Stealth Pun - Television Tropes & Idioms

The Geneon dub of Lupin III once had Jigen describe a house-fly that turned out to be a listening device as "a flying pun".
In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Nanoha is pursuing Jewel Seeds, which grant wishes. One such Jewel Seed had possessed a tree that was near a couple's confession of love, and it responded by turning into a massive maurdering monster, trapping them inside itself and trying to consume everything. The pun comes when you realise what the guy must have been wishing for: wood.
- A less dirty way of interpreting this was that they pined for each other.
  - The above editor now owes me aspirin for causing me to now have "CVBNM<>" imprinted on my head.
During one of Adam Warren's Dirty Pair stories, a villain introduces a clone of "good girl" Yuri into the convention the girls are hosting, to shake things up. We first hear about "clone-Yuri's" antics from one of the con-goers (much to real Yuri's distress). Then we cut to Clone Yuri's room and we can clearly see (though the words are never spoken) that she has been literally "screwed, blued, and tattooed".
The main character of One Piece is named Monkey D. Luffy, and his first appearance in the anime was breaking out of a small barrel. Perhaps the implication is that the show will be more fun than a barrel of monkies.

Close Anime and Manga

David Letterman did something along these lines when he gave a list of the top ten Bill Clinton jokes. He never actually got to the punchline, he just would trail off and look at the audience, who could figure it out for themselves and were hysterical by that point.
A somewhat well-known joke concerns a pair of hikers who die while rock-climbing. As their souls ascend to heaven, they see a pair of eagles and exclaim, "Ah, eagles!" The eagles, to be polite, say nothing.
- "Ah, souls!" (Say it out loud. Works best with a British accent.)

Close Stand Up Comedy

Anyone remember the Charmin toilet paper commercials with the cartoon bears? Left entirely unsaid is they're all about bears shitting in the woods.
Boost Mobile has a commercial with Danica Patrick racing and going into the pit where her pit crew are a bunch of men dressed in outfits similar to the Dallas cowboy cheerleaders, one even has tan lines for a bikini. So it features drag racing.

Close Commercials

In the middle of Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Nick asks Russ where he learned artificial respiration after he delivers it to Amy. Russ replies, "In French class." Nick doesn't get it and the build-up is left unfinished...then, at the very end of the movie, right after the Fade To Black, Nick suddenly gets it and laughs hysterically.
In Evan Almighty, Evan's wife is called Joan. And the movie is about building an ark. Thankfully, they never mention it in the movie.
In Mamma Mia!, the action is set in Greece. Whenever the (English, Swedish, and American) main characters begin to sing, the townspeople join in at the refrain. Making it a Greek Chorus.
In The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the meal the characters have been eating is suddenly revealed to be the remains of Eddie, played by the singer Meatloaf. The audience traditionally fills in the joke: "Not Meatloaf again!"
In Scotland Pa, an adaptation of Macbeth, it is casually mentioned that Donald (Donalbain in Macbeth)' and Malcolm's father, Duncan, made most of his money through donut sales. Later, Donald takes over the restaurant, which had been renamed to McBeth's, and calls it, well, guess what... Mac Donalds, of course.
In the recent Star Trek movie, the alien in the bar that sits between Uhura and Kirk has elongated features. So why didn't the bartender say "Why the long face?"
- The character was credited as "Long Face".

Close Film

In The Wee Free Men, a talking toad is introduced as a guide for Tiffany Aching. Although it was explained that said toad's yellow colour was caused by his being unwell, nobody ever actually told her to "follow the yellow sick toad". As the author said:
Terry Pratchett: I just happened to note a toad had a skin which had had unfortunately gone a bit yellow because it had been ill. Far be it from me to make a pun. You did that.
- This was played straight in Moving Pictures, where a man in half a lion suit says "I don't know what it's called, but we're doing one about going to see a wizard. Something about following a yellow sick toad."
- Similarly, in Jingo, when Carrot is investigating an attempted political killing with strong similarities to the Kennedy assassination, he interviews a gnoll. In addition to being an informant, the creature has plants growing on it. That's two possible routes to the phrase "grassy gnoll", but it never happens.
  - The worst offender has got to be Soul Music. There's a scene where the main character, Imp Y Celyn, explains his name- imp being a term for new growth at the end of a stalk, and celyn being a member of the holly family. The entire book is full of music puns like that, some more subtle than others. Of course this is made even more obvious when he starts going by the name Buddy.
  - Later on in the book, the Dean of UU spends several scenes constructing an elaborate coat. Later, Death, knowing that some things have to look right, borrows it before going very quickly to an important place. When he gets there, he kills The Music. None of this is ever spelled out.
  - The Dean also pends a lot of time riveting trousers out of denim. The Archchancellor complains, and the Dean replies that soon EVERYONE will be wearing them, and they certainly won't be called Archchancellors. This troper didn't get this one for years, but the implication is that they will be called 'Deans' = Jeans.
  - One of the bands manages to acquire a leopard, which is a bit hard of hearing.
- In Witches Abroad, there's a couple of puns where the first two witches give an outright pun or Allusion but Nanny Ogg delivers the stealth pun.
  - When stuck in a Wizard of Oz parody, the witches are calling out each other behaviour. Magrat says Weatherwax needs a heart, Weatherwax says Magrat needs to get some brains, Nanny Ogg despairs and says she needs a drink. Dutch Courage
  - The three of them are deliberating on the idea of a transport system built on broomsticks. Their ideas for names are puns on well know real world airlines but Nanny Ogg gets cut off before she says her. However, note she is looking at Magrat and being rather coquettishly. Consider Magrat's role in The Hecate Sisters trio. Virgin.
- In Good Omens he gets a clever one with a character whose last name is "Pulsifer". As those familiar with Christian theology know, Lucifer translates roughly into "Bringer of Peace." The "Puls" in Pulsifer, however, translates into legumes, or possibly "peas," ergo: "Bringer of Peas."
One of the creatures in The Phantom Tollbooth is the Everpresent Wordsnatcher, a bird who comes from a place named Context and likes to take words from other people's mouths and twist them. He comes this close to explaining the pun:
"I'm from a land very far away called Context. But it's such a nasty place I try to spend all my time out of it."
- The book is really entirely made up of these puns.
In The Rock Rats by Ben Bova:
Fuchs: So, Mr. Ripley, will your crew be able to assemble the latest additions on schedule?
Mr. Ripley: Believe it or not, they will.
- Oh for Fuchs' sake...
In Gödel, Escher, Bach, the dialogue "Aria with Diverse Variations" (named after a piece by J. S. Bach more commonly known as the Goldberg Variations) mostly concerns the Goldbach Conjecture and variations on it. Near the end of the dialogue, Achilles suddenly offers the Tortoise the gift of a "very gold Asian box." This pun doesn't get to sink in until after the true ending of the dialogue: a fake ending in which a cop arrives and Achilles turns the Tortoise in for the reported theft of a Very Asian Gold Box.
In The Dresden Files, there's a supporting character named Virginia, who is a werewolf. No one mentions that they are afraid of Virginia Wolf.
- Also in The Dresden Files, Harry is asked to guess the name of the wizard who is the newest member of the Senior Council. His guess is "Klaus the Toymaker." It is implied that Harry is not joking, but he's wrong.
In the classic Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", Holmes and Watson find a priceless gem inside a stolen Christmas goose, and figuring out how it got there takes them all over London. Somehow, Conan Doyle managed to resist having Watson complain about a wild goose chase.
In Shrek 2 The potion given to the King to make Fiona fall in love with the first man she kisses is labeled "IX". It is not mentioned then that it must be Love Potion Number 9.
In Coraline, the seats of the theater are filled with small dogs - Scotties. Later, when the world shows its dark side, the dogs become skeletons... Night Terriers?
In Up, there is a scene in which several dogs pilot fighter planes, making them... dogfighter pilots.
In Corpse Bride, this◊ is the Head Waiter.
In Disney's Robin Hood, Maid Marian (a vixen) has a hen as a nursemaid, but nobody references the aphorism about "setting a fox to watch the henhouse".
In The Incredibles, the name of Syndrome's island is only mentioned once: a passing reference to "current temperature on Nomanisan" during Mr. Incredible's second visit.
- Nomanisan Island... except the Isle of Man.

Close Literature

The guys behind Monty Python's Flying Circus (and all other Monty Python media) are famous for avoiding punchlines in almost everything they've done. Their reason was that they would see great skits, but would usually end up disappointed by the weak punchline. They resolved to end their sketches before the punchline, unless they wanted it to be ironic.
The Father Ted episode "Chirpy Burpy Cheap Sheep" is about a sheep who is being driven neurotic. There's a concealed pun implicit in this concept (and revealed in The Other Wiki's relevant episode entry) but it is something of a subversion since neither the pun nor the punchline are actually spoken.
The same Nantucket limerick shows up in the pilot of Babylon 5. Delenn has heard it, and thinks it's a typical example of Earth poetry....
And again in this Daily Show/Colbert Report bit, as a shorter alternative to an epic poem.
A variant appears in the Star Trek The Next Generation episode "The Naked Now". As the Enterprise crew succumb to an inebriation-inducing virus, Data reports picking up numerous disturbances on internal sensors, including a crewman singing a limerick:
Data: There once was a woman from Venus, whose body was shaped like a—
Picard: Security!
One from the Pushing Daisies episode 'Dummy':
Chuck: But where are the real dummies?
Emerson starts sniggering
Narrator: Before Emerson Cod could reply with a clever, if slightly insulting remark, something moving caught his eye.
The Colbert Report has Gorlock, a Signs-esque alien who advises Stephen on various topics. He was first introduced as Stephen's financial advisor and an excuse to make Scientology jokes, but we later find out that he's also Stephen's attorney. Making him... A legal alien.
In Veronica Mars, the late Lilly Kane called her younger brother Duncan by the nickname "Donut". One (admittedly cute) fanfic posited that it was because he wanted to be a cop as a kid. Someone clearly missed the pun.
One episode of The Muppet Show opened with the Bug Band, a group of four insects, singing She Loves You. Backstage after the song, Kermit says that the group needs a name and instead of the obvious suggestion they come up with The Who and The Grateful Dead.
The BBC's series Merlin features King Uther. He keeps a dragon penned up in the dungeon.
In Star Trek The Original Series, Kirk claims to be from the island of Noman at one point

Close Live Action TV

Pick a song by Relient K. Any song, really. It will contain at least one of these, if not an Incredibly Lame Pun in the title.
In the song "Necessity" from Finian's Rainbow, the lines quoted below provoke the shouted question "Do you mean he's a —?", which is answered in the affirmative (the implied statement being that Necessity is a bastard):
Oh, hell is the father of gin,
And Cupid's the father of love.
Old Satan's the father of sin,
But no one knows the father of
Necessity.

Close Music

One issue of Private Eye, covering the scandal after Jacqui Smith's husband used her expense account to buy adult films, ran with the joke "At least he's not a banker!", the unspoken pun being that he is however (literally) a wanker.
- Private Eye also often refer to themselves as an "organ". On the obvious level, it's a pun on the fact that the eye is an organ, the Stealth Pun comes in with the fact that this then makes them a "Private Organ".

Close News

In The Wizard Of Id a visitor to the untrustworthy King's castle notices that the King's flag consists of a pair of black X's on a white background. The visitor asks for the name of this emblem. The king moves on to another pun before it mentioned the king is represented by Double Crosses.

Close Newspaper Comics

One Youtube Poop, ARNOLD THE PIG RAPES EVERYONE, has a Big Lipped Alligator Moment when an assassin breaks into Chun Li's apartment (from Street Fighter: The Animated Movie). There's a Panty Shot. Chun Li then exclaims, "Oh god! Arnold the Pig!" After a close-up of "Arnold the Pig" (actually Vega; HandWaved by the description saying that Arnold the Pig has the ability to change forms at will), the scene changes. So Yeah.

Close New Media

Kennywood in Pittsburgh has an inverting pendulum ride called the Aero 360. It's shaped like... um, the Kennywood logo◊.

Close Theme Parks

In Half-Life 2, Dr. Kleiner's pet headcrab is named Lamarr, and later confirms the pun when he can't find it.
Alyx: We'll get you a new headcrab.
Dr. Kleiner: There's only one Heddy!
- That's Hedley!
- Not to mention Alyx's part in naming the Zombines in Episode 1.
In case 2 of Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, a valuable jewel is called the "Tear of Emanon". If you don't get it, read it backwards.
- In the third case, the murder victim was a computer programmer working for a company called Blue Screens. The phrase "blue screen of death" is never used.
- The final case features two characters using false names with the surname "Deauxnim". Considering the series' love of Punny Names, it's quite surprising that neither is called "Sue".
  - Well, all the false first names for the "Deauxnims" end with an "s" sound. "Elise," "Laurice," etc.
- The character's name in Japanese is also a Stealth Pun: her pseudonym is "Elise", but her real name is "Maiko" (one translation of which is "dancer").
In Europa Universalis, guess which colour is used to represent Burgundy on the world map.
No points for guessing which animal is featured on the coat of arms of Aswan in Crusader Kings by the same developer. A lion.
- Not a swan?
In The Curse of Monkey Island, part of the Hideous Hangover Cure is "some hair of the dog that bit you." You satisfy this requirement by taunting a graveyard guard dog into biting you, and then taking some of its fur. The pun is never pointed out by anyone, including the bartender.
In Kingdom Hearts II, Namine tells Kairi at one point to "Believe in yourself", whilst trying to convince her to step through a dark portal. If you don't get it, remember that Namine is Kairi's Nobody.

Close Video Games

One of the guests at Donkey's funeral in Weebl And Bob is a giant ape. Chris identifies him as Donkey's father ("He doesn't like to talk about it."), but the character's name is never mentioned.

Close Web Animation

This Irregular Webcomic strip. Also, comparing "hobbit" and "habit" is so common that the author promised to only do it once every 100 strips. Mostly averted, though... The author is abnormally fond of puns. Somehow, he makes it work.
- Not to mention this strip. ( "I'll get you, store of hay! And your little togs, too!") In which he mentions this very article.
- Another example: in this strip, Lambert's hobbit-pun is ruined by a (rather ominous, but that's not the point) cough.
In this episode of Striptease, in a flashback to high school, Max and Em are squirted with red paint by another student, who is then caught by the teacher... red-handed.
In this episode of Adventures in ASCII (a strip where the characters are letters and other printables), Miss B reacts with a stony silence upon learning that Bold H is taking the guest Miss Delta (she's from @hens) down the river to see the estuary.
Miss B: ...
Bold H: What?
Miss B: I didn't say anything.
Bold H: It was the way you didn't say it.
- Here's another one from the same comic about an injured number. Apparently a three falling in a forest does indeed make a sound.
A really meta Stealth Pun that is also an Incredibly Lame Pun occurs in Antihero For Hire. Shadehawk kicks a garbage can at an opponent while shouting "Garbage Pun!"
Already known for its moments of Hurricane Of Puns, Dominic Deegan has no problem throwing in puns which are incredibly lazy; to their credit, though, they are always accompanied by either a visual reference, a character looking at the reader with an absolutely disgusted look on their face, or both.
This xkcd comic doubles the stakes. It's based on another joke with an Incredibly Lame Pun chline.
- Even better; it inverts the punchline.
Tally HO, a somewhat obscure webcomic, does the Stealth Pun here with a common cry of Windows supporters and creators alike. "It's not a bug, It's a feature." This isn't original; it's an old geek joke.
You actually named it "Variety"?
- The guy in white is Bobby, the incarnation of Life.
Nerf Now with a classic riddle and a..."modern classic" Dracula. "What is a man?"
Chopping Block Here.

Close Web Comics

In Kim Possible, when we are first introduced to Team Go, Ron asks why Mego wears a purple costume. Team leader Hego replies, "He's a shrinker" and drops the subject. He's a shrinking violet (but not a Shrinking Violet, mind you); Warner/DC would not be amused.
- This is also the reason for Violet's Meaningful Name in The Incredibles (she's painfully shy, with her superpower being invisibility, or rather controlling "ultraviolet" light).
  - And for Austin's fur color.
  - Also in The Backyardigans, in the episode "Mission to Mars", Austin controls a Mars Rover named Rover. This Trouper also realized the joke about this also meaning the car Austin Rover.
In the The Fairly Oddparents book-jumping episode "Shelf Life":
Wanda: Egad, he turned the Three Musketeers into the three Mouse—
Timmy then swiftly covers her mouth and teleports them out.
- And later in the same episode:
Cosmo: So he gets into a physics book, what's the worst that could happen?
Timmy: He could turn gravity into gravy. He could turn the planets. He could turn Uranus into—
Wanda: Oh my God, we have to stop him!
The first Veggie Tales movie contained—without comment—a bunch of city guards whose weapons were long poles with fish on the ends of them.
George Frankly, of Math Net on Square One TV, also visited the island of Noman. (Back when Kate Monday was still his partner, and he was still with the LAPD.) He explained the name as being of Native American origin.
- In The Mysterious Benedict Society, the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened is on Nomansan Island.
One episode of Tiny Toon Adventures has a Credits Gag explaining that Plucky Duck was "inadvertently omitted from 'The Name Game.'"
- In fact, Wikipedia reports you can't use: Alice, Tucker, Chuck, Buck, Huck, Bart, Art, Mitch, Rich or Richie or you get profanity.
The Rugrats movie had Charlotte say towards the beginning of the movie, when referring to the soon-to-be-born Dil, "You know what they say - born under Venus, look for a—" which is then interrupted by her cellphone ringing.
Robot Chicken once had a shot of the Fourth Doctor standing on the first base of a baseball diamond. After waiting a second, the Doctor says "Do ya get it?"
- I thought the joke was the "Senreich-Green University" sign. But when you think about it, that joke make sense.
The Simpsons did it a couple times with the limerick about the man from Nantucket. For the record, "There once was a man from Nantucket/Whose cock was so long he could suck it/And he said, with a grin/As he wiped off his chin/"If my ear were a cunt I would fuck it!."
- Once:
  Barney: (doing handsprings) I am the very model of a modern major general!
  Homer: That's nothing! (doing cartwheels) There once was a man from Nantucket, who... D'oh! (runs into wall)
- And again:
  Homer: You know, I once knew a man from Nantucket.
  Bart: And?
  Homer: Let's just say the stories about him are greatly exaggerated.
- And again:
  Homer: There once was this guy from an island off the coast of Massachusetts... Nantucket, I think it was. Anyway, he had the most unusual personal characteristic, which was, um...
  - Another instance not using the man from Nantucket limerick, maybe even being a parody of its usage, comes in an episode where Krusty the Clown is giving Homer an old trampoline of his and talks about dirty limericks ("There once was a man named Enis...").
  - So WHO had the most limericks written about them - was it the man named Enis, or the woman from Regina?
- Another from the Simpsons is the traffic guy for Channel Six News, Arnie Pie, who very deliberately avoids the painfully obvious pun on his name; his segment, live from the traffic chopper, is called "Arnie in the Sky."
- Still another: Krusty the Clown once mentioned that he and Bette Midler once owned a horse together, and named it "Krudler." For those who didn't get it, the more appropriate name is revealed in the DVD Commentary of the episode: Misty
- Alternatively, the far less appropriate Busty
In The Tick, there is a running gag where several villains are never actually named, but they are very obvious visual puns. So we have an evil boy genius with see-through plastic cranium, but never actually called "Brain Child". Or the man dressed as someone's granny, obsessed with stealing inventions is never called "The mother of invention".
- And neither is his name Necessity?
Surprisingly, The Powerpuff Girls does this at one point: despite the series' tendency towards the Incredibly Lame Pun, the Mayor's secretary is referred to only as "Miss Bellum." Given her brain capacity relative to that of the Mayor, it's not hard to guess what her first name is... Sarah.
- They have stated her name at least once. However, it was in fact Sarah.
In the Code Monkeys episode "Trouble In The Middle East", Dave refers to Khakistan's leader, Huuj Asman, as "Assman".
In Futurama, Fry's grandfather is named "Enis". His rank is "Private".

Close Western Animation

A recurring thread on Something Awful is "Real pictures that look like photoshops". And eventually, someone will post this◊.
Fark.com is enamored of headlines with StealthPuns of its more memorable memes. For example: "Duke upset in NCAA tournament. If only there were some pithy catch phrase to describe their ineptitude."
Vista-tan has huge tracts of land.

Close Web Original

In the famous F.A.O. Schwarz Toy Store, New York City, there are a pair of life-sized stuffed animals over the display case for board games. They don't say, but they are, of course, cheetahs.

Close Real Life

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