Funny / Monkey Wrench

Warning: Spoilers Off applies to this page. Proceed at your own risk.

Putting up with a complete nutjob for six days can put hell on one's sanity.

• There are a lot of Freeze-Frame Bonus moments, adding a sense of worldbuilding and humor.

Ghost Egg

• The first glimpse we get of the Monkey Wrench crew: Beebs' profile photo is fairly normal, but Shrike's is of him stuffing his face with pizza and looking really dopey.
• Some of the faces Shrike pulls while still half-asleep are good for a chuckle.
• The overly bubbly way the news anchor reports on Chester McNevins' death.
  • She even chirpily asks if the viewers want to see the body before showing something onscreen that bathes Beebs' face in red light.
• Shrike briefly grows eyelashes only to bat them when he asks how much Nobert's bounty is.
• As they escape Tyneen's crew with Beebs carrying Shrike and Nobert, Shrike feels the need to ask Nobert how he got such a high bounty. Nobert responds with a disturbing laugh and grin that unnerves Shrike.
  Shrike: Beebs... I wanna swap shoulders.
• Before making the jump to bluespace, Beebs asks if Shrike made Nobert comfortable beforehand—cut to the bird taped to a cot and clearly terrified.
• Nobert somehow escapes his duct tape and appears at Shrike's side, startling him with a whispered "What doin'?"
• Scratch's call to Shrike.
  • In the background, we can see Scritch trying to do something with the radar before slumping against it in defeat, then curling up for a very catlike nap after giving up.
  • For a brief moment, Scratch gets an extreme closeup with realistic human eyes—it's so unexpected it's funny.
  • Shrike tries to deny he has Nobert even as the bird keeps floating into the screen's view—Scratch can only point this out disbelievingly, and he's so exasperated he drops his Nice Guy voice to say so.
  • When Shrike trains the Bucket's weapons on Scratch's ship, the cat captain can only give a flat "What." before getting dinged out of bluespace. Afterwards Shrike flips them the bird and says:
  Shrike: Amigo that, pendejo!
• The montage as the crew makes their way to Oberon.
  • Nobert asks for a bite to eat, and the diner they go to is called "Just Freakin' Eat It," or "J.F.E.I's" for short.
  • Shrike, already exasperated, gets a gun repeatedly shoved into his face by a bounty hunter—he just trains the fuel pump he's using on the guy, sending the hunter flying, all without even moving his eyes to glance over.
  • Nobert asks for a restroom break—Shrike bursts in when he hears the bird scream, only to find out it's because there are no paper towels in the dispenser.
  • The Bucket grows a mechanical arm to compete in a game of rock-paper-scissors with another similarly fitted ship—Shrike throws scissors while the other captain throws rock. Cue the ship literally running away with mechanical arms pumping, the bounty hunter shouting in rage as he gives chase.
  • Shrike chasing after Nobert for repeatedly interrupting his video gaming, only for Beebs to grab him by the scruff and send him away from Nobert like a misbehaving child.
    • Shrike's face as he literally slinks away.
  • The last shot in the montage features multiple Noberts surrounding Shrike, and some of them are twerking on the sidelines.
    • The Nobert in the foreground is sprawled across the control panel with a smug look on his face.
• By the time they reach Oberon, Beebs has stuffed Nobert into a sack to transport him—either due to his annoying nature or just to protect him from bounty hunters.
• Shrike asks Beebs if he wants to bet the other bounty hunters show up just as they're finishing the contract—Beebs, naturally, asks why the hell Shrike would WANT to win that bet.
  • Thirty seconds later, and Tyneen's forces arrive with Scritch and Scratch—the look Beebs gives Shrike screams "Really? You justt HAD to ask!"
• As the three sides fight over Nobert, Tyneen ends up destroying the station's artificial gravity. Just before all gravity is lost though a piece of the machine falls on Scratch's tail.
• In the ensuing battle, Beebs' rocket boots fail just before he slips down from the ceiling. He falls through the floor, and his legs startle a worker who screams briefly.
• The eponymous Ghost Egg makes its first visible appearance—Beebs face is one of wonder, where poor Shrike looks like he's on the brink of a mental breakdown.
• A group of golden guards pours out of the egg. The music swells, a mysterious robed figure with giant wings strides regally down a red carpet, we pan up her body...to a derpy vulture head with wall eyes. The Monkey Wrench crew can't quite believe it.
  • What makes it even funnier is the juvenile fart sound used during the facial close-up.
• Queen Potoo begs Nobert to come home in the same dopey speech pattern and accent he's had the whole episode, culminating in:
  Queen: Ple-EASE...
  Nobert: Noo-OOOOO...
  Queen: Ple-EASE...
  Nobert: Noo-OOOOO...
  Queen: Ple-EASE...
  Nobert: Noo-OOOOO...
  Queen: Ple-EASE...
  Nobert: Noo-OOOOO...
  Queen, sudden Voice of the Legion: PLEASE.
  Nobert: Yes, Mother.
• As soon as they finish, everyone files back into the egg and takes off as quickly as they arrived.
• A Freeze-Frame Bonus shows Kara's bounty information on Nobert, issued by Queen Potoo. The "Reason for Bounty" reads "He no come home :(" and the "Target Dead or Alive" status reads "Dead but mostly alive :)"
• Tyneen takes the news of her loss rather well, only going after Kara to excitedly ask her to sign Tyneen's pecs. Shrike...does not.

Lythop Liberation

• Shrike's mockery of Dr. Agness' scolding ends with him biting his own hand before getting distracted by a big red insect.
• Shrike's expectations for the mission—illustrated behind his head—included fire (a tongue of flame), explosions (an erupting volcano) and excitement (an adorable kitten lazily batting a yarn ball).
• Every time El Bandito appears onscreen, it's accompanied by a feral-sounding "BWAAAH!"
• The closed captions are good for a chuckle or two, such as Shrike's laughter being captioned as "a hearty guffaw" (twice) and his silent stare-off with Beebs being represented with about five seconds of "0_0".
  • Upon closer inspection, the caption changes to a split second of -_- when Shrike blinks before going back to the original.
• Shrike is very easily distracted, leading to Beebs sternly reprimanding him for messing with the wildlife. The seriousness of his tone is offset by the fact that he has decorated his hair and eyebrows with flower petals in the shape of a stern frown.
  • Shrike also decorates himself with leaves and petals, "stabbing" Beebs with a plant sword.
  Shrike: En garde! You're dead.
• Shrike calling Beebs' storage space a "shoulder nipple".
• Beebs' expression when Shrike says he doesn't have room for a light in his head, but he does have room for cartoons—the big guy's mouth makes a perfect capital I shape.
• Shrike mistakes the word "gyneacologist" for "geologist".
• When Shrike and Beebs get captured but the Lythops, they are tied up. Shrike makes a slightly amusing Call-Back to the previous episode.
  Shrike: If this keeps happening, I may start enjoying it.
• The Lythop ruler's attempts to intimidate the duo are met with them instead adoring and applauding his efforts. Shrike even picks him up and starts squeezing him like a toy. The ruler tells him to stop which Beebs says to as well. It's then that Shrike points out he isn't actually hurting him while also pointing out how Beebs is unintentionally stepping on loads of them. Amusingly, none of them are even bothered by it.
  Random Lythop: Hehe. We stepped on.
• The Lythops become curious about the crystal in the back of Shrike's head, so he informs them of how he is capable of putting anything he wants into it. One Lythops asks to go inside, so Shrike does so to show off his powers. When he pulls the Lythop back out, the poor thing is traumatized as he runs to Beebs crying. Beebs gives a glare while all Shrike can do is shrug in confusion.
• Shrike and Beebs struggle to put a dent into Agness's armor. When Shrike questions why they are struggling to hurt her, Agness delivers a pretty amusing response in spite of how serious the situation is.
  Agness: Long answer, you can't! Short answer-
  Agness punches Shrike
• As Beebs attempts to fight Agness, he is able to make her stagger, but still doesn't hurt her as she pulls out a Lythop crystal sword and slashes his light weapon, which causes him to have an Oh, Crap! reaction. In the background, the part that was cut falls on Shrike as he is working on getting back up before it disappears.

Us & Them

• Shrike tells Beebs that they can't regret their choices no matter what. After accepting a distress call to find it is from Scratch, not only does Shrike have a look of regret on his face, but Beebs throws his words back at him.
  • Scratch is just as unhappy in regards to who answered the distress signal as he is quick to try and bail.
  Scratch: Scritch, be a dear and send out another call.
• Scratch's desperate attempts to get out of waiving what Shrike owes him which are ten percent off his goods. When Shrike doesn't budge, he then says eleven percent is as far as he can go before some debris falls on his tail, forcing him to promise to waive the debts.
• When escaping from Them, Shrike is desperately pressing the button on the elevator to no avail. Then Scratch starts pressing the same button which Shrike tells him not to, resulting in the two of them getting into a Sissy Fight.
  Shrike: It's not working!
  Scratch: It's still not working!
  Shrike: Don't push my buttons!
  Scratch: Don't push mine!
• When escaping through the elevator shaft with everyone in tow, Beebs boosts up to the door to the bridge. He launches himself at it with a kick and close-up of his face, seemingly going to break on through. Smash Cut to the other side of the door which opens normally with everyone waiting awkwardly to enter.
• The ending shows Kara on another job, about to kill someone when her agent calls. All throughout it she makes Silent Snarker motions, being annoyed with him talking and clearly wanting him to hurry up and get to the point.

Scratch's Emporium videos

• In the "Shrike Plush" video, Scratch challenges Shrike to make a better sales pitch than him. All Shrike can come up with is "Buy...thing."
  • The things the Shrike plush is made to do during Scratch's pitch, such as attacking a stuffed Care Bear, getting thrown at a Toriel plush (and exploding on contact), holding another plush at gunpoint, and getting sat on by a live cockatiel.
    • Becomes even funnier if you assume that last one is a callback to Shrike's issues with the parrot-like Nobert in episode 1.
  • Scratch briefly drops his voice an octave to pitch his "handsome mug" as the next plush.
• Scratch's pitch for the Beebs plush begins, "Attention, freaks."
  • Upon seeing the Beebs plush for the first time, Ahrike makes a truly epic poggers face.
  • Shrike tattles on Scratch like a schoolchild, even wiggling his head as he stretches out the last word.
  Beebs! BEEBS! He's doing it agaaaaaaain!
  • Skritch dramatically zooms in and out on Beebs' face to capture his reaction to the plush.
  • Beebs can't believe Scratch...didn't tell him the plushies were ready! Shrike's smug expression melts into total disbelief at this.
  • Why is Beebs fully behind the project? He just wanted to see what he looked like small, and huggable.
  • The Beebs and Shrike plushes give each other a couple looks before Beebs gets launched at another plush.
  • Scratch gets so excited telling people to order the plush that he starts to hock a hairball before the audio cuts out.

Misc. and meta

• The voice acting alone is worth many a chuckle.
• When asked about Shrike's hair, Palmer stated "They be tentacle type dealies."
  • Possibly related, he later drew this comic.
• Whenever someone asks for information that would spoil later plot points, Palmer replies with an image of Scratch dancing smugly (based on this video of Bob the cat from Animal Crossing), stating they need to wait and see.
• When asked how Shrike handles the 15-cheeses on an Atomic Supreme, Palmer basically responds that...he doesn't.
  He never learns.
• One person asks how long it would take Scritch to turn off a centrifuge if Scratch was trapped inside. Palmer's response? Scritch would just walk away.