History Main / BokeandTsukkomiRoutine

* Creator/LaurelAndHardy: Stan is the Boke and Ollie is the Tsukkomi consistently throughout their films, especially after they started making talkies and could do more verbal comedy without needing title cards. Since Stan is a {{Ditz}}y {{Manchild}}, he frequently says incorrect and stupid things which heavily exasperate Ollie, who always [[KnowNothingKnowItAll proceeds to demonstrate that he also has very little of a grasp at what they're trying to do]]. In fact, it's a RunningGag in their films for Ollie to make a frustrated AsideGlance while MilkingTheGiantCow after Stan does something stupid or sarcastically repeating whatever lunacy Stan just uttered and punctuating it with his trademark "HMPH!" Take this exchange from ''Film/SonsOfTheDesert'':

* WebVideo/DougDoug plays the tsukkomi to his own chat's boke, [[{{Troll}} who love deliberately pretending]] to be extremely LiteralMinded clueless {{Ditz}}es. [[DownplayedTrope Unusually for a Tsukkomi]], Doug ([[OOCIsSeriousBusiness usually]]) doesn't become enraged by Chat's idiocy and instead frantically tries to get the conversation back on track or [[ExtremeDoormat meekly protests Chat dogpiling on him with dumb comment after dumb comment]].

** Also in ''Persona 3'', Jack Frost and Pyro Jack have a fusion spell where they do a Boke and Tsukkomi routine, their joke so bad that the enemies [[FaceFault fall over and get knocked down]]. In ''[[VideoGame/Persona3Reload Reload]]'', the protagonist can use this same spell as one of his Theurgy attacks. Like the the original, the two do a brief version of this, with Jack Frost slapping Pyro, their routine dealing almighty damage and knocking over the enemy shadows with laughter.

** In an extra segment for ''VideoGame/Persona3: FES,'' the main character and one of his classmates, Kenji, act out an impromptu comedy routine. The response the player chooses for Kenji's setups determines whether you are a master of Japanese humor or not.
** Also, Jack Frost and Pyro Jack have a fusion spell where they do a Boke and Tsukkomi routine with the effect of [[FaceFault knocking down all enemy shadows]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'':
** ''VideoGame/Yakuza2'' has a substory where you meet a guy who's fallen out of a boke and tsukkomi duo, where his jokes don't land and his friend gave up on comedy. When the two meet again, they realize they're a lot better off with the roles switched and reunite as a comedy duo.
** In ''VideoGame/Yakuza5'', Haruka gets roped into playing the tsukkomi to an acquaintance's boke during his audition for a comedy show. It's [[ThatOneSidequest not a very fondly remembered substory]] due not only to the player having a very limited time to select the proper response to the boke, but also having to interject at precisely the right moment, which is quite hard to do.

* The author calls [[NationsAsPeople England and Japan]] from ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'', though adds he's not sure who is the boke and who is the tsukkomi.
* ''Manga/JujutsuKaisen'': The fight between comedian Fumihiko Takaba and [[spoiler:Kenjaku somehow culminates in them performing the routine to a studio audience. Hilariously, despite Takaba usually being the one pulling off-the-wall jokes, their performance sees him playing the tsukkomi to ''[[BigBad Kenjaku's]]'' boke.]]

** In the ''Series/KamenRiderKiva'' net movies, Kengo and Wataru practice one of these, and [[HilarityEnsues it goes over as well as you'd expect.]]

** Osaka was once asked to do this with Miss Yukari, and was asked which person should take which part. She asked Yukari to be the boke, prompting Yukari to bop her. As Yomi stated, "So it begins..."
** Chiyo unintentionally acts as the tsukkomi to Tomo once, and gets berated by her and Osaka for doing so.

** Around the time Ichigo first used his Bankai, one {{Omake}} held a manzai routine with Ichigo as the straight man and Ganju, Orihime and possibly someone else as the comic counterpart. The entire think was based off of similar sounding words to Bankai and manzai (such as banzai and sempai), in sentences that are worded so as to be self-referential humor and correct. Surprisingly, this skit of Japanese wordplay ''was'' brought over in the dub. The important words were explained in a series of rapid-fire notes, but left untranslated.
** This series loves it enough to use it in a 100 year flashback. Both Shinji and Urahara with Hiyori, Kensei with Mashiro (which continues in the present), and Shinji with [[spoiler:Aizen]].

* ''Manga/{{Eyeshield 21}}'' has this as a lot of its humor. Hiruma tends to play a sneaky boke to his team, though almost everyone the team has their boke moments. Kakei and Mizumachi are this pretty much all the time.

* ''Manga/{{Gintama}}'' is basically a series of boke and tsukkomi routine. The characters even describe their own interactions as such.

* The author calls [[NationsAsPeople England and Japan]] from ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'' this, though adds he's not sure who is the boke and who is the tsukkomi.

* In ''Manga/LoveRoma'', [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Hoshino's]] relationship with his girlfriend [[{{Tsundere}} Negishi]] mainly consists of him saying or doing something stupid and her [[DopeSlap slapping him for it.]] In one scene he mentions their romance is like a boke and tsukkomi routine. She's about to agree, when he mentions he's the tsukkomi and she's the boke.

* In ''Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaINNOCENT'', an alternate LighterAndSofter continuity, the BigBad of the first season, Precia Testarossa, is the boke, and the BigGood of the first two seasons, Lindy Harlaown, is the tsukkomi. The reason why it works so well is that Precia is both a DotingParent ''and'' AmazinglyEmbarrassingParent, unlike her incredibly monstrous EvilMatriarch portrayal in the original series. While Lindy is a very friendly and nice person who never gets particularly angry in the original series, Precia's various antics and sudden disappearances in their workplace just to see her (cute) daughters pisses Lindy off in this continuity. Hayate can also be count as the boke to Dearche's tsukkomi.

** And then there's Chisame, who wishes she could give everything the tsukkomi treatment so very, very badly. Chisame takes on this role physically when dealing with Jack Rakan although most of the time its usually a knee to the face instead of an actual fan [[spoiler:(He could take a Nuke and probably not feel it)]]. They make [[spoiler:(made)]] a very good team.

** In the Senbatsu arc of the anime, Amane is paired up with Oshitari (who ''is'' an Osaka native) in doubles. He attempts to pull the other into a similar dynamics...only to make the always calm Oshitari [[DudeNotFunny lose his temper]]. It's theorised, however, that Oshitari ''may'' not be ''that'' upset, just playing the ''tsukkomi'' role relaying on verbal insults rather than physical violence.

* Maria in ''Manga/SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' once spent far too long time watching Boke and Tsukkomi and started slapping people who were looking dazy...''on the first day after New Years Eve!!''

** [[DoesNotLikeMen Kaede]] goes OhCrap when she realizes that because Takatoshi and Suzu are both on their [[ClassTrip second year trip]]. She has to Tsukkomi for the student council with includes [[TheDitz Kotomi]][[note]]Takatoshi asked his sister Kotomi to take his place while he is out[[/note]].

* ''Manga/SketDance'' is one giant Shonen-style boke-and-tsukkomi routine. Although all of the Sket Trio can be any of the two roles depending on the situation, Bossun and Himeko are able to pull off this act ''masterfully'', even when in their everyday interactions with each other.

--> '''Lyra:''' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrkhMwtKYKE Ask me what color bananas are!]]
--> '''Bon Bon:''' (Sighs) What color are--
--> '''Lyra:''' Blue!
--> '''Bon Bon:''' Well-- first of all that's not true! And--
--> '''Lyra:''' Are you saying I'm... ... ... a ''lyre''?
--> '''Bon Bon:''' (Sighs)

* ''Literature/CodexAlera'' has this dynamic going between High Lords Antillus and Phrygius. Antillus makes remarks that are hilariously self-evident or embarrassingly wrong, Phrygius sighs, rolls his eyes and gives him the ol' DopeSlap. Made even more hilarious by the fact that both men are in their fifties, insanely powerful [[MagicByAnyOtherName furycrafters]] and belong to the top echelon of Alera's political elite.

* Referenced in the ''Calibur'' arc of ''Literature/SwordArtOnline''; as the group runs down a long set of stairs to Jotunheim, Kirito points out that they should be grateful for it, since it's the quickest way there. Sinon snarks that he's talking as though he's the one who built the stairway himself, and Kirito quips, "Thanks for the tsukkomi" before pulling her tail.

** In the ''Series/KamenRiderKiva'' net movies, Kengo and Wataru practice one of these and [[HilarityEnsues it goes over as well as you'd expect.]]

** Aruto and Is from ''Series/KamenRiderZeroOne'' have this dynamic, which takes a ironic twist as Aruto’s preferred style of comedy is screaming a {{Pun}} with NoIndoorVoice, yet no one in-universe sans [[TheComicallySerious Fuwa]] finds his PungeonMaster routine funny. Aruto’s most legitimately funny moments are when he’s playing the straight man to Is, who defies DontExplainTheJoke consistently describe his wordplay, much to his frustration. The [=YouTube=] special makes this a plot point, as Comedian-type [=HumaGear=] Fukkinhoukai Taro—who was the VictimOfTheWeek[=/=]MonsterOfTheWeek in the first episode that replaced Aruto after he lost his comedian job—initially refuses to entrust his SoulJar to Aruto when Aruto loses the joke competition between them, but relents after seeing that Aruto’s true comedic strength lies in being the tsukkomi.

* The tag team of extreme {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, Wrestling/AlSnow and badass martial artist, Wrestling/SteveBlackman. Snow insisted on calling the team Head Cheese, based on the fact that Snow carried a mannequin head around with him and he had Blackman wear a block of cheese on his head.

* In ''VideoGame/EnsembleStars'', this is the specialty of Subaru and Makoto, thse self-proclaimed 'idiot duo'. Usually, Subaru takes the boke and Makoto the tsukkomi, but Subaru often likes to mess with him by giving him ridiculous set-ups that Makoto struggles to find a come-back to. And in the Main Story, 2wink train [[TheStoic Hokuto]] into loosening up by making him perform manzai acts; usually, he's more likely to just call Subaru an idiot when he tries to drag him into his bits.

* At the prologue of the third ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky'', Kevin Graham and Dorothy's first meeting has this routine, the topic being Dorothy keep mistaking Kevin's first name for "Onion" and "Jasmine" to which he plays along at first before correcting her. The kicker is, Kevin has Kansai dialect in Japanese version.

** In an extra segment for ''VideoGame/Persona3: FES,'' the main character and one of his classmates, Kenji, act out an impromptu comedy routine. The response the player chooses for Kenji's setups determine whether you are a master of Japanese humor or not.

* ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon|1}}'': The comments that the Squid Sisters make during newscasts often resemble this routine, with Callie acting as the Boke and Marie as the Tsukkomi. In particular, many stage announcements follow the formula of Callie stating something ridiculous and Marie snarking at her for it. ''Boke vs. Tsukkomi'' was actually used as a theme for the Splatfest event in Japan. As an added bonus, their appearances in ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'' onward even reflect the traditional boke-tsukkomi dynamic: the goofy Callie is dresses more casual or flamboyant, while the stern and serious Marie opts for formal wear (be it modern or traditional).
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfBerseria'' has [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass Magilou]] do her best to [[InvokedTrope invoke]] this with her Magilou's Menagerie skits. Unfortunately for her, she's the resident ButtMonkey and with her [[AntiHero anti-heroic]] teammates it doesn't work out. The closest to success is when [[{{Pirate}} Eizen]] of all people decides to be the boke; unfortunately, he's [[FaceOfAThug too scary]] for the audience to laugh.

** Tomoya Okazaki and Youhei Sunohara are basically a manzai duo, lampshaded by Yukine Miyazawa. For most of the time, Tomoya is the tsukkomi and Sunohara is the boke, but they often switch roles, depending on the situation. However, Tomoya is the one who is in control of the gag scenes.

* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'''s Tiger Dojo, which you go through every time you screw up and die and get a Bad End, is set up much like this. Taiga Fujimura, the leader of the Dojo, is the resident tsukkomi, with Illyasviel von Einsbern being the resident boke who often has to be whapped upside the head with Taiga's shinai when she says something insensitive, unproductive or stupid (such as calling the nightmarish first bad end of the game a "cute and pop genocide of love").

* There's an extended reference in ''VisualNovel/{{Kanon}}'' during Mai's route. As the local EmotionlessGirl, she has trouble expressing herself. Eventually, she gets embarrassed with Sayuri's teasing and bonks her on the head, leaving Yuichi and Sayuri to stop in utter shock. 'She...she played the tsukkomi!' She continues this throughout when feeling nervous. Sayuri and Yuichi get hit a lot because [[TheComicallySerious they find it hilarious to see Mai do that.]]

** At another point, one of Rin's instructions given by the mysterious person are to perform a tsukkomi on [[ButtMonkey Masato]]. As a {{Tsundere}} who normally performs the tsukkomi role you'd think it'd be simple, but Rin is impatient and more willing to just kick Masato rather than give a funny response or actually wait for him to say something boke-worthy. This leads to a minigame where the player has to quickly choose a tsukkomi-worthy response for Riki to suggest to Rin before she just kicks him and yells something generic.

* The basis for how ''[[WebAnimation/PlanetDolan Super Planet Dolan]]'' functions. The format goes that a question about an anomaly about the world is asked by a viewer, and two answers are given. The first answer comes from Dolan, who gives a [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} completely nonsensical answer]] based on the wording of the question, which devolves further and further into mayhem. The second answer is given by his cohost (usually Shima Luan or Melissa Morgan), who calmly and formally explain the ''actual'' answer to the question with evidence to back it up. Sometimes, at the end of questions, Dolan will end up getting into further debates with his cohost.

It is common in Osaka so both members of the comedy duo frequently speak in Kansai-ben. Manzai teams commonly dress in one of two ways: 1) similarly tailored outfits with complementary color schemes; 2) one (usually the ''boke'') wears casual clothes, and the other (usually the ''tsukkomi'') a respectable business suit. Ironically, the most famous ''manzai'' duo of all time, [[Series/GakiNoTsukaiYaArahende Downtown]], reversed this -- Hitoshi Matsumoto, the ''boke'', always wears a suit and tie (albeit with the tie tucked neatly into his trousers beffiting the ''boke'' buffoonishness), and Masatoshi Hamada, the ''tsukkomi'', always wears something casual. (They're also pretty much single-handedly responsible for the equation of Kansai-ben with funny characters.)