Archived Discussion

This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.

Looney Toons: Removed the following because it is simply not the case:

Hanz and Franz from the Saturday Night Live skit.

They actually spoke in rather straightforward Arnold-style German/Austrian accents: "Ve vant to pahmp YOU ahp!"

BT The P: I think whomever put them in was responding to the whole "Girly-man" thing. But I agree, they don't belong in. On the other hand, the "Tonto, Tarzan and Frankenstein" sketches...

Looney Toons: <nod> Oh yeah, definitely in. I think the comment about Hulkspeak being influenced by Arnold needs to go, though. Hulk talk like baby long before Austrian girly-man... <grin>

Looney Toons: (a minute later) ....the hell? What on this page triggers the appearance of two drug testing ads?

Citizen: HULK NO DO DRUGS! PUNY HUMANS JEALOUS OF HULK POWER! HULK SMASH!

Looney Toons: After looking at the quote at the top of the entry for the last couple weeks, I finally decided to do something about it. "Yon sapling" is not classic Hulkspeak by any measure.

Gus: As long as we're fooling with it, I like Hulk Speak for a title a little more... // a little later. I'm going to do it. We can always change it back if it bugs somebody.

Croaker: Actually, I'm not sure if the Shampoo reference belongs here. She wasn't dumb, just obsessive and hidebound by her tribal laws; the odd speech pattern was supposed to represent the fact that she hadn't bothered (or had the chance) to learn to speak Japanese properly.

Looney Toons: Nothing in the entry says the speaker is necessarily dumb — "more brawn than brain" doesn't always have to mean that the brain is deficient. And Shampoo certainly has the "Strongest one there is! Smash!" aspect down pat — "Obstacles is for killing", anyone?

Ununnilium: Randomly, I've heard that, in the Chinese dub (not sure if that's Mandarin, Cantonese, or what), she doesn't have that speech impediment.

Looney Toons: That is correct — she has whatever the stereotyped Chinese-speaking-Japanese accent is. But she also has a problem with overusing pronouns (which are often implied rather than explicit in Japanese) which gives her speech a "baby-talk" quality. When her dialogue was translated, the decision was made to duplicate the sense of her speech patterns rather than its literal structure.

Morgan Wick: Bolted Beast, as he only conceivably belongs here as a subversion, and is perfectly covered by Genius Bruiser.

Tabby: "Bolted Beast" would be an excellent name for a metal album. Or a drink.

AK47x2: Would the BFG count as Hulkspeak?

Janitor: The Hulk Dialect article was still hanging around. Now zapped.

Dark Storm: Probably not worth mentioning in the actual article, but the "tech specs" for Grimlock (from the toy packaging) actually do list him with an above-average intelligence (7 out of 10), but with a nasty, aggressive disposition. The "Hulk-speak" was actually Adaptation Decay by the cartoon writers. Snarl and Swoop were also supposed to be above-average, though sligtly less intelligent (both 6/10). Only Slag (4/10) and Sludge (3/10) were supposed to actually be stupid. [1]

Looney Toons: Snipped recent addition

Mongo only pawn...in game of life.

because we already have Mongo ruminating on his place in the scheme of things in the main text.

Sapphire Flame: Since it's already part of the Self-Demonstrating Article index, shouldn't we at least write the introduction in Hulk Speak?

Citizen: No. That's a relic from when someone rewrote the entire article in Hulk Speak. The wiki at large was not happy with this and it was reverted. Removing the index markup.

Vampire Buddha: Removed some natter

Natter

The Hulk speaks perfectly normal — if terse — English earlier in the film, telling the Special Forces team, "Leave me alone," during the fight in the bottling plant. This is excusable, because that is another of Hulk's catchphrases, and the entire fight scene is completely awesome.
The Hulk saying "Leave me alone" was an "Oh, Crap!" moment for this troper, who had it on surround sound and felt the bass of the Hulk's voice, but still had a second before the penny dropped. I imagine the soldiers chasing the Hulk felt much the same.

Interestingly, he didn't start out talking this way in the comics. In addition to being grey, he originally talked in a fairly rough, slangy version of normal English, similar to the Thing. This was retconned into being a separate personality, "Joe Fixit".
Lampshaded in The Hulk's House Of M tie-in when The Hulk while smashing things goes on a long rant of things he hates ending with him declaring "Hulk hate personal pronouns."
In one of the trailers for "Hulk vs. Wolverine" we see the Hulk roughing up Wolverine pretty badly while yelling out, "Hulk smash little man! Little man leave Hulk alone!" This moment is always funny to this troper if only because no one else in the Marvel Universe could ever get away with calling Wolverine "little man".
- Well, Wolverine is only 5'2'', no matter what the Movies tell you.
- True, but you still wouldn't get away with pointing it out, bub.
- Unless you're Hulk, where you just rip Wolverine in half. And throw his legs up a mountain. And walk away.
In Peter David's apocalyptic far-future Hulk story The Last Titan, the Hulk is given ample space for his thoughts, which while being in Hulk Speak, are well-constructed and reasonable, though also mostly misanthropic and relating to various forms of violence.
Fridge Logic reared its head when Shampoo's great-grandmother Cologne and Stalker with a Crush Mousse joined the cast. Cologne spoke perfect Japanese/English, and Mousse either had a Touhouku accent or also spoke perfect English.
- Though a justifying argument could be made in that Cologne was over 300 years old and (presumably) very cultured, while Mousse is shown to be so obsessive that he may have simply learned it simply because he knew he'd be going to Japan to chase after Shampoo.
- Cologne's age justification is shown to be the case in an Anime-only Time Travel episode, where the 18-year-old Cologne is shown to speak Japanese exactly like Shampoo does.
- A justifying argument has been made in the series, where Cologne learned to speak passable Japanese in some short length of time (like a week) and didn't bother beyond that.
Jokes tend to be made in Fan Fic by having Shampoo speak or think in perfect Chinese.
"Unstoppable force of nature" might be a better description than "thug".
Lately, Umaga's ditched the Hulk Speak for infuriated shouting in (presumedly) Samoan. As this troper doesn't speak Samoan, he supposes it is entirely possible Umaga still uses this trope, just in a different language. If so, that is awesome.
- He still does and nobody can tell me different. KING MAN TELL UMAGA GO TO RING, SMASH RAINBOW MAN! UMAGA SMASH!
Ayla's naming of Lavos raises another question. She says "la" and "vos" are words from "Ayla['s] language" (apparently, some language change has happened over 65,000,000+ years) — so how does she communicate with Crono and company if they speak different languages?
- More likely she simply isn't that good at English; this troper is sure his French sounds just as bad. The Japanese characters have varying English fluency; Kimiko can't speak it at all, while Erika and Miho are perfectly fluent.

Donteatacowman: Is the Las Vegas page quote really an example of the trope? I haven't seen the movie/show/whatever it is (it redirects to Viva Las Vegas!), but it seems like the quote refers to something distinguished, like the Royal "We".

Archived Discussion Main / Hulkspeak