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A character (especially a Pungeon Master) makes a pun so lame, obvious or disgusting that it makes listening characters wince, groan or even feel compelled to inflict violence on the punster—or, at least, bring a lawsuit against him for pun-itive damages. Rimshots are completely optional.
It should be noted that puns are the lowest form of humor, and most of them aren't very punny anyway.
Not to be confused with Stealth Pun, which refers to puns where the punchline is simply left to the readers or listeners as an exercise, and not to particularly groan-inducing and/or obvious ones.
The chief purpose of this trope seems to be to allow an author to deploy an awful groaner and still dodge the blame for it by pointing the karmic retribution at the character.
Note that this refers explicitly to when these puns are referred to as lame in-series. This can happen even if the pun in question is actually really, really funny. For other puns that may or may not be bad, see Hurricane Of Puns and A World Wide Punomenon. For a character that always makes these, see Pungeon Master. For an index of punny trope names, see Just For Pun.
This may also warrant a Collective Groan. See also Visual Pun.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Ninin Ga Shinobuden has a truly horrible visual pun at the end of episode 9's first half. The ninja attempt to make a furo by rerouting a hot spring into their bath house, but it's not water that comes out of the pipe...
Ninja: Permed hair!?
Kaede: Afro?
Shinobu: I guess...
Onsokumaru: It's "a furo", therefore "afro".
Everybody: *groan*
Ninja: That was a lame joke.
- In Azumanga Daioh (the anime), Tomo makes a pun, though what that pun is depends on whether it's the dub, the sub (both based on "freedom"), or the original (based on "yoyuu"). The other girls groan and Chiyo says it was bad, while Tomo is flabbergasted at their response.
- Fuuka of Yotsubato makes the occasional pun, though only Asagi attacks her for it. Her father, on the other hand, appreciates the humor value.
- One of the main characters from Shaman King, Chocolove, is rather famous for his puns so horribly obvious that the others tend to freeze in awe for a few seconds before continuing the conversation, often turning completely white in the process (in the anime, at least). Other times he just gets attacked by someone, usually Ren.
- Tamahome throws one out in Fushigi Yuugi. In an attempt to cheer Miaka up, he tells her that after causing some trouble, Tasuki will probably be taken to task (in the Japanese version, the word used for the pun is tasukete, or "help" in English). He acknowledges the lameness of his pun himself and blames his Money Fetish for it.
- In Prince Of Tennis, on the team of Rokkaku, Amane 'David' Hikaru is frequently kicked for making many lame puns. Many people know him as "that pun guy" instead of his real name.
- Darker Than Black: Kurosawa has spent two entire episodes littering his speech with very bad Gratuitous English on the mistaken impression that it'll help his client, a Scandinavian named Eelis Castinen, understand him. Then he crosses the Gratuitous English Event Horizon by making an Engrish pun on "Castinen" ("cast it in"), and his Hypercompetent Sidekick, who has been wincing behind his back the whole time, gets annoyed.
Kiko: I knew you were going to say that. It wasn't even funny.
- In Kamichama Karin, Karin makes one of these ("Wait, a god (kami) just burned my hair (also kami)??") and then chastises herself for it.
Comics
- In Squadron Supreme, toddler Hyperion is startled by his new pet dog and incinerates it with his heat vision. One of the two guards watching him over security camera remarks "I guess Spot was kind of the right name after all." His partner lays him out for that one, in a cross between this trope and Dude Not Funny.
- Batman's Robins have such a propensity to this, it's been suspected it's a tacit requirement to being Robin.
Batman: You still haven't gotten over the puns? Nightwing: Oh shush. You love it.
- In the Don Rosa story "Return to Plain Awful," Donald Duck and Scrooge Mc Duck visit the Lost World of Plain Awful, a Utopia where square things are prized, round things are illegal, and the people live "on good cheer" with no financial interests. Eventually, Scrooge does manage to interest the people in his money—but only aesthetically, and as a finishing touch, they chop their new stack of bills into two square halves. The story ends with Donald noting that now, Scrooge (who had constantly been boasting about having made his money that way) has something in common with the Awfultonians:
Commercials
Film
- Duck Soup: Chicolini's suggestion that Freedonia maintain a standing army, "because then we save money on chairs", provokes Firefly to give him the bum's rush from the room (and apparently worse, judging by the Offscreen Crash that follows).
- Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The World. When Captain Aubrey asks his friend, ship's doctor Maturin to choose between two weevils on the table, he admonishes Maturin's choice of the larger weevil, saying that he should have taken "the lesser of two weevils". Maturin responds, "He who would pun would pick a pocket!"
Literature
- The New Discworld Companion tells the story of Monsieur Pune, creator of the Fool's Guild:
"Q. When is a door not a door? A. When it is ajar (a jar)" - one of his early puns for which he was tarred and feathered and left for dead.
- For all that Pratchett makes fun of it, he generally has at least one rather dreadful pun per book. The "gilt by association" one in Night Watch comes to mind.
- You missed the 'feelings of gilt' pun later in the book, then.
- And how about this one?
Death: Let's go sleigh them! (...) I don't know if you noticed Albert, but that was a pune, or play on words.
Albert: Ho ho ho sir.
- Dave Barry is not fond of puns, and rarely uses them without heavyweight Lampshade Hanging. Take, for example, this passage in Dave Barry Slept Here:
But now he could sit back and relax as the reaper roared through as many as ten acres per hour, reaping the living hell out of everything that stood in its path, occasionally spitting out bits of mule fur or farmhand clothing, which could easily be reassembled thanks to the sewing machine, invented by Elias Howe. "Don't ask me Howe it works!" he used to say, over and over, until finally somebody, we think his wife, shot him in the head with a revolver, invented by Samuel Colt.
- Or this passage in Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You Will Ever Need:
The history of Ireland dates back a long time to the original inhabitants, the Picts, who were a fun-loving tribe known for their wit. "You sure Pict a winner that time!" is the kind of thing they were always saying, until finally a neighboring tribe called the Celtics got sick and tired of it and came in and, in 432 B.C. on October 8, defeated the Picts in the Battle of Defeating the Picts when John Havlicek sank two free throws in overtime.
- In Piers Anthony's Xanth series, much of the wildlife and magic are literal puns, such as a mango being a human-shaped fruit that makes you urinate immediately upon eating it. Most of the characters dislike the puns, particularly a winged centaur whose name is a pun (Karia, who starts floating helplessly away whenever she hears her name.)
- The characters in Spider Robinson's Callahan's Crosstime Saloon series are prolific with these, to the point of competitions in which the worst / best pun of the evening gets his bar tab waived. They call it Punday Night. Normally, things are thrown at the offending punster, and fire extinguishers and seltzer bottles are also used for particularly awful puns.
As Callahan says, "I noticed that all my customers were drinking twice as much as usual, to blunt the pain. So I invented Punday."
- The Marvellous Land of Oz sees H.M. Wogglebug T.E. make joke about the Sawhorse, noting that if he rode him, it would be a "horse-and-buggie". Jack Pumpkinhead covers up his permanently-smiling mouth, and the Tin Woodsman threatens the Wogglebug with his axe.
- In Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, after George loses one of his ears, and says he feels "saint-like":
George: You see... I'm holy. Holey. Fred, geddit?
Fred: Pathetic. Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related humour before you, you go for Holey?
Live Action TV
- Tom Servo of Mystery Science Theater 3000 absolutely loves to bust these out, usually attracting the ire of Crow and Joel/Mike.
- In the final episode Laserblast, Tom and Crow calf rope and gag Mike and force him to listen repeatedly to a bad pun involving Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, as he struggles mightily.
Crow: Come on, Tom, can't we all get beyond Thunderdome?
(Mike screams into his gag.)
- In the MS Ting of the first Gamera movie, Joel ripped off Crow's arm after Crow saw a military buildup in the film and responded:
Crow: And that's the tanks I get!
- On Buffy, this exchange (among others):
Giles: I've never actually heard of anyone attacked by a lone baseball bat before.
Xander: Maybe it's a vampire bat.
Everyone: *stares*
- On M*A*S*H, B.J. was prone to these.
Hawkeye: In fact, you might say that all of us together made up Tuttle." Cut to eyeroll from Radar.
- Johnny Carson's "Carnac the Magnificent" on The Tonight Show typically served up plenty of puns and if the audience groaned or booed loudly enough, Carnac would place a funny curse on them in retaliation.
- Spaced: Mike is kicked out of the Rough Ramblers after a disastrous Eskimo roll. Tim says:
- Frasier. In Look Before You Leap, Frasier is attempting an opera song, requiring him to hit an impossibly high note, while Niles is horny due to refusing Maris' rare sexual invite despite their marriage counselor's advice.
Niles: You know, as much as I admire your willingness to take a leap, I did warn you that you were getting into a dangerous “aria.” (pained laugh) Oh God, I’m using humor to mask sexual frustration. It’s high school all over again.
- From "Are You Being Served?":
Frasier: Well, that's our show today. But before we close, I'd like to invite you all to join us here at KACL in wishing a fond farewell to our happy chef, Leo Pascale, as he bubble-wraps his crepe pan and heads south towards sunny Santa Fe. Leo, you stirred us with your passion, melted us with your charm, added spice to our lives. Now, as you whisk youself away, let's not say goodbye, but rather, "tar-tar" for now. This is Dr. Frasier Crane, KACL 780.
Roz: (coming into the booth, still with a nauseated expression) Well, at least you stopped short of saying, "I'll be 'fricaseeing' you."
- Sabrina The Teenage Witch: In the 17th episode of season 3 (Sabrina The Teenage Writer) Sabrina writes a spy story on a magic typewriter and her characters, which mirror actual characters of the show, come to life. At one point the mirror character of Dr. Kraft (Dr. Bad) captures Harvey's character Derek and and ties him to a buzz saw in order to kill him.
Derek: There's always been an unpleasant edge to you, Dr. Bad.
Dr. Bad: (with his hands on his ears) I am killing you, just to stop the puns.
- Shooting Stars generally has Vic give one horrible joke in the show. Everybody remains stone-faced, church bells toll, the wind howls and a tumble-weeds roll by before we move on, leaving Vic sweeping into his sleeves.
- In CSI Miami: "That gives a new meaning to the term 'fried hard drive'", cue silent stare.
Music
- In "The Intimate P.D.Q. Bach", during the introduction to Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice, Peter Schickele mentions that this particular work (an opera "in one unnatural act") was rewritten for the Vienna Opera Company so that Mrs. Vienna and her son could play all of the parts, while Mr. Vienna played the piano in his best formal attire, the "Tails of Old Vienna" - whereupon the (live) audience erupts into groans and pained exclamations.
Newspaper Comics
- A recurring gag in Pearls Before Swine, where a long conversation leads to a stretched word pun on the entire conversation, and then (usually) Rat
saying how he hates the comic threatens bodily harm on artist Stephan Pastis.
Pig: So if at "Farce" you don't suck seed, try dry again?
Rat (to author): Have some pride.
- In Calvin And Hobbes:
Calvin: Hey Hobbes, want to see an antelope?
Hobbes: An antelope?
Calvin: Come on! (goes to an anthill) See, she's climbing down the ladder to her boyfriend's car. (beat) You're not laughing.
Hobbes: It's not funny.
Theater
- Gilbert And Sullivan, The Grand Duke:
Notary: When exigence of rhyme compels, Orthography forgoes her spells, And "ghost" is rhymed with "goest". All: With what an emphasis he dwells Upon "orthography" and "spells"! That kind of fun's the lowest.
Video Games
- Half Life 2: Episode One.
Alyx: It's a Combine zombie. That's like a...uh...a Zombine! Get it? Combine...zombie...heh heh...ooohkay.
- Animal Crossing will make your character crack a bad joke whenever he/she catches a fish or bug and this is occasionally lampshaded:
You: "I caught a sea bass! See? BASS! (Why do I keep saying things like that?)"
- Sacrifice brings us this little gem, aimed at a servant of the god of earth who's made of living rock:
Zyzyx: Now Grakkus here is none too quick on his feet. It may be because he leads such a... Sedimentary lifestyle! Eldred: ... Never Say That Again.
- Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal features a pun so bad, even Guybrush's Evil Hand feels the need to upbraid him for it:
- Tenebrae from Tales Of Symphonia Dawn Of The New World absolutely loves groan-inducing puns. At one going, he made one that was so bad that Raine and Genis didn't groan, they unloaded on him with their ultimate unison attack from the previous game.
- There is an optional scene in Persona 3 where Akihiko, trying to get over his shyness around girls, practices his pick-up lines in secret. Reading that a sense of humor is vital, he makes an utterly horrid pun ("Want to go to that Beef Bowl place?... I hope I 'meat' you there!"), then promptly chastises himself:
- Runescape has plenty of puns inside the game and that's often ridiculed.
Examine zygomite (killer fungi): A fun guy. No, wait, that's awful. Plus it doesn't even make sense.
- "What a Teddious fight!" "Bear naked!" "Grin and bear it!"
- In Namco x Capcom, there's a stage where EVERYONE starts making these (Japanese-only). It even highlights in red what the pun is supposed to be. Needless to say, to the characters, it gets old really fast.
- Kingdom of Loathing is chock full of references and puns, occasionally even the narrator recognizes how terrible some of them are. For example:
"This is a dairy goat. Insert a pun on "udderly" and "utterly", if you're the kind of guy who doesn't get punched in the face enough. "
Then later in the fight
"She swings her udder at you, but misses. She's an udder failure. Yeah, go ahead and punch me in the face."
- In-game, the adventurer says that the Naughty Sorceress is the cause of all the bad puns.
- In the Japanese version of Ar Tonelico II, Infel has a penchant for these, with Croix reacting appropriately after every single one. This is completely lost in the English version of the game as it seems Infel's text was translated word-for-word, and of course Japanese puns normally don't work in other languages. Croix still reels after each joke, confusing many English-speaking players.
- In In The Groove 2, if you fail Vertex^2, the failure screen says "Round Failed^2", in other words, Epic Fail.
Webcomics
Web Original
- Whateley Universe: Chaka's lame pun at the end of "Ayla and the Networks" gets her severely pummeled by pillows, beanbag chairs, etc.
- The web fiction serial Dimension Heroes is notorious for bad puns, which usually lead to whoever says them getting smacked.
- Dragonball Z Abridged Parody includes this little gem:
- In Spoony's Let's Play of Phantasmagoria 2, he made more than a few horrible puns and then smacks himself for doing so.
Western Animation
- In Batman Beyond "Dead Man's Hand," Bruce explains to Terry how the Royal Flush Gang are old-school gimmick villains, only committing robberies for items related to playing card suits (such as diamonds). Why their heist on a yacht for miscellaneous non-diamond jewelry, then? "It was in a yacht club." They're both disgusted by the pun.
- In fact, just about any episode featuring the Royal Flush Gang is guaranteed to be loaded with lame card-related puns (Kings Ransom is a notable offender). It's almost bad enough to qualify as a throwback to the campy 60's show.
- Likewise, Robin in Batman The Animated Series would usually be played pretty straight, although in Christmas With The Joker, after Batman uses a baseball bat to smash a bunch of remotecontrol airplanes, Robin utters this cringer; "They don't call ya Batman for nothing."
- Carlos, on The Magic School Bus, frequently inflicts these on his classmates, resulting in a
Collective Groan of his name. First Name Ultimatum by everyone else present.
- Looney Tunes' Foghorn Leghorn often came up with these, prompting sighs and eyeball-rolling from Henry Hawk, Barnyard Dawg, or whoever else he was talking to. ("You gotta keep your eye on the ball. Eye! Ball! Eyeball! I almost had a gag, son! Joke, that is!")
- There was a literal Card Carrying Villain on Jackie Chan Adventures, complete with puns like "We have the upper hand" and even his boss tells him to "quit with the card puns."
- In the first episode of South Park to air after 9/11, Towelie makes a cameo appearance. Discovering the kids don't want him around, he asks, "Am I to understand there's been a... Towelie ban?" Everyone else groans, once they figure it out.
- In Disney's Aladdin, during the final battle, Jafar makes a number of fairly horrible puns in quick succession (e.g. "Things are unraveling quickly" as he literally unravels the magic carpet). In the DVD Commentary, they comment on this, saying "he's trying to kill them with bad puns."
- He does it again in an episode of Hercules: The Animated Series when he teams up with Hades (who himself comments on it a lot).
- At least half of the things Numbuh Two says in Codename Kids Next Door. It really bothered Numbuh Five.
- That's nothing compared to the hurricane of horrible puns that burst out during the incident with Numbuh 1's, ahem, downside.
- Beast Boy from Teen Titans frequently makes jokes which his teammates hate. There are too many to list here, however most notable, I believe, is the one in which the throws the Brain into a freezing machine saying something like "Dudes check it out! BRAIN FREEZE". The entire hero cast (plus some extras) groans in dismay.
- Danny from Danny Phantom in the episode Shades of Gray, the ghost dog burst into the school and Danny responds with "Who let the dogs in?". Right afterwards, Danny had to explain the joke and decided to save some face to get the dog out. Sam responds with, "Bring better jokes!"
- In the Spongebob Squarepants episode "Pranks A Lot", Spongebob and Patrick get their hands on a can of invisibility spray.
Patrick (spray's Spongebob's hand with the spray): I gotta hand it to you, Spongebob, that is pretty funny!
Spongebob (snatches the can and sprays Patrick's stomach): Kinda gives ya an empty feeling, huh?
Patrick (snatches can back and sprays Spongebob's eye): Yeah, I see what you mean!
Spongebob (snatches the can and sprays Patrick's abdominal area): No guts, no glory!
- This is eventually interrupted by a title card reading "Several Bad Puns Later".
- Squidward tends to make lame jokes, sprinkling puns that only he laughs at. "Why didn't the kid go in the Pirate Movie? Because it's rated 'arrr'. You know, 'arrr' as in pirates?"
- He likes band humor, you know.
- Yellow Submarine is liberally sprinkled with puns, but one in particular, when the submarine's motor dies, falls into this category:
George: Maybe we should call a road service?
Paul: Can't, no road!
Ringo: And we're not sub... scribers.
John/Paul/George: [groan]
- The Simpsons Halloween Special — Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace has Willie/Freddie uttering a pun that's called horrible in the DVD Commentary.
Willie: [to a Latin-speaking Martin] You may have mastered a dead tongue, but can you handle a live one?! [proceeds to strangle Martin with his tongue, Freddie Kruger-style]
- Mr. Peabody from Rocky And Bullwinkle would end every segment of his show with a pun pertaining to the era they had visited, to the chagrin of Sherman.
- In one episode of Rocky And Bullwinkle, Bullwinkle discovers a toy boat covered in rubies, with the name "Omar Kayam" inscribed on the side. When Rocky asks, "Do you know what this is?" Bullwinkle waits a beat before answering, "If you're waiting for me to provide the answer, you're in for a long wait!" Rocky gamely announces(much to Bullwinkle's chagrin) that they now have the Ruby Yacht of Omar Kayam.
- In The Powerpuff Girls episode "Meet the Beat-Alls", Mojo justifies stealing eggs and other white items because "it's all right as they're all white!". The terrible pun prompts Princess to drop the eggs and groan in disgust.
- One of the The Fairly Oddparents episodes had a monkey gain access to Timmy's wishing power, and turns everything in the world to monkey versions- including the town name, which goes from "Dimsdale" to "Chimpsdale". When Timmy notices this he mutters, "When this is all over, I'm wishing for a world without puns..."
- Kim Possible fought the Mathter, a Riddler expy who specialized in math-themed crimes, with the appropriate math-themed puns, like "Time to subtract you from the equation!", or "Let me throw some numbers at you,"(as he tossed digit-shaped grenades), or "I've left your boyfriend with a new problem to solve." Finally, an irate Kim shouted, "Okay, one more lame-o math reference, and I am going to LOSE IT!"
Waldorf: Hey, some of these puns aren't half bad! Statler: I know. They're ALL bad" Both: Do-ho-ho-ho-hoh!
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