Basic Trope: You hear the setup, but not the punchline of the joke.
- Straight: Mary asks Spencer, "What do you get when you cross a high heel and a steamroller?" The scene cuts away before we can hear the punchline.
- Exaggerated:
- Every time Mary tells a joke, viewers don't hear the punchline.
- We hear a very long setup leading into a Feghoot, but not the ending.
- Downplayed: Mary starts reading out the punchline, but then gets cut off. The viewer is still able to infer it themselves.
- Justified:
- It's a joke most people know, so there's no point in repeating the punchline.
- Mary remembered the setup of the joke, but not the punchline.
- Inverted: We hear the punchline, but not the setup.
- Subverted: When the scene comes back, we hear the punchline: "Flat foot!"
- Double Subverted: That was a different comment not related to the joke. We still don't know what the punchline of that is.
- Parodied: When we cut back to Spencer, he says "You didn't finish the joke. What do you get?"
- Zig-Zagged: We hear some parts of the setup, some parts of the punchline, but not in the right order, and it may or may not be possible to infer what the full joke is.
- Averted: Mary tells a full joke.
- Enforced: Nothing Is Funnier, and the writers didn't think they could come up with a funnier punchline than what the viewers would imagine.
- Lampshaded: "What do you get when you cross a high heel and a steamroller— oh, look at that!" "Hey, you didn't finish!"
- Invoked: Someone cuts off Mary before she can tell the rest of the joke.
- Exploited: Mary refuses to tell Spencer the punchline so it bothers him.
- Defied: Mary ensures there's nothing to interrupt her before she tells the joke.
- Discussed: "Isn't it annoying when you know the setup of a joke, but not the punchline?"
- Conversed: "Do you think the writers actually had a punchline in mind, or did they just leave it up in the air?"
- Played for Laughs: The setup is so impossibly silly that there's no punchline that would make sense, and imagining it is all the fun.
- Played for Drama: Mary can't finish the joke because she's anxious about speaking in front of an audience.
I gotta tell you, there's something you should NEVER do at Orphaned Setup.
