure they’ll stay in touch and won’t use you as a one night stand. Not necessarily sentient, but at least sends you some kind of notification when the feller doesn’t (blokes, eh?)

[Warbodog]

…which would require the guy to wash it and take it with him to use again…

[Flap Jack]

Well, for these kind of “here’s a quick sci-fi concept” gags, I assume that the only key differences between the reality of the joke and actual reality will be in the joke itself. For “the condom that calls you back”, you shouldn’t have to intuit “in the future, men who would otherwise never call you back after a one night stand will either volunteer or be forced to wear condoms which give them no choice but to call you back, and inexplicably keep those used condoms on their person until they do.”

[Flap Jack]

OK, is the joke that Betty Boop isn’t as good or successful a cartoon as Mickey Mouse, or that she as a character is not as smart as Mickey Mouse?

[si]

For far too long, I did think that the condom shouted after you as you left.

[Jonathan Capps]

in the future, men who would otherwise never call you back after a one night stand will either volunteer or be forced to wear condoms which give them no choice but to call you back, and inexplicably keep those used condoms on their person until they do.

[Flap Jack]

[International Debris]

[RunawayTrain]

“Now, on to Dr Bob Porkman, father of the condom that calls you back…” Listening to the latest DwarfCast I realised I have no idea what this means.

I actually assumed that if the woman ended up pregnant anyway, it would be able to get the guy’s contact info and send them a message (or ring them, ‘calling’). I hadn’t thought beyond that though, to the *how* of it.
But thinking a bit now, if there’s any need to keep it to contact him later, ew.

That would also imply quite a low level of confidence in its efficacy, actually, to go to all the trouble of developing it; either that ir just really really valued the accidental life in making sure the kid would have both parents on the scene to provide even if they’re not together.

I guess keeping in touch after a one-night stand makes more sense, even just for closure? (I don’t know, this is not even remotely my area) rather than never having any contact ever again.

Could it be useful for drunken ONS, so they know who the other was after that night? Problematic though, given that drunkenness is not conducive to consent.

I think I subconsciously assumed it transmits the information to a central database all part of the oberall system, so there’s a record of the partners (facilitating the ‘calling back’), and the condom itself can be thrown away. Anything involving needing to keep it would be utterly ick, unless it does the calling back from in the bin the next day or something.

[Dave]

[Pete Part Three]

I assume that the condom was just delaying the orgasm by saying stuff to turn the wearer off.

“Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day!” and so forth.

[Author]

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