YMMV / The Lonely Island

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Michael Bolton is either an easily-distracted cinephile, or a troll who likes mocking the club jam he's writing the hook for.
• Awesome Music:
  • "Jack Sparrow", "Motherlover", "Jizz in My Pants", "Lazy Sunday", "Threw It on the Ground", "Space Olympics", "Semicolon", "YOLO", "We Are a Crowd", and "I'm on a Boat". Don't even try to deny it.
  • "Dick in a Box" and "Three-Way (The Golden Rule)".
  • "Do the Creep", "I Just Had Sex", and "Like a Boss".
  • "Let's Bash" has an entire verse that strings together a brag rap out of the names of all the Major League teams, and it not only works, it's not immediately obvious the first time you hear it.
• Bizarro Episode:
  • "Jack Sparrow", which is weird, even by the trio's standards: Michael Bolton constantly interrupting their Boastful Rap with Pirates of the Caribbean, then into various other movies.
    Andy: Okay... Turns out Michael Bolton's a major cinephile.
  • The entirety of Incredibad Bang, Bang, BANG DJ LARRY aside, "The Old Bang, Bang, BANG DJ LARRY! Saloon" quickly goes from a typical Lonely Island song to drunks constantly Bang, Bang, BANG DJ LARRY! interrupting each other. It's a parody of hip hop mixtapes in which way too many sound effects are played and the singers interrupt each other, thrown in with random screaming of the Bang, Bang, BANG DJ LAAAAAAAARRRRRRRrRrrRR...! DJ's name.'
  • "Semicolon" seems out of nowhere for the boys - with bizarre non-sequiters and crappy puns that are affixed to each sentence - but it's also a parody of Drake and Lil Wayne's style of rapping.
  • "Sax Man" is notable in that all of the vocals are done by guest Jack Black, rather than any members of the Lonely Island.
  • "Everything Is Awesome". A family-friendly song without some kind of bizarre twist in the song.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • "Throw It on the Ground" has the protagonist celebrating a kid's birthday by throwing the slice of cake he was offered to the ground. But he isn't satisfied with just that...
    I threw the rest of the cake too!
    WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD, JACKASS!
  • The protagonist of "Jizz In My Pants" doing the titular action when it turns out ”Bruce Willis was dead at the end of Sixth Sense," implying a certain kink.
• Epic Riff: The bassline for "Incredibad." Also qualifies as a major Ear Worm.
• Genius Bonus:
  • More like a "worked in retail" bonus, but it's actually a gigantic pain in the neck when a customer at a grocery or retail store tries to pay by check instead of cash or card. As if the cashier in "Jizzed In My Pants" didn't already have enough reason to dislike the weirdo who visibly orgasmed right there in front of her, then repeatedly blamed her while coming up with rambling excuses for it...
  • "Finest Girl" has a number of intricate references to the death of bin Laden as an outgrowth of its premise.
  • "Ras Trent" has various references to reggae, Rastafari culture, and Iyaric, but since the title character is a white American college student with a Foreign Culture Fetish, the joke is usually that he's getting things slightly wrong. At one point Trent exclaims "Murder she wrote!": "Murder She Wrote" was a 1990s single by Jamaican reggae duo Chaka Demus & Pliers, but in the music video this is accompanied by the an image of Angela Lansbury with dreadlocks digitally added to her head; the implication would be that Trent knows the Chaka Demus & Pliers song, but understands so little of it he thinks it's actually about the TV show.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In "Natalie's Rap 2.0," Beck Bennett's character nearly calls Disney's Star Wars movies (consisting at the time of only The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and The Last Jedi) superior to the Prequel Trilogy, until Natalie Portman cuts him off. The Rise of Skywalker would later weaken the public's enjoyment of Disney's Star Wars movies, by making it apparent that the studio had no plan for the Sequel Trilogy's story.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: In "Natalie's Rap 2.0," a spiteful Natalie Portman demands Beck Bennett at gunpoint to call the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy good, then say something nice about Jar Jar Binks. Over the next few years, prequel defenders would gain prominence among Star Wars fandoms, to the extent of Disney commissioning more projects set in that trilogy's era, then Jar Jar's actor would earn a crowd-pleasing guest spot in The Mandalorian Chapter 20.
• Ho Yay:
  • We'll Kill U: "Hey, Guy Number One." "Hey Guy Number Two." "I'm just doing me." "I'm doing you too." ["No!"]
  • The entirety of "Iran so Far", towards Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (played by Saturday Night Live's own, Fred Armisen).
  • Invoked with, obviously, "No Homo."
  • Too $hort suspects that the dudes are gay in "The Compliments", since most of their compliments toward each other involve their penises.
• Love to Hate: The Villain Protagonist of "Threw It On The Ground", an Insufferable Imbecile who throws things on the ground for the most bullheaded of reasons (such as when he's offered a free hot dog and he accuses the hot dog cart attendant of pitying him, or not only refusing a kid's birthday cake slice but also throwing the rest of the cake too) is a very memorable and hilarious character...and it's all the more satisfying when Elijah Wood and Ryan Reynolds give him his just desserts by tasing him in the ass for throwing their dinner table on the ground.
• Memetic Mutation: At one point, the main page on this Wiki had to be locked to prevent users from perpetually referencing them.
  • I'M ON A BOAT!!! I'M ON A BOAT!!! EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME, 'COS I'M SAILING ON A BOAT!!!
  • (action) LIKE A BAWSS
    • Similarly from "Like a Boss," the "pussy" soundbite from the line "pussy out!" has become a popular meme soundbite.
  • (action) and I Jizzed. In. My Pants.
  • THIS IS THE TALE/OF CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW
  • (negative circumstance or outcome) DOESN'T MATTER, HAD SEX.
    • (embarrassingly negative circumstance or outcome) STILL COUNTS.
  • NOW BACK TO THE GOOD PART!
  • I'm goin' to the YMMV page to see what they added. I see a new meme, AND THROW IT ON THE GROUND!
    • WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD, JACKASS!
    • Happy Birthday TO THE GROUND!
    • I'M AN ADULT!
    • MAAAAAAAN!
  • (Insert something that can be interpreted as Ho Yay subtext) NO HOMO!
  • Shy Ronnie's trademark pained grin is fairly popular on Twitch, where it sees use as the "haHAA" emote (available only through the Better Twitch TV plugin), used to denote anything considered cringeworthy (up to and including itself).
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • "Spring Break Anthem" is touted by some fans as some sort of "ultimate bisexual anthem" when the point of the song is contrasting all the degeneracy and debauchery that straight college students engage while in spring break, with homosexual marriage, and how the latter is hypocritically criticized while the first is seen as a staple of American culture. In fact, the song outright condemns typical spring break behavior.
  • "I Just Had Sex" is a satire on society's obsession with sex, with the singers' very underwhelming encounters being the greatest things ever because "doesn't matter, had sex!" A lot of fans treat it as a sincere, earnest celebration of sex.
• Nightmare Fuel: From Great Day: "OR WAS IT?!"
• Older Than They Think: The trio have been writing comedy together since junior high, long before they joined ''Saturday Night Live" (Samberg as a performer and the other two as writers) and became famous.
• Parody Displacement: "Like a Boss" by Slim Thug: 2 million YouTube views. "Like a Boss" by The Lonely Island: 178 million.
• Sampled Up:
  • "Iran So Far" from Aphex Twin's "Avril 14th". Notably, the rights issues caused by use of the sample prevented the song from being included on Incredibad.
  • "Santana DVX" from Udo Lindenburg's "Gene-Galaxo-1990".
  • Incredibad uses the famous drum break from "Impeach the President" by Roy C. Hammond.
  • "We're Back!" from Laura Lee's "That's How It Is".
  • "Rocky" from King Floyd's "I Feel Like Dynamite".
  • "Trouble on Dookie Island" from The Hornets' "Minna Dareka wo Aishiteru".
  • "No Homo" from Bobby Byrd's "I'm Not to Blame".
  • "YOLO" from The Joy Formidable's "Whirring".
  • "Spell it Out" from Ludovic Decosne and Pierre Daubresse's "Gloaming".
  • "I Don't Give a Honk" from James Brown's "The Bells".
  • "The Compliments" uses a sample from, of all things, the Ghost in the Shell soundtrack.
  • "Perfect Saturday" from Woods Saturday's "Universal Love".
• Signature Song: "Like a Boss," first and foremost. "I'm On a Boat", "Jizz in My Pants," "Dick in a Box", "Lazy Sunday", and "I Just Had Sex" are more or less tie for second place, given that each turned out to be a Fountain of Memes. And for the little ones, "Everything Is Awesome".
• Squick:
  • To the singers (and the listener, if they're not into that sort of stuff) - the ending of Boombox. Elderly orgy.
  • In the preview to the 2011 Lonely Island album, Akiva complains about his erectile dysfunction: Yo, my dick don't work, man, that shit is soft as a pillow!
  • In the same song, "I got Hepatitis C from a horse!/But no confusion!/It wasn't from the sex/It was from the blood transfusion!"
  • Also in "We're Back!", Akiva informs us that he suffers from Stinky Dick, wherein every time he urinates, a foul odor is emitted.
  • Basically the entirety of "We're Back!", except for the revelation that Akiva buys lunch for a homeless person of his acquaintance.
  • The Creep invokes this by basically being a tailor made guide to making yourself look as creepy as possible and no, imagining Nicki Minaj doing the same things does not make it less creepy.
  • Motherlover is about two men who forgot Mother's Day and decide the best present they could give is to "fuck each others mothers". That's already creepy but then one of them says "while you're in my mother, make me another brother" and plan on becoming each other's step fathers.
  • Both "Classy Skits". One has Falcor raping Atreyu and the other has a man masturbating in front of his friends.
  • Michael Bolton in Erin Brockovich drag (which makes him look like Sarah Jessica Parker) is either this or a Funny Moment, especially with the smoldering look he gives the camera.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Rocky" has the same premise, jokes, and plot (including the ending) as Will Smith's "I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson", though the beat itself is different.
• Tear Jerker:
  • While utterly hilarious, the song "Great Day" is about a guy who lost his job, his family have left him and haven't spoken to him, is living in a filthy house, and has gone on a cocaine bender and subsequently gone insane; or alternatively, he succumbed to his coke addiction and he lost his job and his family.
  • It's mostly underscored thanks to the Comedic Sociopathy overarching theme, but it's hard not to at least feel a little bad for the various minor characters in "Threw It On The Ground" who offer the protagonist various things only to have them figuratively thrown back in their faces when he throws them on the ground right in front of them. Such as the poor sap who's just handing out energy drinks as part of his job and the hot dog stand clerk who probably just wanted to show his appreciation for a frequent visitor. Perhaps most of all is the kid who tries to offer a slice of birthday cake only for him to not only drop the slice unceremoniously on the ground (hell, the way it's framed, it's like the cake itself is sad to be left as a soiled mess on the concrete), but he throws the rest of the cake too.
  • The costumed spokesperson in "Space Olympics" has to watch his beloved extraterrestrial sporting event go wrong in all sorts of ways, and then the station that the athletes are on runs out of oxygen and the self-destruct is accidentally triggered. His final moments are defending the evacuatees from a hoard of invasive aliens, all as he acknowledges that "MY SINS WILL TAKE ME TO HELL!"
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • "Lazy Sunday" dates itself very specifically to when The Chronicles of Narnia was in theaters, and mentions quizzes in movie theaters (which have mostly been abandoned), MapQuest and the defunct Yahoo! Maps as major competitors to Google Maps, as well as Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams' relationship. That said, it is so specific that this may be on purpose.
  • "YOLO," which parodies a fairly forgotten slang word from the early 2010s.
• The Woobie:
  • The title character of "Ardy Party" is a drug-addicted, disgusting, unhygienic, sexually-deviant, possibly mentally-challenged hobo who is forced by Jorma and Akiva to "rock the party" under the condition they provide him with cocaine and PCP. One of the last lines truly hammers this point in.
    Akiva: If Ardy ever stopped rockin', then you know we would kill him!
    Roll him up in a carpet, and throw him off of a building!
  • The hot dog salesman from "Threw It On The Ground", more than anyone else in the video, may not be as put-upon as all that, but he looks so shocked and hurt when the freebie he offered as a personal thank-you gets thrown on the ground and is never seen getting over it.
  • Mark and Jose just want to dance with everyone at the "IHOP Parking Lot", but the Legion keeps compelling them to "shake four halves of butt" before ultimately dragging them apart (and foreshadowing the end of their friendship).

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