History Main / OrphanedPunchline

* Done often in ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'', like in 'The Lake Nose Monster'. Lawrence Fletcher attempts to tell the boys about his capture of a giant fish named Big Mouth Ramon, but the boys leave. Through the episode, we hear snippets of this tale.
-->"A chilly April morning, 1980, disco was on the way out, and it was just beginning to dawn on everyone how ridiculous they looked in their...so it was either go up the fire escape or lose the pants altogether, when suddenly it hit me...I said, [[Music/JohnLennon John]], it's great, I love the tune, but the words! '[[Music/TheBeatles All you need is a Philips-Head screwdriver]]'? It just doesn't really ring true, now does it?...It seemed there was no way we could get through the entire petting zoo...and well, ha, ha, and he was...and that was when I saw the way down, I saw Ted standing on the handles of the swing...so anyways there I was, four hours from the nearest dental supplies store, oh, there you are, Perry, and what a burglar I gasped... so I learned that it was too late, we were already headed off for Southampton, and that is the story of how I caught the Big Mouth Ramón."

** Also, the Feegle battlecry "Bang went sixpence!", taken from an old joke about how [[ThriftyScot Scottish are cheapskates]]: "I wasna there more'n two hours, and bang went sixpence!" Daft Wullie actually gets a line like this in ''Literature/{{Wintersmith}}''.

Another alternative is a dirty Limerick which is cut off before the end. People from Nantucket are common (with the implication being that the previous line ended in "Fuck it"), as well as something akin to:
->... and then I told him, "That's no dragon, that's my '''mother!'''"

A subtrope of NothingIsFunnier, as the setup is left entirely for the listener to imagine. See also OrphanedSetup, SubvertedPunchline, LateToThePunchline, LostInTransmission, NoodleImplements, FauxFinalLine, ForgottenTrope, AndThenISaid.

** Another episode has an orphaned punchline compounded by the fact that it's also altered. Potter is about to drop the punchline of a dirty joke (which the audience hasn't heard) when he sees Mulcahy standing there and quickly alters it to something more sanitized (seemingly ruining the joke in the process). So not only is the setup of the joke missing, but the audience also doesn't even hear the proper punchline.

** Another episode has an orphaned punchline compounded by the fact that it's also altered. Potter is about to drop the punchline of a dirty joke (which the audience hasn't heard) when he sees Mulcahy standing there and quickly sanitizes said punchline. So not only is the setup of the joke missing, but the audience also doesn't even hear the proper punchline.

* In the ''ComicBook/XXXenophile'' story "Hoisters", we get the punchline "... so the butler says 'Well, if it's ''that'' kind of party, I'll just stick my nose in the mashed potatoes.'" This is a reference either to comedian Mantan Moreland, or more likely the Music/BeastieBoys who sampled a line from ''That Ain't My Finger'' for "B-Boys Makin' with the Freak-Freak" on ''Ill Comunication''. In both cases, something else is being stuck in the mashed potatoes.

** This same orphaned punchline was originally featured in the movie ''Film/TheSting''. The vaudeville comedian starts his routine but the main character is in the foreground talking over him so we don't here the first part. Once the main character leaves, the scene remains long enough, that we hear that punchline to the joke he just told.

* ''Series/ThePeeWeeHermanShow'' Pee-wee and Mailman Mike quote the punchline of famous old joke without telling the actual joke. In conversation, Pee-wee asks, "Would I? Would I?" He and Mike pause and smirk at each other before both saying, "Harelip! Harelip!" [[note]]A man who is self-conscious of his artificial wooden eyeball goes to a party. He's too shy to talk to any of the ladies until he sees a woman with a harelip (a cleft lip) standing by herself. He walks up and asks if she would like to dance. Overjoyed, she exclaims, "Would I? Would I?" The man turns beet red and shouts in her face, "Harelip! Harelip!"[[/note]]

** In the final season, Barney has gotten so drunk that the alcohol acts as a TruthSerum. Ted and Robin use the opportunity to ask him a number of questions that they (and the audience) have been wondering about for most of the series. For a number of them we only hear Barney's answers and without knowing the context they end up as {{NoodleIncident}}s. The natural assumption is that they relate to some sexual depravity Barney committed but one incident that is actually explained in more detail was actually referring to Barney sharing a cab. It is left to the viewer's imagination what kind of question could have prompted an answer of "not while she was the Secretary of State" and whether "now while ''she'' was the Secretary of State'' referred to the same thing or something completely different.

* Reversed in ''Webcomic/SomethingPositive''; Aubrey reminisces about her childhood favourite TV show host, the Marquis [=DeRod=]. On his last show, he started to tell a joke involving a werewolf, a mummy, and an IRS agent walking into a bar, and then [[KilledMidSentence suffered a heart attack and died on live TV]]. Aubrey's only thoughts on the matter are that she's spent twenty-five years wondering where that joke was going.

* In ''Film/MillersCrossing'', we hear Caspar deliver the punchline of a fairly well-known joke: "He said 'Fuck him, give him a fiver.' The coffee was my idea." For those who don't know it, a housewife invites the postman in for coffee and sex, before giving him the money, because when she asked her husband what they should give the postman for Chrismas..."

* From ''Series/TheKidsInTheHall'': We come in at the punchline of a joke told by a man committing one faux pas after another at a party: “...Well, if that’s your canary, who’s your ''wife?''” When, even after repeating the punchline, the other man reacts with a blank stare, the man proceeds to sarcastically ask if the other man is deaf--which it turns out he is.

* In the young adult book ''Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst'', one of Anastasia's friends complains that her older brother frequently begins to tell jokes at the dinner table, but is always hushed by her father. So she has heard many setups, but no punchlines. Some of the brother's jokes include: "A man goes to the psychiatrist, and says: 'Doctor, you have to help me, because everything I see reminds me of breasts.' " and "How do you make a hormone?" The punchline to the second one? [[spoiler:"Refuse to pay her."]]

** Nobby also mentions another joke he told: "And they laughed even though they don't have the same kind of doorbells here!" The joke just might involve a man with multiple broken bones.

** In ''Literature/CarpeJugulum'', Magrat mentions to Nanny that now that she's a mother, she gets most of Nanny's favorite jokes, "except for the one about the old woman, the priest, and the rhinoceros," to which Nanny replies "I certainly hope not! ''I'' didn't understand that one until I was forty."

** Also, the Feegle battlecry "Bang went sixpence!", taken from an old joke about how Scottish are cheapskates: "I wasna there more'n two hours, and bang went sixpence!" Daft Wullie actually gets a line like this in ''Literature/{{Wintersmith}}''.

* ''[[Radio/TheGoonShow The Goons]]'' would often use the punchlines of filthy jokes learned during their Army service. This allowed fairly nasty gags to get past the stoic BBC censors.

** The story "Men of Good Fortune" began and ended with snippets of conversation in pubs, 600 years apart, with similarities including the punchline "... up her dress, and she says, 'Hunting for rabbits again, [[TheVicar Vicar]]?'" ("friar" in the medieval version).
** In the one-shot ''Sandman Midnight Theater'' a party scene includes what seems to be the middle of the same joke: "...so -- no, this is funny -- the farmer says, 'Vicar, I'll not say another word about the poaching, if only you'll tell me how you caught all those rabbits'..."
** The joke can be found in the second reply [[http://ask.metafilter.com/68877/Hunting-for-rabbits-again-Vicar here]]. It's not work-safe.
** Also in ''The Sandman'' is Thor's joke resulting in the punchline, "''You're'' Thor? I'm tho thore I can hardly pith!" It found a cold reception. There's several versions of the leadup to this one, involving sex and/or riding on horseback. Disney did a clean version of it in ''WesternAnimation/AladdinAndTheKingOfThieves'' with Genie doing both sides of the joke ("Well, it hurtth.").

* ''[[WesternAnimation/GarfieldSpecials A Garfield Christmas Special]]'' has this in the scene where the Arbuckles finish decorating their Christmas tree and have to put the star on. Dad asks why they can't just put the star on the tree first and then put the tree up, to which Mom replies by saying that "it just wouldn't be Christmas" if they did that. In the special itself, no response is given to that line, but in the ComicBookAdaptation, Dad replies ""One more remark like that, and you'll ''see'' stars, woman."

** Another episode has an orphaned punchline compounded by the fact that it's also altered. Potter is about to drop the punchline of a dirty joke (which the audience hasn't heard) when he sees Mulcahy standing there and quickly sanitizes said punchline. So not only is the setup of the joke missing, the audience doesn't even hear the proper punchline.

** Given that Mark Chang enjoys eating diapers, the above could also count as an IncrediblyLamePun, and would wind up being an enjoyable joke on Mark's home planet.

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' has Zuko once trying to say a joke abou tea Iroh told him, but he can only ''remember'' the punchline ("''Leaf'' me alone, I'm ''bushed''.").

* ''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation'', right after admonishing the creators ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}} Clear Sky'' for having the audacity to release a game that was clearly [[ObviousBeta still unfinished and riddled with bugs]]:

* ''Film/RoboCop1987'': "I'd buy that for a dollar!" (Although this may be a CatchPhrase rather than a punchline. Without context it's hard to tell.)

* In ''Webcomic/LeastICouldDo'', Rayne has made something of a CatchPhrase of "...and that's when I bought the horse a prostitute," as part of an account of his first date with [[HotAsian Cyndi]]. Depending on the audience - and he'll say it to ''anybody'' - it can have very mixed results.