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

[Warbodog]

which would be an odd term to use

Yes, but I didn’t dismiss it on those grounds, because:

[International Debris]

Fucking hell, so many awful, awful jokes. 

[Moonlight]

Series VIII feels like watching one giant first draft.

[Ben Saunders]

I like the Duel joke. The Juel Doke. Maybe I just like that screenshot and am imagining it’s funnier in my head.

[Warbodog]

Maybe the Duel joke worked better with the older audience who’d actually ever heard of the film outside of that Red Dwarf joke (or it’s just a gap in my education).

[Ben Saunders]

Wasn’t it Spielberg’s first? I’ve heard of it now and then.

[Ben Saunders]

Plus they helpfully go on to explain the joke for those who didn’t get the reference.

[Warbodog]

Yeah, but I don’t know whether it was widely known and something they’d see in the video shop often or more obscure trivia. A groaner either way.

[tombow]

seems it’s difficult to define Spielberg’s first film – he made a (now lost) indie film called Firelight in his teens, which was shown at his hometown’s cinema, and Duel was made as a TV movie but later shown in cinemas. Rotten Tomatoes lists Sugarland Express, the Goldie Hawn road movie he made after Duel, as his “feature debut”, as it had a US wide theatrical release (but flopped). Next was Jaws and the rest is history

[Moonlight]

I want to make a fan edit of Duel that removes the occasional internal monologue of the main character. I think every single scene it’s used it in would be more tense without it and you’d still be able to read what he’s thinking from the physical performance. I really do think its inclusion is a side effect of the movie being adapted from a short story and it would never have been there if it had been conceived as a film.

Has anyone besides me even seen it to know what I’m referring to? Do my 200+ Blu-rays make me a bigger movie nerd than the rest of you? Or at least a more financially irresponsible one?

[tombow]

my Dad always sat and watched Duel whenever it came on TV in the 90s, it really captured him. And there’s also Joyride/Roadkill (retitled for UK release), it’s sort of unofficial remake/similar idea horror series from the 2000s.

[Technopeasant]

What is rough about the joke is that you wouldn’t just say a random film title without first giving the fact you were hit with a movie case.

[Moonlight]

Series VIII feels like watching one giant first draft.

[Technopeasant]

Series VIII feels like watching one giant first draft.

[Moonlight]

Paul Alexander must’ve been asleep at the wheel while script editing.

[Unrumble]

[Nick R]

Duel is great. I’d be interested in seeing the original TV movie version: some of the scenes that I later found out were added for its theatrical release were great (like the opening titles and the bit with the train), but others didn’t seem to add much (like his phone call to his wife).

[Moonlight]

I’m not quite sure why this line gets a laugh. This is an extremely common alternate history premise. Would you get a laugh if it was Hitler winning WWII? I don’t get it.

[Podey]

Sometimes people laugh in response to the rhythm of a joke rather than the content of it… I have certainly laughed at a joke I didn’t get, before, because the delivery was good.

Sometimes something being spoken with the cadence of a joke is enough,

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I think it’s just because it’s within Rimmer’s character to enjoy that alt history 

[Warbodog]

Hitler would be a bit too on the nose and repetitive. This might have some deliberate ambiguity where we can’t be sure how much he’s into the premise or just likes the show, but assume both. But I think it’s from the Medi-bot episode, so I’m not so familiar with it.

[Turk Thrust]

When Gunmen of the Apocalypse was first broadcast, I was 13 years old and my small hometown didn’t have a curry restaurant.

So, when Lister used the names Tarka Dal and Bhindi Bhaji, I had no idea they were curries and just thought they were amusing comedy names. It didn’t spoil the comedy at all.

[Warbodog]

when Lister used the names Tarka Dal and Bhindi Bhaji, I had no idea they were curries and just thought they were amusing comedy names. It didn’t spoil the comedy at all.

I think that’s one of the more common ones among sheltered kids, it would have been ‘bhaji’ that made it click for me eventually after I became responsible for buying my own food. Hey, those are the things in the Sainsbury’s Indian Snack Selection.

[Warbodog]

I didn’t have or see a doner kebab until a school trip to Germany at about 14. When characters would mention getting a ‘kebab’ in Red Dwarf and other comedies, I thought drunk people really wanted meat stacked on a skewer.

[gerrydelasel]

When Kryten is crushed into a cube and said “I’m almost annoyed”, I thought he said “I’m almost a noyd”. For ages I wondered what a ‘noyd’ was; presumably some kind of cube thing.

[Dave]

When Kryten is crushed into a cube and said “I’m almost annoyed”, I thought he said “I’m almost a noyd”. For ages I wondered what a ‘noyd’ was; presumably some kind of cube thing.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

When Kryten is crushed into a cube and said “I’m almost annoyed”, I thought he said “I’m almost a noyd”. For ages I wondered what a ‘noyd’ was; presumably some kind of cube thing.

[Rudolph]

I didn’t get Ackerman’s “who fancies a kebab?” gotcha to Rimmer and Lister in Only the Good until I was old enough to go out drinking and understand the mouth-watering deliciousness of a greasy kebab bought from a grotty takeaway that’s still open at 1am.

[Warbodog]

[Ian Symes]

When Kryten is crushed into a cube and said “I’m almost annoyed”, I thought he said “I’m almost a noyd”. For ages I wondered what a ‘noyd’ was; presumably some kind of cube thing.

I took it as “almost a ‘noid”, the joke being that he’d been crushed from a mechanoid into almost half a mechanoid.

[Podey]

Or, indeed, anoid.

[Warbodog]

I never really got this one. It sounds like milk for babies, but I think it means long-life shelf milk. Combined with the sandwich, I guess it’s a nostalgia thing for when Lister used to drink it in the band… because it was cheaper than pasteurised fridge milk? (Is it?) Do sausage and onion gravy sandwiches pair exceptionally well with milk? Is it to help him avoid indigestion or constipation or something?

[International Debris]

Sterilised milk is different to the usual long-life (UHT) milk, I think it has a slightly sweeter taste? It just struck me as a completely silly and inappropriate thing for a mega rich CEO like this Lister to drink.

Thinking about that scene, I think the pronunciation of “sausage n onion gravy sandwich” is one of the most underappreciated jokes in the whole show.

[Dave]

Thinking about that scene, I think the pronunciation of “sausage n onion gravy sandwich” is one of the most underappreciated jokes in the whole show.

Also “Luigi’s Fish ‘n’ Chip Emporium”.

[International Debris]

Oh ffs, I knew that was wrong. Yes, fish n chip, that’s the one. Anyway it’s so underrated I forgot what the line was. I must have been mixing it up in my head with the “sausage and onion gravy fuck” smegup. 

[Ben Saunders]

A sausage and onions gravy fuck doesn’t sound too bad.

[Warbodog]

[Dave]

[Moonlight]

[clem]

[Warbodog]

Just realised I never updated the mental image even long after learning that diuretic means piss and not a long smear of runny camel pats.

[Ben Saunders]

Oh, I thought it meant shit too. But they were sick so they were sort of yellow-y.

[Warbodog]

Hang on – in Last Human, it says:

Lister hammered futilely at the control pads. ‘God, Rimmer, you’ve got a longer yellow streak than a stampede of diarrhoetic camels.’

So I guess that’s word of g(u)oD.

And I got the joke more at 8 through the power of ignorance.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I always heard diarrhoetic, I assume

the sub titles are wrong. 

[Dave]

g(u)oD

Appropriately for this thread, this took me a second.

[Flap Jack]

I always heard diarrhoetic, I assume
the sub titles are wrong. 

If the subtitles are wrong then Rob and Doug wrote it wrong, and Doug repeated the mistake in Last Human. Yellow means piss! Cinzano Bianco!

[Warbodog]

Camels aren’t really yellow either, they’re just sort of yellow for a mammal (which I figure is part of the joke), and I imagine their diarrhoea could be similarly “camel” in hue (though I’m admittedly no zooloproctologist).

Could it also be about how they store up lots of moisture in reserve (Edit after googling: I mean metabolise fat into water) to keep it flowing, or is that thinking too deeply about toilet humour? It’s got to be something about that.

[Warbodog]

Additionally, if it was a single “diuretic camel,” I could imagine it was about the impressive piss stream, but a stampede of diuretic camels wouldn’t contribute to the size of the streak, unless they were all crossing the streams from behind as they ran?

If it’s about the streak left on the ground, piss would just darken the sand, whereas diarrhoea would proudly shine in the desert sun.

Just going to touch some grass, brb.

[Dave]

Clearly it should have been “you’ve got a longer yellow streak than a Series VIII Smegle”.

[Frank Lewis]

“we were trying to heal you”

I misheard Cat, Quarantine. Not my fault. Sometimes Danny mumbles.

[Author]

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