Jokes you don't/didn't get

[Dave]

I think it’s partly due to the fact that Red Dwarf makes reference to both real people and fictional ones in gags like this. If you didn’t know who Kevin Keegan was but then found out he was a real person, you might wonder if the same was true for Harry.

[Plastic Percy]

I presume it’s just the passing of time and changes in technology, but I just about don’t understand Blaize Falconburger’s comments about never being short of an ashtray in Lister’s house. Was it common practice to use record/cassette/CD cases as ashtrays?

[Dave]

I think it might go back to vinyl records, which you could melt and turn into ashtrays.

[Plastic Percy]

Thanks, that makes sense.

On the subject of the above Harry Beedlebaum, I always figured that it was a lawyer-friendly proxy for the Fatty Arbuckle chain of restaurants.

I believe that Grant Naylor deliberately toned down references to fictional celebrities and pop culture from III onwards. The first series is filled with them – Rastabilly Skank, Mugs Murphy etc. But from III onwards they tend to keep it to the likes of Dustin Hoffman, The Flintstones etc.

[International Debris]

Kind of a shame, as I really like the world-building aspect of Rasta Billy, Mugs Murphy and so on. I think it was part of a general shift towards more sci-fi storytelling that focuses less on the characters’ past daily lives.

[Dave]

Kind of a shame, as I really like the world-building aspect of Rasta Billy, Mugs Murphy and so on.

Yeah, me too. I guess you don’t want that stuff to distract from or overwhelm the stories, but the likes of those things you mention – and stuff like zero gee football, dollarpounds and esperanto – gave the earlier series a slightly different feel almost as much as the sets did.

[Ben Paddon]

The WIlma Flintstone scene might’ve worked if they’ve changed the characters’ names to fictional ones, but it’d have been far less funny.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The Flintstone scene only really works because we know exactly who they’re talking about, and we know they’re cartoons. Replace that dialogue with fictional names, we have no idea they’re talking about animated fictional children tv characters. You’d immediately just assume it’s some random future live action tv show they’re talking about.

[Dave]

Yes, it doesn’t work otherwise.

[Hamish]

What if they cut away from a brief clip of the fictional animated show?

[Dave]

I think without the recognition factor it’s not as funny in the same way that Joe Klumpp is not as funny as Kevin Keegan.

[flanl3]

What if they cut away from a brief clip of the fictional animated show?

Like they did in Back in the Red?

[Ben Saunders]

They’re mad anyway, Betty is the superior choice.

[Pete Part Three]

>What if they cut away from a brief clip of the fictional animated show?

They’re not even watching The Flintstones when they have the conversation in Backwards

LISTER: Cat?
CAT: Mmm?
LISTER: Ya ever see The Flagstones?
CAT: The animated TV show about a man called Frank and his wife Winifred?, sure,
LISTER: D’ya think Winifred’s sexy?
CAT: Wilnifred Flagstone? The animated character in the animated TV show you just mentioned. The one who’s married to a Frank?
LISTER: Maybe we’ve been alone in deep space too long, but every time I see that body, it drives me crazy. Is it me?
CAT: Well, I think in all probability, Winifred Flagstone is the most desirable woman that ever lived.
LISTER: That’s good. I thought I was goin’ strange.
CAT: She’s incredible!
LISTER: What d’ya think of Britney?
CAT: Britney Slagheap, the next door neighbour? (Pause) Well, I would go with Britney… but I’d be
thinking of Winifred.
LISTER: This is crazy. Why are we talking about going to bed with Winifred Flagstone?
CAT: You’re right. We’re nuts. This is an insane conversation.
LISTER: She’ll never leave Frank, her husband, and we know it.

[Pete Part Three]

Oh, the site I copied that extract from Backwards queried what Lister says here: “every time I see that [??] body it drives me crazy”

I realise that I’ve no idea what Craig says here either. It sounds like “sharwood” (?!).

Anyone?

[bloodteller]

“show”

[Pete Part Three]

Oh, so it’s “every time I see that *show, her* body drives me crazy”

Sometime it’s difficult to understand the Scouse…people.

[Dax101]

>world-building aspect of Rasta Billy, Mugs Murphy and so on

For series 1 and 2 you could see they really were trying to say HEY LOOK ITS THE FUTURE WHERE EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT! but by 3 to at least 5 they settled more for verging on pop cultural references and influences.

Modern Dwarf feels more futuristic social commentary on modern times.

[Ben Saunders]

I can’t work out if PPT edited that transcript to make it clunkier and less funny to make a point or if the Mandela effect is fucking with me or what

[clem]

> Yeah, me too. I guess you don’t want that stuff to distract from or overwhelm the stories, but the likes of those things you mention – and stuff like zero gee football, dollarpounds and esperanto – gave the earlier series a slightly different feel almost as much as the sets did.

I agree all that stuff added to the richness of the show’s world in the early days. With things like “Wilfred Shakespeare” and Rimmer’s merging of Columbo and Columbus, do we think the intention was that he’s just ignorant, or was the joke meant to be that over time bits of history have gotten distorted and/or mixed up with popular culture? I’ve always thought it was the latter. Lister referring to Cliff Richard being shot could be another example.

[bloodteller]

its like Rimmer’s line “why don’t you listen to something REALLY classical, like Mozart or Mendhelssen or Motorhead”. is the joke that in the future, Motorhead is considered classical? or is it meant to be Rimmer being stupid?

[Warbodog]

Probably Rimmer pretending to be cultured (we know he really prefers the classics to be funked-up on Hammond) and ignorantly spouting a historical musical name he’s heard that starts with ‘Mo-‘. Though you can imagine a scene where Rimmer asks Holly to play some Motorhead and sits there pensively pretending to admire it while wincing.

[Ben Saunders]

I assumed it was a joke about Motorhead being considered Classical. Rimmer pretending to appreciate them in order to seem cultured is pretty funny.

I just thought, Cliff Richard being shot could be a pretty convoluted mixup of remembering where you were when Elvis died and when JFK was shot

[Hamish]

You know, Grant Naylor predicted the rise of Otakus arguing about who is the “best girl” with the Wilma Flinestone gag.

Wilma is Lister’s Waifu.

[International Debris]

I assumed the Rimmer remarks were a mix of culture being lost and Rimmer’s ignorance – i.e. these things have become more obscure by this point, especially from an idiot like Rimmer’s perspective. The ‘classical’ joke doesn’t work for me though (it’s used in Doctor Who a couple of times – Vicki calling The Beatles ‘classical music’ in The Chase, Orbital being described as a classical group in one of the novels, as a nod to their cover of the theme tune) because what is generally regarded as ‘classical music’ – i.e. orchestral and acoustic chamber music – is still popular and still composed right through to today, and still separate from popular / jazz / avant-garde / folk. I can’t fathom a point where there’s such a break in musical norms that suddenly pop/rock and classical seem similar.

[Dave]

For me the joke isn’t exactly that they are all ‘classical’ music, just that they are all universally-recognised great composers who are generally seen as being on the same level by future society.

I didn’t think it was a joke at Rimmer’s expense, I thought it was a joke about Lemmy & co. being seen as on a par with those musicians.

[Warbodog]

I lump it in with the likes of Rimmer owning but not having read Shakespeare and pretending to recognise a Mugs Murphy cartoon as Citizen Kane and admiring its cartoon explosions.

[Dax101]

Rimmer can’t make his mind up on his opinion on Shakespeare or Jesus.

[Ben Paddon]

Wilma is Lister’s Waifu.

Fucking Hell.

[Seb Patrick]

I confess I’ve never really understood why women would be banned from playing the cello.

[Warbodog]

Hol Rock cellos would have to be made of a transparent material for that joke to work, at least as I understand it.

[bloodteller]

>I confess I’ve never really understood why women would be banned from playing the cello.

because everyone would see their vaginas

[Warbodog]

Yeah, their clothes would have to be transparent too.

[Dave]

I just assumed it was because it would be a particularly ungainly position for a woman to sit in, moreso than for a man. I don’t think it was intended to be any more graphic than that.

[Pete Part Three]

Oh, here’s a fucking stupid one. I was watching Legion the other day, and I recalled that on my first couple of watches, I completely misunderstood a joke.

I’m going to have to paste the whole thing for context:

—-

RIMMER: Legion: may I be frank? It’s not often we meet an individual who we feel could improve our already pretty damn fine top-notch team. But in you, we feel we have. In all our travels, we have met precisely thirty-one individuals: three one. And we have never felt moved to invite a single one to join our crew. True, most of them wanted in some way to suck out our brains, or erase us from history altogether. Nevertheless, they still weren’t what we would consider The Right Stuff. We feel that you are different. We feel that you, like us, have the courage and the dignity it takes to make it as a Dwarfer.

KRYTEN: Sir! Don’t cross the chopsticks!

LEGION: Mr Rimmer, I am moved by the eloquence of your invitation, but it is quite impossible for me to leave the confines of the institute.

RIMMER: It was Lister, wasn’t it? He put you off.

KRYTEN: Is there nothing we can do to change your mind?

LEGION: Absolutely.

KRYTEN: Then I’m afraid we must bid you farewell. We have a long journey ahead of us.

LEGION: Nonsense. You have no journey at all, my friends. I insist you stay here with me. You will be my honoured guests – from now until the day you die.

RIMMER: Thirty-two.

—

Right, so; the first few times i watched this, I thought Rimmer was saying “Thirty-two” to indicate the age he’d be when he died (in response to Legion mentioning the day they die) I knew that Rimmer was aged 31 from the novels, and he was dying of embarrassment from being pelted with all the Mamosian cuisine. So, due to the fact that his little speech is over a minute before the pay-off, I’d obviously already forgotten all about the “thirty one” individuals.

Obviously, this is fucking stupid because:

1) The “day you die” doesn’t invite someone to announce the age they’ll be when they die.
2) Rimmer is already dead.

Go on take the piss out of young me, you shits.

[Dave]

I love that the human brain can go to such lengths to try and make sense of stuff it doesn’t understand.

[International Debris]

I always thought that was Rimmer saying the age he died too. It seems so obvious now you explain it…

[pi r squared]

It’s a nice touch that the thirty-one is emphasised by the reinforcement “three one”. There’s no real reason why you would do that (where you might for, say, thirty which may be confused with thirteen), so it just subtly places the number a little more prominently in your short-term memory, to be paid off quite delightfully by the thirty-two. All jokes are ruined when over-explained, but the construct of that whole gag is so nice that it is worth seeing it broken down.

[Ben Saunders]

>I confess I’ve never really understood why women would be banned from playing the cello.
They’d have to open their legs really wide, that’s all I understand about it

[Warbodog]

Not a joke, but I always found the description of Lister as “the ultimate atheist” unusual. It’s not like he bangs on about it all the time like a Richard Dawkings, isn’t he just a regular atheist?

But it works in the “final” sense of the word, since he’s the last human and the guys he hangs around with all have some form of indoctrination that they go back and forth on (except maybe Holly, but he originally believed in Silicon Heaven in the books).

[Warbodog]

Plus, he claims to be a pantheist in an earlier episode, suggesting he might believe in a vague something.

[Dave]

I don’t know if Lister as the ultimate atheist was meant to be a path that the character should have followed but didn’t (and so we didn’t get to see it), like Rimmer being a secret special agent for the space corps.

[bloodteller]

was re-reading Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers today. despite owning the book for almost 15 years, i’ve only just realised that the sentence “George McIntyre left the Salvador Dali Coffee Lounge of the Mimas Hilton, carrying his nose in a napkin” simply means the Mafia attacked him and he had to hold a napkin up to his nose to stop the bleeding.

from the wording of the sentence i had always thought it meant the Mafia had actually cut off his entire nose with the bolt clippers, and George was just taking his severed nose out with him for some reason.

[clem]

I’ve always thought they cut his nose off. Otherwise that is very oddly worded. You’d say “holding” rather than “carrying”, surely.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Huh … I had always assumed it meant his literal nose too

[bloodteller]

i guess that one’s open to interpretation then, as it doesn’t seem to be mentioned in any of his other scenes in the book. at least for me though, it seems more sensible that they punched him really hard or jammed the bolt cutters up his nostrils or something. cutting his entire nose off seems a bit cartoon-like, doesn’t it?

[Dave]

Who nose.

[clem]

> cutting his entire nose off seems a bit cartoon-like, doesn’t it?

It seems very violent and gruesome, so I’m guessing Rob wrote that bit.

[si]

Yep. 25 years a nice I first read the books, and it must have taken me about 8 years before I realised that his nose was actually still attached to his face.

[si]

25 years a nice I first read the books

That’s supposed to be “since”, obviously.

[Author]

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