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]

I’ve always read the joke as being that it marks the table.

The other reading had never occured to me and feels like it requires too much mental gymnastics for a quick gag.

But I do think that part of it is just that it’s perceived as a shit drink and so a good punchline.

We need the Quarantine commentaries to come back and clear this one up.

[Pete Part Three]

Um, yeah. It’s because Lister/R&D think it’s gross.

The “stain reading” is good but there are surely better candidates for that joke than Cinzano Bianco which appears almost clear in bottles.

[Dave]

The “couldn’t get rid of me” line just doesn’t read for me like someone talking about something they don’t like, more like something that’s impossible to shift. It’s saying it’s like turps or something.

Either way it’s really interesting that we all interpret so many of these gags differently but still find them funny. It just shows how much of the humour is in the rhythm, delivery and construction of the joke as much as the meaning.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The drink maybe clear, but if you think about it being on a pool table it would be staining green felt which would be noticeable whatever the colour.

[Dave]

It’s also more about the strength and general nastiness of it than the colour I think.

[clem]

Yeah I’m leaning towards stain. Maybe Rosso would be worse but Dave “Cinzano Rosso” Lister somehow doesn’t sound as funny. And maybe there actually was a Cinzano Bianco spillage and resultant stain on the pool table in the Aigburth Arms, and that’s how whoever it was came up with the nickname, in universe I mean, rather than by thinking of a drink that *would* cause a bad stain.

[Unrumble]

Always been the ‘drink no-one likes’ interpretation for me

[Pete Part Three]

It’s basically “no bugger’ll drink it” again.

Oh, and if it *was* a stain, it wouldn’t be a stain *on a pool table* as that would be contrary to the point of the word play of the joke. The “table” in the analogy is a standard pub or bar table, not a pool table.

[Dave]

Yeah, I don’t think it’s about spilling it on a pool table.

[clem]

It’s basically “no bugger’ll drink it” again.

Oh, and if it *was* a stain, it wouldn’t be a stain *on a pool table* as that would be contrary to the point of the word play of the joke. The “table” in the analogy is a standard pub or bar table, not a pool table.

“The table” isn’t necessarily part of the wordplay though. Lister could be analogous to a Cinzano Bianco stain – they’re both “on” a pool table in different senses, and difficult to get off.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Yeah, it would be like say “Dave is like when you spill Cinzano Bianco on a pool table, you can never get rid of it”

[clem]

Or even “Nobody can get Dave off the table tonight. He’s like that mark next to the middle pocket from when Frank spilt his Cinzano the other night.”

[si]

clem – I always thought the same as Ian – Cinzano as a drink that no-one wanted.

But I.D. pointing out the indelible staining…well, actually, that does make more sense.

Best to just ask Rob or Doug next time we see them.

[GlenTokyo]

I don’t think it does make more sense. Why would Lister give a shit about how hard something is to clean? He’s never cleaned anything in his life.

I don’t think he’d know what was and wasn’t hard to remove.

Cinzano Bianco and later Advocaat are the shit drinks nobody wants at a gathering when you’ve exhausted the beer, vodka, wine, gin etc.

[RunawayTrain]

“They used to call me Dave “Cinzano Bianco” Lister ‘cause once I was on the table, you couldn’t get rid of me.”

I was all for the staining being plausible, because any liquid not thoroughly cleaned from baize (or left to sink in and dry up on wood without being wiped up) would leave a watermark even if not a colour. But then I wondered – why would *open* bottles or glasses of a drink nobody likes be left on pool tables (or even just general ordinary tables) to be knocked over so often and cause so many stains that it’s notorious for it? If nobody likes it, they wouldn’t have ordered it anyway to leave a glass around to be knocked over. It might be plausible if people order it for their friends as a joke, but for that to happen so often that stains are attributed to it enough for it to become notorious seems a bit of a stretch.

The ‘can’t get rid of’ implies attempts to, and I don’t know how often pubs would worry about trying to get rid of stains – I genuinely don’t, but my impression of pubs from the rare occasion I’ve been in one is sticky beer mats and sticky tables. Very much not my area though so I could be wrong.

[Dave]

This discussion has inspired me to argue to the death that Holly really is offering Rimmer a ham with his homework.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

You never had homework ham Dave?

[International Debris]

I don’t think it does make more sense. Why would Lister give a shit about how hard something is to clean? He’s never cleaned anything in his life.

Now this is definitely thinking about it too much. Plus, it’s not what Lister says, it’s what other people call him.

I understand the other interpretation, but the wording feels totally wrong. The line says you can only not get rid of it “once it’s on the table”. Which suggests that, if a bottle of Cinzano Bianco is not on a table (???), you CAN’T get rid of it. For both clauses of the sentence to work, it being on a table has to be relevant.
It’s possible that the joke is only relevant to the final clause, in which case it would make sense, but the structure of it really feels like the full thing is the joke.

[Dave]

The frog is dead.

[International Debris]

The capitalised CAN’T there should have read CAN, obviously.

[Pete Part Three]

The frog is dead.

Yes, I think we need a new thread; “Lines we’ve analysed so excessively, they’re now devoid of any humour whatsoever”.

[Dave]

Or we could just rename this one.

[Pete Part Three]

Or, at a pinch, we could rename this one.

[International Debris]

For what it’s worth, I’ve asked both Doug and Rob on Twitter. I’m sure their answers will be forthcoming.

[Pete Part Three]

Ut oh. This debate is what split them up in the first place.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The subtext of both Backwards and Last Human is actually their take on the underlying meaning of the joke.

[GlenTokyo]

I don’t think it does make more sense. Why would Lister give a shit about how hard something is to clean? He’s never cleaned anything in his life.

Now this is definitely thinking about it too much. Plus, it’s not what Lister says, it’s what other people call him.
I understand the other interpretation, but the wording feels totally wrong. The line says you can only not get rid of it “once it’s on the table”. Which suggests that, if a bottle of Cinzano Bianco is not on a table (???), you CAN’T get rid of it. For both clauses of the sentence to work, it being on a table has to be relevant.
It’s possible that the joke is only relevant to the final clause, in which case it would make sense, but the structure of it really feels like the full thing is the joke.

You’re at a party, there’s a drinks table, full of cans of stuff, wine, bottles of spirits, at the end of the night, the popular drinks will be long off the table and pissed into the nearest toilet or potted plant.

The unpopular drinks, your Cinzano Bianco and Advocaat, will still be on the table because nobody wants them, which makes them hard to get rid of for the host.

I’m sure we’ve all had a bottle of something that was rank and tried to fob it off on guests before eventually realising you should just throw it out.

But I just think if you were writing something like that, you would draw from some kind of knowledge, for example, I might say something was more infuriating to fix than a non manifold mesh (if I was particularly sad and boring) because I know about that. Lister and his social group who gave him the nickname, or more accurately Rob and Doug, are in my opinion more likely to draw from a knowledge base of what does and doesn’t go down well at parties and social gatherings, than what leaves the most awkward stains on a bit of fabric.

[clem]

The kind of doo you bring a bottle to sounds a little bit too civilised for a young Lister. What seems much more his milieu is a dive bar, “a backstreet Scouse drinking pit” as Rimmer calls it, where you can well imagine there’s a stain caused by a spilled drink on the pool table that’s been there for ages and the regulars are all aware of. And that’s where he was when he got the nickname, in the pub, where the thing about the drinks nobody wants being out on the tables doesn’t make sense. I realise I’m probably getting too embroiled in the diegetic logic of it there, and of course you’re right to point out that irl it was Rob and Doug who wrote the joke and came up with the nickname. Plus there’s the line in Tikka Ian mentioned.

[GlenTokyo]

The kind of doo you bring a bottle to sounds a little bit too civilised for a young Lister. What seems much more his milieu is a dive bar, “a backstreet Scouse drinking pit” as Rimmer calls it, where you can well imagine there’s a stain caused by a spilled drink on the pool table that’s been there for ages and the regulars are all aware of. And that’s where he was when he got the nickname, in the pub, where the thing about the drinks nobody wants being out on the tables doesn’t make sense. Possibly I’m getting too embroiled in the diegetic logic of it there, and of course you’re right to point out that irl it was Rob and Doug who wrote the joke and came up with the nickname. Plus there’s the line in Tikka Ian mentioned.

I’m talking student house party, everyone goes to Tesco Express on the way and when you get there you add it to the wallpaper table/dining table full of Stella and smartprice gin. If not a table, the side next to the fridge etc.

I get what your saying but I’ve never gone into a pub and worried about a stain, unless it was brown and on the seat I was about to sit on.

[tombow]

people don’t like advocaat?

[Ian Symes]

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, one more key piece of evidence to consider. Imagine you’re a comedy writer (or a pair of comedy writers) in the early 90s. You are writing dialogue for a sitcom.

Scenario A: You’re writing a joke about a drink that nobody likes. Which drink do you choose as your go-to “drink that nobody likes”, that a contemporary audience would understand? Cinzano Bianco? Quite possibly.

Scenario B: You’re writing a joke about a drink that leaves a stain. Which drink do you choose as your go-to “drink that leaves a stain”, that a contemporary audience would understand? Cinzano Bianco? Of course you fucking don’t. That would be ludicrous – it’s a clear liquid. Yes, it would leave a stain of some description if it was spilled on baize, like almost any liquid would, but it being a drink that stains is not a key property of the drink. You’d go for red wine, clearly, the drink that’s featured in a thousand adverts for laundry detergent and carpet cleaner, the drink that is notorious for leaving hard-to-shift stains. There are dozens of drinks higher up the “that’ll leave a stain” pecking order than Cinzano Bianco, including literally every single one that’s not a clear liquid.

Put simply: yes, the “leaving a stain” interpretation makes sense as a piece of English language comprehension, but there is no way in hell that that’s the joke Grant Naylor were writing.

[Dave]

But “Dave ‘red wine’ Lister” isn’t funny.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Maybe Cinzano Bianco was a really well accomplished Italian pool player in the 23rd century.

[Dave]

This is a Cinzano Bianco situation, end of conversation.

[By Jove its holmes]

Doug’s “Taiwan Tony”… feck that was horrible.

I can’t wait for Doug to “top” the racism of Taiwan Tony by having Rimmer or Kryten claim the Cat has “niggeritis”.

[Ian Symes]

You’ve been on the wind-up for the last week or so now, and I’ve been ignoring you, but well done, you’ve forced me into a reaction. Perhaps the best way to complain about racist jokes isn’t to post a racial slur. Don’t do that again.

[RunawayTrain]

But “Dave ‘red wine’ Lister” isn’t funny.

Although the bit in Stasis Leak when Lister is bemoaning the kind of person that routinely drinks wine does show that Craig Charles can make ‘wine’ sound funny.

It would be a strange nickname for his social group to have given him though anyway, with wine being considered way above his class.

[Flap Jack]

Why do women always leave me for total smegheads? Why do they dump me for men who wear turtleneck sweaters and smoke a tobacco pipe? I mean, Yeo Valley Natural Organic Yoghurt eaters! Reliable, sensible, dependable, and lots of other words that end in “-ible.” He’s obsessed with house prices, and spends half his life in antique fairs looking for bargains and drinking Cinzano Bianco. It’s never Leopard Lager, is it, it’s always Cinzano Bianco! “What do you want on your Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut, darling?” “Oh, I’ll have some Cinzano Bianco, please!” Smeg!

[Flap Jack]

Related to the above and the general topic: I don’t know how long it was before I realised that a “natural yoghurt eater” is someone who eats natural yoghurt specifically, not someone with a predisposition for eating yoghurt in general.

[Dave]

It’s prince of the planet potters all over again.

[Hamish]

I think we all might just have to come to the conclusion that the Cinzano Bianco joke might just be a bit crap.

[Dave]

But once you start discussing it in a thread, you can’t get rid of it.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Related to the above and the general topic: I don’t know how long it was before I realised that a “natural yoghurt eater” is someone who eats natural yoghurt specifically, not someone with a predisposition for eating yoghurt in general.

I believe we’ve experienced this moment in time before sir.

Either I have ESP or this very conversation has been had on here not that long ago.

I’m with you though, I thought he meant people with a pre-disposition to eating yoghurt.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I think we all might just have to come to the conclusion that the Cinzano Bianco joke might just be a bit crap.

Ya know, it’s comments like this that then basically leave me with no other option but to go out and buy a bottle of the stuff just so I can form an opinion on it myself. And I was quite happy being ignorant to it’s taste and just jolly well enjoying (and overly discussing) the joke.

[RunawayTrain]

But once you start discussing it in a thread, you can’t get rid of it.

Very good!

[Dave]

Ya know, it’s comments like this that then basically leave me with no other option but to go out and buy a bottle of the stuff just so I can form an opinion on it myself. And I was quite happy being ignorant to it’s taste and just jolly well enjoying (and overly discussing) the joke.

The whole joke was just the Cinzano Bianco product placement sponsors playing the long game.

[clem]

people don’t like advocaat?

I like a Snowball at Christmas.

[Flap Jack]

I believe we’ve experienced this moment in time before sir.
Either I have ESP or this very conversation has been had on here not that long ago.
I’m with you though, I thought he meant people with a pre-disposition to eating yoghurt.

You know, I did have a feeling of deja vu when I was writing it. A use of G&T’s handy new forum search feature reveals that it was brought up in July 2019 in the ‘Misheard lines’ thread by prolific poster curtis, and some discussion ensued, including from you. So there you go.

It fits better here though, because it wasn’t a misheard line, it was a misunderstood line!

At least it wasn’t already mentioned in this exact thread. That would have been embarrassing.

[Ian Symes]

What an idiot that “curtis” is, he’ll never make anything of himself in Red Dwarf fandom.

I have tried Cinzano Bianco exactly once, in the actual Aigburth Arms in around 2003. It was not very nice, especially compared to the pints of erskib and the dry white wine and Perrier that we also ordered.

[Dave]

What an idiot that “curtis” is, he’ll never make anything of himself in Red Dwarf fandom.

Looking back at that earlier post he certainly did provide some thread gold.

[Author]

Replies