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

[Rushy]

As for Rimmer’s cheerful attitude in the rest of series 8, I think the different experiences he had compared to hologram Rimmer have a lot to do with it.

The hologram Rimmer still thought of himself as the ‘main Rimmer’, and tried to carry on as normal until things gradually changed.

The clone Rimmer goes from being his normal self to suddenly finding out that he’s a copy of another man, and that the burdens of his life (bad childhood, needing to prove himself etc.) belong to someone else. In addition, he suddenly finds himself surrounded by people who tell him they’re his comrades and that he can fly on the bridge of a ship and press captain-y buttons. Things that Rimmer had internally feared he would never have. I think he got an enormous confidence boost from all that. He’s able to appreciate what the hologram had in a way the hologram never could. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

For a start there is nothing in VIII that indicate Rimmer considers himself a clone. But also it isn’t functionally any different to being a hologram. Both are a copy of a dead person, one made of flesh and one made of light. Arguably the clone is closer to the original having been literally resurrected from the ashes of the original.

[Ian Symes]

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.

This specific episode was cited by Doug as an inspiration… for Entangled.

[clem]

The joke works perfectly well without this knowledge of course, but I was today years old when I found out that The 5th Dimension are a real American vocal group, formed in the mid-sixties. 

[Moonlight]

Too lazy to check if this has already been posted. I have no idea what this is supposed to imply. Is it dirty? Probably. I don’t know. Somebody help me.

[International Debris]

He’s slept in late and is pretending he’s already packing his bag for school when his mum shouts him and wakes him up. This clearly happened a lot so became a bit of a default thing to say when abruptly woken.

[Technopeasant]

Oh just because he married his mum in AR you assume that he’s subconsciously attracted to his mother…

[Warbodog]

Just what I.D. said, but he was waking up from a sex dream at the time.

[Dave]

[Ian Symes]

Do you have satchels in America? They’re traditional school bags, particularly in posh schools. I’ve heard people refer to C4 bombs as “satchels” in games and whatnot. It’s not that kind of satchel.

[Ben Saunders]

The remote explosives in Half-Life are satchel charges, and they operate the same way as C4 but I’ve never actually known if it’s just C4 or not

[Nick R]

[Moonlight]

Do you have satchels in America? 

We have backpacks, and if you’re cool you only wear them on one shoulder. This results in a major spinal deformity given how many textbooks you have.

[Jenuall]

The 21 Jump Street movie told me that it’s no longer the cool thing to wear your bag only on one shoulder and that “two strapping” is actually the favoured choice as the more health conscious students of the day care about not fucking their spines.

And yes I appreciate the irony of referring to a now 13 year old movie as an authoritative source on what kids are doing these days

[Ben Saunders]

If I saw somebody one-strapping a backpack I’d tell them to get a grip

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I see kids “too strapping” but they’re often hung low which I still feel defeats the point of  helping their backs, but it’s still better than one.

[Moonlight]

You just don’t appreciate the sacrifices students make to impress others who hate them anyway.

[Dave]

[Ben Saunders]

I see kids “too strapping” but they’re often hung low which I still feel defeats the point of  helping their backs, but it’s still better than one.

I had my backpacks as low as possible from ages 12-18 because a girl I liked told me having mine at a reasonable height looked stupid and then lowered it as far as it would go in one impressively smooth action. Never seen anything like it before or since. But as soon as you have to carry anything of actual substantiveness you realise why you shouldn’t really do that.

[Warbodog]

[Technopeasant]

I was homeschooled so I have nothing more to add to this conversation.

[Moonlight]

I had my backpacks as low as possible from ages 12-18 because a girl I liked told me having mine at a reasonable height looked stupid and then lowered it as far as it would go in one impressively smooth action. 

I’d make fun of you but I would’ve done far stupider things to impress a girl.

[Warbodog]

I just realised that Hollister’s love of “orange ice pops” is probably an American way of saying ice lolly (“popsicle?”) and not the cheap tubes of frozen juice you get in a multipack of 20 for 99p, which is what I always visualised but now seems unlikely for a grown man to be obsessed with.

Or does he mean like a Callipo?

[Ben Saunders]

The Americanisation of Red Dwarf is really in line with the general Americanisation of British culture anyway, it’s seeping into every crevice of British life and by the 23rd century we’ll probably be virtually indistinguishable.

Guy who’s really concerned with British Culture but not in an anti-POC way, he’s just anti-American. Which is based.

[IrisVinEverec]

I just realised that Hollister’s love of “orange ice pops” is probably an American way of saying ice lolly (“popsicle?”) and not the cheap tubes of frozen juice you get in a multipack of 20 for 99p, which is what I always visualised but now seems unlikely for a grown man to be obsessed with.
Or does he mean like a Callipo?

I don’t think I’ve ever heard an American call them ice pops, only popsicles. 

I also assumed he meant the ice pops we have, which you have to freeze after you buy them, then fight over who gets the blue ones, while the dismal cola ones are left behind in the freezer forever. 

[International Debris]

Oh, I loved the idea of him being obsessed with the British ice pops.

[Asclepius]

The Americanisation of Red Dwarf is really in line with the general Americanisation of British culture anyway, it’s seeping into every crevice of British life and by the 23rd century we’ll probably be virtually indistinguishable.

Guy who’s really concerned with British Culture but not in an anti-POC way, he’s just anti-American. Which is based.

I love the idea of you mistakenly turning up to a ‘Protect Are British Culture’ protest with your views and opinions 😀 

[Moonlight]

Ice pops, at least in my region, refer to a specific kind of popsicle that comes in a plastic sleeve – brightly colored ice flavored like fruit.


They are a summer staple and the correct way to eat them is let them melt and drink them.

[Ben Saunders]

My family call those ice poles, others do too I’m sure but I can only speak for us.

[Warbodog]

Okay, so he was talking about those after all, which the T-rex ate 400 crates of in one sitting, including the plastic (and maybe also the crates).

[International Debris]

They are a summer staple and the correct way to eat them is let them melt and drink them.

I love the idea of you buying a box of them, freezing them, and then letting them melt again to drink them.

[Technopeasant]

Guy who’s really concerned with British Culture but not in an anti-POC way, he’s just anti-American. Which is based.

Take a number, we Canadians are ahead in line.

I love the idea of you buying a box of them, freezing them, and then letting them melt again to drink them.

They are sold frozen as far as I recall.

I always thought he meant those ice cream sticks with orange popsicle around them, but that might just be because I like them.

[International Debris]

They are sold frozen as far as I recall. 

I’ve only ever seen them frozen in corner shops and the like, more commonly in boxes you freeze at home.

[Moonlight]

Yeah, they’re usually bought as liquid.

[Warbodog]

Yeah, they’re usually bought as liquid.

Wouldn’t they also be stored as liquid in Red Dwarf’s cargo decks? So the dino actually DRANK the orange ice pops all along?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Technopeasant]

Yes.

[Hamish]

In Canada they just freeze regardless so.

[Moonlight]

Enjoy your frozen wasteland, you stupid bitch.

Now back to sweating through the night for the next 3 months because my AC is shit.

[Technopeasant]

We are just happy this year to not be on fire. This time it’s Manitoba.

[Podey]

If I saw somebody one-strapping a backpack I’d tell them to get a grip

I do this all the time but it’s mostly to avoid getting a sweaty patch on my back. 

[Warbodog]

“Captain Paxo” because he’s the stuffing inside the chicken.

Maybe I did know Paxo was stuffing if I’d thought about it, but it always made me think of Oxo/Bisto (gravy), so… something you put on chicken. Also, in the rest of that scene he’s referring to Hollister as if he is the chicken, not a man inside one.

[Technopeasant]

I was assuming it was oxo too until ten seconds ago.

[Ben Saunders]

“Captain Paxo” because he’s the stuffing inside the chicken

I had no idea, good to know

[International Debris]

A friend of mine at primary school had the surname Paxton, and we called him ‘Paxo Cubes’, even though we were aware that Paxo does not come in cubes like Oxo.

[Jenuall]

I don’t think it’s as deep as implying he’s the stuffing inside the chicken, I always just took it as “here’s a funny name related to chicken dinner that I can think of”

[Warbodog]

That’s probably right, Doug and Rob brainstorming various cooking brands and settling on the comedic assonance of /æ/.

[Flap Jack]

Why is Holly concerned about a hologrammatic sandwich messing up the floor? Is he stupid?

OK, my actual question is, is Holly’s hypothetical objection to the sandwich that egg yolk and chutney will drip onto the floor, or that whoever eats it will throw it up?

(By the way, the Smega-Drive was missing the “a” so I had to type it in myself, like a common caveman.)

[International Debris]

Definitely throwing up.

[Dave]

OK, my actual question is, is Holly’s hypothetical objection to the sandwich that egg yolk and chutney will drip onto the floor, or that whoever eats it will throw it up?

At the risk of creating another Cinzano Bianco situation, I always assumed throwing up.

[Author]

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