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

[Dave]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Rudolph]

[clem]

[Dave]

[clem]

[clem]

[Moonlight]

[Dave]

[Dave]

[International Debris]

Nice to see my weight loss has been noted, even in deep space.

[Warbodog]

Cats can have just the one kitten, but the average litter is 4-6, so this is probably showing how Lister is optimistically naive about the situation he’s got himself and possibly the ship into, or just ignorant generally. I don’t think I ever noticed myself though.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Lister also seems to believe he fathered the cat. Which is concerning. 

[Warbodog]

There’s probably someone who was only half paying attention and thinks that’s what Cat is.

[Ben Saunders]

[evilmorwen]

[Dave]

[Unrumble]

[Ben Saunders]

[clem]

[Moonlight]

[Warbodog]

[Dave]

[Warbodog]

[Dave]

[sleepey]

[Rushy]

[Nick R]

[Rushy]

In ‘Back in the Red Part 2’, Kryten has to fill up what I’m assuming is something for urine/feces, but he emerges with… flowers?

[Ben Saunders]

In ‘Back in the Red Part 2’, Kryten has to fill up what I’m assuming is something for urine/feces, but he emerges with… flowers?

He doesn’t understand what it is and thinks it’s a vase

[Ian Symes]

[International Debris]

In ‘Back in the Red Part 2’, Kryten has to fill up what I’m assuming is something for urine/feces, but he emerges with… flowers?

Don’t worry, absolutely nothing about that scene makes sense in the slightest. They have software which can return Kryten to his default settings, and yet they still send him to a medical doctor. 

[Warbodog]

Is he supposed to be so disinterested/distracted that he doesn’t realise Kryten is a robot? Did he get him mixed up with another patient who he needed a urine sample from, or does he just get everyone’s piss up front just in case?

[clem]

[clem]

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

In ‘Back in the Red Part 2’, Kryten has to fill up what I’m assuming is something for urine/feces, but he emerges with… flowers?

Don’t worry, absolutely nothing about that scene makes sense in the slightest. They have software which can return Kryten to his default settings, and yet they still send him to a medical doctor. 

In the future, Medical Exams are just another form of Engineering Qualification

[clem]

He doesn’t understand what it is and thinks it’s a vase

I’ve always thought it was just Kryten in typical fashion wanting to make things look nice. Fuck knows what it is he’s put in the flask though. He must have fluids of some sort in him I suppose, like coolant or whatever. 

[loadoftottnumb]

[International Debris]

Is he supposed to be so disinterested/distracted that he doesn’t realise Kryten is a robot? Did he get him mixed up with another patient who he needed a urine sample from, or does he just get everyone’s piss up front just in case?

Even if he’s distracted at that point it doesn’t explain him trying to give a machine a fucking blood pressure test.

[Ben Saunders]

I would guess mechanoids/androids didn’t exist when Red Dwarf left Earth so he just thinks Kryten is a profusely ugly man. The contemporary robots we see on the show are all suitcases and Marilyn Monroe bots.

[Flap Jack]

I mean even if that one doctor was just particularly ignorant, that doesn’t explain why Kryten was sent to him in the first place. The rest of the crewmembers who dealt with Kryten beforehand definitely knew he was a robot.

[paintings]

I mean even if that one doctor was just particularly ignorant, that doesn’t explain why Kryten was sent to him in the first place.

I was wondering whether it was a reference to an episode of “The Phil Silvers Show” entitled “The Court Martial” (first broadcast 6 March 1956). In that episode, a series of mix-ups during a mass recruitment drive resulted in a chimpanzee being enrolled into the US Army.

This does rather depend on whether Doug watched much (or any) Bilko in years gone by, but it was an extremely well-known show and “The Court Martial” was one of its most famous episodes.

[Ben Saunders]

The rest of the crewmembers who dealt with Kryten beforehand definitely knew he was a robot.

They’re all in prison/on the run/suspicious or whatever is going on atp

[sleepey]

Everything that happens to Kryten in BITR/VIII is consistent with an unthinking bureaucracy that doesn’t have any procedures in place for dealing with a mechanoid crewman but insists on checking all the boxes anyway

[Moonlight]

[Rushy]

I have a soft spot for it. It doesn’t make sense, but I enjoyed actually spending time with the crew and seeing more of Red Dwarf as opposed to sitting in the Tank/going on Canary missions. 
Plus I think having Lister reunite with a series 1 Rimmer is one of the cleverest ideas in all of Doug Dwarf. It’s a great way to bring Chris Barrie back without compromising the emotional impact of Stoke Me a Clipper, and also gives him a slightly different dynamic with Charles and the rest. They could have done even more with it. 

[Technopeasant]

They could have done even more with it. 

They could have done anything with it.

[International Debris]

The idea of having Lister reunite with series 1 Rimmer goes out of the window if you actually watch series 1 within a year of watching VIII. They’re barely recognisable as the same character. Lister tells Rimmer a – frankly ridiculous – story about nanobots and being three million years in the future and getting him a promotion and Rimmer buys into it immediately. I’m not saying he’s not desperate to be an officer, but original Rimmer has less than zero respect for Lister and would not take him seriously. Not to mention the fact that as the series goes on, they’re closer to friends than any other time in the whole show.

[Technopeasant]

Everything that happens to Kryten in BITR/VIII is consistent with an unthinking bureaucracy that doesn’t have any procedures in place for dealing with a mechanoid crewman but insists on checking all the boxes anyway

What’s weird is they consider him a sentient crew member at all. Surely they should have just deemed him a machine and be done with it. Especially since it seems that was how they viewed mechanoids even in Kryten’s own time.

[Rushy]

The idea of having Lister reunite with series 1 Rimmer goes out of the window if you actually watch series 1 within a year of watching VIII. They’re barely recognisable as the same character. Lister tells Rimmer a – frankly ridiculous – story about nanobots and being three million years in the future and getting him a promotion and Rimmer buys into it immediately. I’m not saying he’s not desperate to be an officer, but original Rimmer has less than zero respect for Lister and would not take him seriously. Not to mention the fact that as the series goes on, they’re closer to friends than any other time in the whole show.

He takes the piss out of Lister’s story in the early scenes. But I think the existence of an independent Holly in Lister’s possession is at least indicative of it being something more than a simple prank. 

Not to mention that Rimmer is in a position of power and has nothing to lose from checking out Starbug’s wreckage. Lister is already on trial. He could considerably worsen Lister’s case. It’s basically a win-win for him. 

[Author]

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