Sophisticated As Hell / Live-Action TV

The juxtaposition of erudite vocabulary with words that ain't so much that on the telly.

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• British impressionist Rory Bremner does a great bit with newsreaders reciting music lyrics in the same manner they read the news.
• In an HBO special, Bill Maher gave this public service moment in which he provided hard-core rap lyrics "translated faithfully into White".
• On Demetri Martin's Comedy Central special, one of his bits went, "I wonder what the most intelligent thing ever said was that started with the word 'dude.' 'Dude, these are isotopes.' 'Dude, we removed your kidney. You're gonna be fine.' 'Dude, I am so stoked to win this Nobel Prize. I just wanna thank Kevin, and Turtle, and all my homies.'"
  • His special "If I..." centers around a Socrates quote: "The unexamined life is not worth living," to which Demetri amends "...man."

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• Ally McBeal: "Let the record show: Dammit."
• The Armstrong and Miller Show
  • The World War II pilots: their accent and diction is old style, slightly upper-class English, but their actual words are all, like, utterly modern slang and shit, isn't it, though? Standard.
  • Also applies to Brabbins and Fyffe, parodying the wit of the Oxford-educated Flanders and Swann, with similar accents and demeanour, but with much more explicit material.
• Better Things: Sam's physician Dr. Babu speaks like you'd expect, except there's an f bomb in every sentence, or nearly that.
• Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory often delivers insults in expospeak. To wit:
  "I'm polymerized tree sap and you're an inorganic adhesive, so whatever verbal projectile you launch in my direction is reflected off of me, returns to its original trajectory and adheres to you."
  "I am given to understand that your mother is overweight... Now of course, if that is a result of a glandular condition and not sloth and gluttony, I withdraw my comment."
  • Also from Sheldon: "Oh, gravity, thou art a heartless bitch!"
  • Sheldon commonly says "To use the technical term" and follows up with saying slang, like "Bitchin'"
  • From Leonard: "The Homo habilis man discovering the opposable thumb says what?"
  • This exchange from season 2.
    Sheldon: We no longer live at 2311 Los Robles, we live at 311 Los Robles. *Holds up number 2 fixture*
    Leonard: You changed the address on the building? What about mail?
    Sheldon: No worries, I explained our predicament to our letter carrier. He was sympathetic. His exact words were "Got your back, Jack. Bitches be crazy."
  • Leonard's mother has one shining moment of this during her second appearance.
    Penny: Come on, I mean, you're not upset that your marriage is over?
    Beverly: Well, initially, I did feel something akin to grief and perhaps anger, but that's the natural reaction of the limbic system to being betrayed by a loathsome son of a bitch.
  • In the quoting variant, Sheldon responds to Zack's evaluation of their laser in "The Lunar Excitation":
    Zack: Whoa! Is that the laser? It's bitchin'.
    Sheldon: Yes. In 1917, when Albert Einstein established the theoretic foundation for the laser in his paper Zur Quantentheorie der Strahlung, his fondest hope was that the resultant device be bitchin'.
• Russell Brand. After Rob Brydon insulted his outfit on the Big Fat Quiz of the Year:
  Rob! Why have you elected to attack my apparel? I have these appurtenances and I look grand, and fine, and pleasant. Whereas you look like you've robbed C & A in an 'urry.
  • The Big Fat Quiz of the Year also frequently features this by having high-brow presenters reading from or describing something low-brow, such as Dr. David Starkey describing Jedward as if they were a medieval legend, Sir Ian McKellen reading nonsensical passages from the "auto"biographies of minor celebrities, and Jon Snow describing the events of a song ("It transpired that she was just 'bluffing with her muffin'... witnesses later described her expression as 'unreadable'") as if was a news story.
    • Even better was the show for 2012, which features Charles Dance reading passages from 50 Shades of Grey. You haven't lived until you've heard Lord Tywin ask if you want a relationship with "kinky fuckery".
• Quite a few characters in Billions, but Wags wins the prize ... especially if he's using religious imagery.
  To Bobby Axelrod, fees are religion and money is his god. This makes him the perfect shepherd for you in the material world. And at least when you pray to his god, you get another fucking Bentley out of it.
• A Bit of Fry and Laurie: Basically the series in a nutshell. For example, this sketch on language.
• Among the most beautiful examples of all time is Blackadder — How the War started.
  You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war. ... You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan. ... It was bollocks.
  • Much before, in the episode "Born To Be King", as the king departs to aid in the Crusades, presents this exchange:
    As the good Lord said, love thy neighbor as thyself. Unless he's Turkish, in which case kill the bastard!
  • From "Dish and Dishonesty" in Blackadder the Third:
    William Pitt the Younger: Sirs, as I said to Chancellor Metternich at the Congress of Strasburg, poo to you with knobs on!
  • From "Major Star" in Blackadder Goes Forth:
    General Melchett: If by a man's works shall ye know him, then you are a steaming pile of horse manure!
• Comedian Dylan Moran embodies this trope to begin with, and his character Bernard Black on Black Books uses this trope every time he opens his mouth. Here is a particularly awesome example. Here's a partial transcript:
  Bernard writes: [after receiving a letter of rejection to the book he sent in] Dear Mr. Chusington Howell Foxfarthing, thank you for returning my manuscripts and your enclosed nasty, niminy-piminy little note. I am afraid your letter is most unsuitable for me at the present time, as I've just spent the entire weekend writing the novel which you have summarily rejected. I can only presume it is company policy to reject all manuscripts not submitted in ten-foot high braille. And yes, I am aware that it is traditionally bad form to respond to any kind of criticism or rejection, but in this, as in all else, I am an innovator, therefore I may freely address you as piss midget. Still there's time to change your views and I think you will when we meet, and meet we most assuredly will when I suck out your eyes and use them as stoppers for my ears to muffle the screaming you make as I headbutt you into a fine paste. I do hope you will not be disheartened by your sudden, violent death. Yours Faithfully, Bernard Black.
• Dr. Sweets from Bones talks exclusively in this manner.
  Caroline: Use your fully grown-up words.
  Sweets: I assure you I will be totally, awesomely mature on the stand.
• Mr. Feeny in Boy Meets World is this in spades, constantly speaking words of wisdom, while sometimes using words like "duh" or "psych!"
• The dialogue in The Brady Bunch sometimes is a bit too eloquent for the context. One example occurs when Jan and Marcia are having a fight. Jan replies with "I don't care to discuss it!" and runs off.
• Breaking Bad: Jesse recycles his rehab counselor's earlier comment:
  Jesse: I gotta pay taxes now? What the hell's up with that? That's messed up, yo. It's Kafkaesque.
  Skinny Pete and Badger exchange confused glances.
  Skinny Pete: ...church.
  Badger: ...right.
• Lloyd Lowry in Breakout Kings: "You have a psychosexual disorder that manifests itself in deviant behaviour, so in short you are... disgusting."
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • "I have finesse! I have finesse coming out of my bottom!" And countless, countless other examples.
  • Many demons are surprisingly this like D'Hoffryn and the Beljoxa's Eye.
• "Loan Shark", a skit on The Carol Burnett Show featuring Carol, Harvey Korman and Sammy Davis, Jr., features a lot of wacky back-and-forths between snobbery and jiving...
• Castle used the quoting variant:
  Beckett: "Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy." F. Scott Fitzgerald said that.
  Castle: Then it must have been Ernest Hemingway who said, "Man, I sure could use a drink right about now."
• Chappelle's Show always did these with the "A Moment in the Life of Lil' Jon" sketches:
  Airport Receptionist: Well then, Mr. Jon, you're all set.
  Lil' Jon: OKAAAAAAAAAY! ...Pardon me, madam, will this be reflected upon my frequent flier miles?
  Receptionist: Did you book your flight online?
  Lil' Jon: ...YEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHH!
  • From the "Black Bush" sketch, there's Black Tony Blair, as played by Jamie Foxx.
    Black Blair: [in posh accent] We don't know much about Saddam, but we can't trust random niggas with things like that, as George so eloquently put it.
• Cracker. Fitz complaining about his son's layabout ways in "Men Should Weep".
  "You know Mark, you appear to be a symbol of the Lost Generation. Yes, that could well be the case. The crisis of Western capitalism has deprived you of work, motivation and the will to succeed but personally Mark, personally, I think you're a bone-idle git!"
• Not exactly this, but whenever Reid on Criminal Minds breaks out of his customary Spock Speak, people notice, and comment.
  Reid: Statistically, 67% of serial arsonists are male, 78% of them are white, and few, if any, are ever caught.
  Prentiss: Few, if any? You don't know the statistics on that?
  Reid: 23%. I'm trying to be more conversational.
  Prentiss: Oh. It's not working.
• Deliberately invoked by a rap producer on CSI, who segued smoothly from business-school formality to street smack and back again in the same paragraph, showing off how he can operate in both worlds.
• The Daily Show:
  • Wyatt Cenac's comedy special has a joke about how he saw a comment on a YouTube video of a cat jumping in and out of a box that said about the cat, "That nigga is adorable". He then says the only way the cat could be considered a "nigga" was if it either jumped in and out of a Newport cigarette box or if the box represented the duality of living in a homogenized society while trying to hold on to your fragmented cultural identity, and because those worlds are constantly clashing you must jump between them... like a nigga cat.
  • The show used to have a segment entitled "Great Moments in Punditry as Read by Children", which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: little kids reading transcripts from Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olbermann, and their ilk. Sadly, the segment hasn't been seen in years. And then, during one of the show's greatest highlights (namely, the "Go Fuck Yourself, Bernie Goldberg" piece), a man named Toppington von Monocle (with top hat, tails, teacup and monocle) comes on to refute the claim that their audience is unsophisticated... by quoting the Catullus quote above. Particularly funny because it comes off as fake but is in fact exactly what it says.
• Dead Ringers spoofed the "hip" BBC remake of Robin Hood by making all the characters speak in this manner: "Robin of Sherwood, I do fear that the Sheriff wishes to pop a cap in your ass".
  • The radio version did it with announcer Charlotte Green's refined accent applied to pop songs: "BBC Radio Four, I'm Charlotte Green. My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, and they're like, it's better than yours, Damn right, it's better than yours. More on that story later."
  • As with Rory Bremner, a recurring joke has newsreaders reciting music lyrics in the same manner they read the news.
• Deadwood uses this a lot, mixing philosophic descriptions and complex compound sentences with the Cluster F-Bomb. One fan, posting to Television Without Pity, gave a lengthy and dead-on imitation of the show's style, ending with, "On a personal note, having immersed myself in the world of Deadwood, I have found my own manner of speech and written communication (though perhaps not in this instance) improving and, what is more, proving to be most intellectually refreshing, as I now spend a little longer searching for the right word or the right turn of phrase instead of just spitting up the first fucking thing that springs to mind."
  • "My bicycle masters boardwalk and quagmire with aplomb. Those that doubt me... suck cock by choice."
• In an episode of Designing Women, Julia is enraged at a college professor who's dating her son. When she talks about their first meeting, Julia, still as polite as she always was, simply says, "I think you're full of crap."
• Doctor Who:
  • The special features for "Planet of Evil" contain one interview with an ancient Tom Baker who casually uses the word "calumny" before launching into an anecdote about how having a beautiful smile is very useful when you want to "pull girls".
  • The 1960s story "The Myth Makers" has a lot of this, to the point that Doctor Who Magazine pointed it out in a retrospective review. The example the magazine cites:
    Paris: Come, my children, our people have gone to the square of oratory, we must go and join them there and I must speak. And we must also make plans for the celebration. Thank you, my dear. (beat) See you later!
  • In "The Christmas Invasion", the Sycorax send a not-too-formal but not-at-all-casual ultimatum on Earth, demanding that they hand over one-half of the population and Earth's materials. In-between, the message also demands all their women, and they sign off with "Sycorax strong! Sycorax mighty! Sycorax rock!" Not "mighty as a rock", but "rock" in the modern sense.
• Quoth Deputy Andy, on an episode of Eureka: "My software dictates that I should verbally acknowledge my physical damage: Ow!"
• Done in The Fast Show with the "Cockney couple" who spoke in outdated Cockney slang with upper-class accents. On one occasion they go to Newcastle and pick a fight with a pair of "Geordies", only to be challenged by a "Yardie" from Kingston upon Thames, all equally as upper-class as them.
  Yardie: [in a crisp upper-class accent] Check me one time, whitie.
• A similar one from Father Ted:
  Bishop Brennan: You will address me with my proper title, you little bollocks! ^note Though the Sex Pistols trial established that "bollocks" was an archaic term for young priest - making this both funny and accurate.
• The Firefly episode "Jaynestown" opens with Kaylee and Simon having a talk about language. Kaylee claims the proper, well-dressed doctor never swears, and Simon says he does when "it's appropriate". Kaylee counters by saying that it's not supposed to be. A few minutes later, upon seeing a statue in the town square dedicated to Jayne, the ship's muscle and resident Jerkass, he can only manage, "Son of a bitch."
  • Also, Simon maintains his lack of swearing when confronted with Jayne having torn apart his entire infirmary (looking for duct tape) and all he can manage is to call Jayne a trained ape (without the training). Closest to a Precision "B" Strike, if only for the specific character.
  • In Serenity, he calls Mal a "son of a whore"... right after punching him in the face. It's not clear what gets Mal angrier.
• An unusually serious example occurs in the documentary Forensic Files when a prosecutor has difficulty using words to describe the level of derangement of the defendant. ^note The criminal in question had raped his three-month-old daughter, so he killed a stranger because he wanted to go to prison for murder, not rape.
  Gowdy: He is the most sexually deviant - forgive my lack of psychiatric finesse - maladjusted, screwed-up-in-the-head defendant that I have prosecuted in my fifteen years as a prosecutor.
• Frasier: Niles, often.
  Niles: Look, I know I don't have your total support in this, but — how shall I put this?
  Frasier: You don't care?
  Niles: If you could work the phrase "rat's ass" into there, you'd have it.
  • Frasier gets in on this as well.
    Frasier: Bebe, throughout our relationship, I have put up with a lot, but I never doubted for an instant your devotion to my career. Apparently, that is at an end and so, therefore, is my association with this agency. And screw, may I add, you!
• Friends, "The One Where No One's Ready":
  Chandler: So, in the words of A. A. Milne, "Get out of my chair, dillhole!"
• Glee pulled this with Bryan Ryan. "I've grown weary of your insults, Will. They sting. And they make me want to punch your face."
  • Also, Becky's Inner Monologue is delivered by Helen Mirren in an upper-class accent which often clashes with what she uses it for: "I, Becky Faye Jackson, am the hottest bitch in McKinley High School. Not only am I co-captain of the Cheerios, I'm also president of the Perfect Attendance Club and have a participation award in rhythm gymnastics. If you are wondering why I sound like the Queen of England, it's because it's my mind and I can sound like whoever I want, so lay off haters!"
  • Also with Ken Tanaka: "As most of you statistically minded people know, THAT SUCKS!"
• The Good Place:
  • When the ethics lessons start taking, Eleanor filters them through her past life experience, which is heavy on things like "Celebrity Baby Plastic Surgery Disasters" magazine. It leads to some very strange juxtapositions of random pop culture and high-minded philosophy.
    Eleanor: Kant would say that lying in any scenario is wrong, so if Michael asks you if you killed Janet you should say yes. On the other hand, snitches do get stitches.
  • When Shawn is discussing Michael's apparent success in his 'second' attempt at torturing the four humans, he is quick to point out that the plan had its detractors:
    Shawn: When you proposed this new form of torture, we all laughed behind your back. Some people called you names, like "the Thomas Edison of Incompetence", or "That Dick".
  • Chidi slips into this during his Heroic BSoD in season three, shortly after mixing up a giant pot of horrible marshmallow peeps chilli in front of his class. He gives a big speech about the three branches of ethics - virtue ethics, consequentialism, and deontology - before calling them all "hot, stinky cat dookie".
    Chidi: The true meaning of life - the actual ethical system that you should all follow - is nihilism. The world is empty, there's no point to anything, and you're just gonna die, so just do whatever. So now, I'm gonna eat my marshmallow candy chilli in silence, and you all can jump up your own butts.
• From Have I Got News for You:
  Paul Merton: [on Boris Johnson] It's just a disaster, isn't it? He's going to go off and do something surprising and extraordinary, and people are going to go: "Oh no, he's a fucking idiot."
• Frank Pembleton was probably the most intelligent character in any capacity on Homicide: Life on the Street, but one who also prided himself on brutal honesty. So he alternates polysyllabic words and erudite phrases from his education with blunt speech like calling ADA Danvers "the midget dweeb" and saying that murdered suspect Gordon Pratt "wanted to make the world a better place for losers like himself."
• House has this line.
  Chase: Hey, Foreman. Yo mama's so fat, when her beeper goes off, people think she's backin' up.
  • Which is doubly funny when you realize that it's in response to an insult hurled by Foreman at Chase about a minute earlier, and Chase is just now coming up with an insult to throw back.
    • And funnier still when you see Foreman's expression.
      House: Well, like the philosopher Jagger once said, "You can't always get what you want."
    • And later on:
      Cuddy: I looked up your philosopher Jagger, and it turns out that if you try sometimes, you get what you need.
• The Impressions Show with Culshaw and Stephenson, a Spiritual Successor to Dead Ringers, featured a sketch where celebrity chefs are characters in a Jane Austen-esque period drama. Gordon Ramsay frequently uses the trope: "Unhand that young girl, you intercoursing bosom!", "Fornicating hell!"
• Alex Trebek is prone to this on Jeopardy!, seamlessly shifting from his highly sophisticated tone to dry, self-deprecating humor and swift pop culture references.
  • Even funnier, this happens any time there's a category where the contestants have to guess a popular song with the clue consisting of selected lyrics. With the rise of hip hop and pop music, there have been a few howlers when he would read rap lines in his completely dignified voice. The same is true whenever such a category has The Announcer, Johnny Gilbert, do the same thing in his stentorian Tidewater accent.
• Key & Peele:
  • The sketch "Othello 'Tis My Shite" stars Leshawnio and Martinzion, two black noblemen attending the first-ever showing of Othello, who speak in a flawless combination of Flowery Elizabethan English and Jive Turkey slang.
  • The "Movie Hecklers" sketch, the stars start off yelling obnoxiously and shift into detailed criticisms of the movie's cinematography.
    "Come on man, don't go in there! Do not go into a crane shot right now, you kiddin' me?"
    "I mean, has this dude even heard of mise en scene? Put some information up in the frame, bitch!"
• Law & Order has an episode where a rock star is accused of rape. His lyrics with indications of misogyny are read in court with a deadpan tone, and repeated in Ben Stone's closing arguments.
  "One more time on the kitchen floor, your tank's on empty but I want more / I get what I want, it's a one way trip / You ain't a lady, you my bitch."
  • A later episode has Jack McCoy doing the same thing where he reads out a quote from a defendant accused of deliberately infecting women with AIDS. Watch it for yourself.
• Legion: In "Chapter 27", when Gabrielle asks her husband, "Are you gonna kiss me?", Charles Xavier (an upper-crust Englishman) enthusiastically answers, "Abso-bloody-lutely." "Bloody" is a British expletive, and it's the only time in the entire series where Charles — who's otherwise a courteous gentleman — swears, so it fits the "Slang delivered innocuously in a formal speech, especially from someone upper-class" example.
• On Lost Girl, Kenzi goes speed dating with Bo (looking for information) and is asked for her "favorite literary quote about regret."
  Kenzi: I think it was the great poet Ludacris who said, "Regret is for suckas, for suckas, for suckas. Regret is for suckas. Bitch."
• Mad Men:
  Roger: [to Joan] I wanna tell you something because you're very dear to me. And I hope you understand it comes from the bottom of my damaged, damaged heart. You are the finest piece of ass I ever had, and I don't care who knows it.
• The Mitchell and Webb Situation had a sketch revolving around this. There are some posh people in a bar, one of them has just brought the drinks.
  Posh man: You know, that makes me so angry. I was standing at the bar waiting to be served, and there was a woman there taking her drinks away. And she spilled her G & T on my wrist. You see, my sleeve is quite wet. I mean, if I was any kind of man I would have glassed her.
  Posh woman: Oh, you should have done, darling. You should have cut her face.
  Posh man: I know, but I get so embarrassed.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus:
  • The "Red Indian in the Theater" sketch features Eric Idle as a stereotypical Native American who eloquently sings the praises of the theatre... in Tonto Talk. "She fine actress... She make interpretation heap subtle."
  • In one sketch, Michael Palin plays an anchor giving the News for Parrots, reading every word in the same stentorian tone:
    The Minister of Technology today met the three Russian leaders to discuss a £4 million airliner deal. None of them went in the cage, or swung on the little wooden trapeze or ate any of the nice millet seed, yum, yum.
  • In another sketch, a play titled "Gay Boys in Bondage" was apocryphally attributed to William Shakespeare.
  • The Spam Sketch has this as the last item on the menu: "Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam".^note Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!^note SHUT UP!!
• The Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode Werewolf invokes this trope when antagonist Yuri (not exactly a model of sophistication himself) berates a romantic rival.
  Yuri: I mean, he's got no class at all.
  Crow: [imitating Yuri's thick accent] Theh cheessball'ss got no frriggin' cless!
• The Nanny: In "My Fair Nanny", Fran is throwing a high society tea party for Maggie, but Maxwell and Niles are afraid that Fran's Noo Yawk accent won't go well there. So, they give Fran a crash course in upper-class ettiquete, and at the party, she speaks with a posh accent (by speaking slower than usual) but still peppers her small talk with Yiddish as a Second Language.
  Fran: Please excuse me for being tardy, but I was on the phone with my mother, and she can be such a yenta.
• NCIS has this line in the episode "Scope" when Jimmy Palmer complains about having to ride in Ducky's sidecar due to being the only one in their group who doesn't have a motorcycle license.
  Ducky: Don't worry, Mister Palmer. Rest assured that, by my side, you will be hauling ass.
• QI is simply bulging at the very seams with such occurrences. Examples are too numerous and high in quality to relist from memory, so read the ^note fucking page.
• A variation of this happens on Queer as Folk (US) when the main characters are watching a televised interview with Police Chief Jim Stockwell, who's running for Mayor, where he is denying the (rightful) accusation that he was involved in the cover-up of the murder of a young gay man.
  Stockwell: [...] I have every confidence that the voters of our city will see through this obvious smear tactic, and not allow it to influence their decision-making when they go to the polls.
  Debbie: And I have every confidence that the voters are smart enough to realize that you are full of shit!
• Real Time with Bill Maher does this on occasion. This recent "New Rules" segment, for example:
  Maher: New rule; Creationists like Ken Hamm, who runs the Creationist Museum and said recently that we should call off the search for extraterrestrial life because aliens have not heard the word of Jesus and are going to Hell anyway, must listen to this alternate point of view from Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson:
  Tyson: That's messed up.
• In a flashback in Red Dwarf, after Lister fed Rimmer hallucinogenic mushrooms as a prank and was sentenced to two weeks of painting the ship's hull as punishment:
  Rimmer: Two weeks?
  Captain Hollister: [fixes him with a look] That's enough.
  Rimmer: Two smegging weeks?
  Captain Hollister: I said that is enough!
  Rimmer: [salutes] With respect, sir, you've got your head right up your big fat arse.
  • From Back in the Red:
    Holly: In computer jargon, my plans have all gone tits-up.
  • From Holoship, Lister's priceless dialogue with the officer from the holoship who comes to investigate Red Dwarf. The conversation takes the form of relaying technical messages back to their respective ships and includes such gems as:
    Binks: [...] What have we here? A human being — or a very close approximation. Chronological age, mid-twenties; physical age, 47. Grossly overweight, unnecessarily ugly — otherwise, would recommend it for the museum. Apart from that, no value or interest.
    Lister: Lister to Red Dwarf. We have in our midst a complete smeg pot. Brains in the anal region. Chin absent — presumed missing. Genitalia: small and inoffensive. Of no value or interest.
    Binks: Binks to Enlightenment. Evidence of primitive humour. The human has knowledge of irony, satire, and imitation. With patient tuition could, maybe, master simple tasks.
    Lister: Lister to Red Dwarf. Displays evidence of spoiling for a rumble. Seems unable to grasp simple threats. With careful pummelling, could possibly be sucking tomorrow's lunch through a straw.
    Binks: Binks to Enlightenment. The human seems to be under the delusion that he is somehow capable of bestowing physical violence to a hologram.
    Lister: Lister to Red Dwarf. The intruder seems blissfully unaware that we have a fairly sturdy holo-whip in the Munitions cabinet, and unless he wants his derriere minced like burger meat, he'd better be history in two seconds flat!
  • In another episode, Rimmer is trying to convince Kryten to help him with a dangerous and immoral intelligence-enhancement procedure.
    Rimmer: Wasn't it St. Francis of Assissi himself who said, "Never give a sucker an even break"?
    Kryten: Well if he did, sir, it was strictly off the record.
  • In "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", while in a computer-simulated Western:
    Kryten: Now, if you'll forgive the confrontational imperative - go for your guns, you scum-sucking molluscs!
• Rumpole of the Bailey:
  Sam Ballard: Look here, Rumpole, I would advise you to take this matter seriously.
  Horace Rumpole: [angrily] And I would advise you, Bollard, if you can find a taxidermist willing to undertake the work, to get stuffed.
• Saturday Night Live:
  • Jack Handey had a tendency to do this in his "Deep Thought" segments. Speaking with a deeply philosophical tone, accompanied by contemplative music in the background, he would deliver the strangest thoughts imaginable (because hey, free dummy). It was even released in book form. Well you see, I've got these sacks...
  • The Ladies' Man segments also used this trope. Leon Phelps was notorious for mixing sexual slang with romantic euphemism in an occasionally idiotic manner.
    • Or as the movie put it: "What is love? What is this longing in our heart for togetherness? Is it not the sweetest flower? Does not this flower of love have the fragrant aroma of fine fine diamond? Does not the wind love the dirt? Is not love not unlike the unlikely knot it is enlikened to? Are you with someone tonight? Do not question your love. Take your lover by the hand. Release the power within yourself. You heard me, release the power. Tame the wild cosmos with a whisper. Conquer heaven with one intimate caress. That's right, don't be shy. Whip out everything you got, and do it in the butt."
  • Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin's Point-Counterpoint revolved around Dan and Jane eloquently debating a current issue. At least, until Dan inevitably got pissed off at her.
    Dan: Jane you ignorant slut.
• Screenwipe, and everything else Charlie Brooker does, combines insightful analysis with Toilet Humour and swearing to great effect.
• Sesame Street: Alastair Cookie of Monsterpiece Theatre does this a lot, saying things like "Anyway, me digress."
• Step by Step: When Dana submits her first college paper, her professor, noting her Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, and emphasis of form and style over substance, refers to it as "Supercilious Crap".
  Dana: Crap?!
  Professor: Wonderful word, "crap". It's short, to the point, and unmistakable in its identity.
• In Supernatural, Archangel Lucifer and Archangel Gabriel finally meet and talk over their grievances. Quite appropriately tired of his older brother's "antics", the Gabester turns Lucifer's entire fall into this, with such lines as "Lucifer, you're my brother, and I love you. But you are a great big bag of dicks" and "Look at yourself... Boo hoo, Daddy was mean to me, so I'm gonna smash up all his toys."'
  • Castiel also counts. He usually speaks quite formally and then, after an elaborate Enochian chant, he delivers this line: "Come and get me, you little bastard."
    • That time he called Raphael his "little bitch" and Michael an "ass-butt".
• Steve Allen's dramatic readings of insipid pop lyrics during his time as host of The Tonight Show.
• Shortly after Sarah Palin retired as Alaska's governor, Conan O'Brien introduced a segment on The Tonight Show featuring Palin's farewell speech read as beat poetry by "Emmy Award winner and master thespian William Shatner."
• In the first season of True Blood Bill is on trial for killing another vampire in defense of Sookie. The Magister remarks that humans are only fit to serve vampires, and Bill says that not every vampire feels that way. The Magister reacts poorly to being challenged, and says:
  The Magister: Do you question my authority? I am The Magister, I was trained in the Inquisition and I am the adjudicator for every vampire territory in North America. As the humans say—the humans you love more than your own kind—"Back your shit down!"
• The Two Ronnies used this in the serial "Hampton Wick": "Make love elsewhere!"
  • In this monologue, a policeman gives advice on self-defence:
    When an eight-foot skinhead comes at you with a chainsaw, you simply position your body so as to counterbalance the net mass of your opponent, and by a subtle shift of your fulcrum, reduce his overall angular momentum. If this fails, kick him in the conkers.
• Eugene from The Walking Dead often speaks like this. For example, when told he has to join a supply run for some mechanical parts so that they don't "bring back the wrong shit", his response:
  Eugene: They are consistent in appearance across manufacturers. The shit will be correct. I will install said shit.
• Sam from The West Wing has this wonderful line about The Declaration of Independence:
  "We jumped out from behind bushes while the British came down the road in their bright red jackets, but never has a war been so courteously declared. It was on parchment with calligraphy and, "Your Highness, we beseech you on this day in Philadelphia to bite me, if you please."
• Used various times in The Wire. For example:
  Bubbles: You're equivocating like a motherfucker, man.
  Proposition Joe: I do carry some burdensome niggas...
  Cheese: This one ho was pullin' guns out her pussy! Shit was unseemly, yo.
  Bodie: Man, better go on before I lose my composure out this bitch!
  Proposition Joe: It ain't easy, civilizin' this motherfucker.
  Mouzone: Let me be emphatic. You need to take your black ass across Charles Street where it belongs.
  Carv: Did you just use word 'habitat' in a sentence?
  Bubbles: Y'all the one's supposed to be constabulatin'.
  • The infamous gangster board meeting scenes in the 3rd season. Conducted according to Robert's Rules of Order no less.
    Poot: Do the chair know we gonna look like some punk-ass bitches out there?
    Stringer: Adjourn your asses.
  • Also:
    Stringer: Nigga, is you takin' notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?
• Wolf Hall has Thomas More speaking in Latin, probably to keep a sense of decorum at the dinner table, where not everyone understands it:
  More: Luther is shit. His mouth is the anus of the world.
  Cromwell: [in English] What a pretty way you have with Latin.
• This exchange from the The X-Files episode, "Jose Chung's From Outer Space", after relating the story of Rocky the mechanic encountering Lord Kinboat, inhabitant of inner Earth.
  Dana Scully: ...now Rocky is what we refer to as a fantasy-prone personality.
  Jose Chung: Oh, Agent Scully, you're so kind. He's a nut! I don't know what I found more disturbing about his "manifesto" — his description of the inner earth alien sex orgy, or the fact the whole thing was written in screenplay format!
  • "Please explain the scientific definition of 'the whammy'."
• Yes, Minister, "Open Government",
  Chief Whip: In politics you have to learn to say things with tact and finesse, you berk!
• The Young Ones scene in which Neil's flatmates help him write a letter to his bank manager asking for a loan. Alternating between subservient pleading and resentment for The Man, it's a strong contender for the show's funniest moment.
  Darling Fascist Bullyboy,
  Give me some more money, you bastard.
  May the seed of your loin be fruitful in the belly of your woman,
  Neil

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