Your Mom insults in live-action TV.
- From 30 Rock:
- "What's the difference between your mum and a washing machine? When I dump my load in a washing machine, it doesn't follow me around for a week afterwards!"
- Jack has a rather surprising one when he asks Lemon to go to a fancy royal birthday celebration with him:Liz: Okay I'll do it, but I won't like it.
Jack: That's what your mom said last night. Booyah.
- Alex Rider (2020): When Alex shows up with a head wound, Tom instantly resolves to "destroy" whoever did it. His plan for this involves donkey porn, Photoshop, and pictures of the guilty party's parents.
- From Angel:Angel: Another minute, and I would have given them everything. The ring, the scroll, your mom... how is your mom, anyways?
- On one episode of Batman (1966), a villain taunts Batman with "Your mother wears army boots!", to which Batman responds, "Why yes, she does... and she finds them quite comfortable!" (Which is odd, because in canon, Batman's mother is a victim of Death by Origin Story)
- From The Big Bang Theory:
- Sheldon tries to trash talk before a bowling match, but he hedges a bit:Sheldon: You bowl like your mother, unless she's a competent bowler, in which case you bowl nothing like her.
- Sheldon tries to trash talk before a Robot Wars-style battle, but he still hedges a bit:Sheldon: Also, I'm 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 that comment.
- In one episode, Sheldon goes further than ever and claims to have banged Raj's mom. As Sheldon is an asexual virgin, absolutely no one takes him seriously.
- When the guys fought for a ring from the production of The Lord of the Rings, they tried to get Sheldon down by talking about his mom's sex life. He seemed to be taking it reasonably well, so the guys stepped up and reminded him that his mee-maw had sex to have his mother — and she also liked it.
- Sheldon tries to trash talk before a bowling match, but he hedges a bit:
- Big Fat Quiz of the '00s:
- This was the answer Noel Fielding and Richard Ayoade gave to a question. They then proceed to make cracks about Jimmy Carr's mother. (Notably, it's one of the few times Deadpan Snarker Richard Ayoade loses his composure.)Richard: Did your mum kill him? I heard your mum killed him during sex! (laughs)
- Romesh Ranganathan managed to make this joke without even saying "your mum:"Jimmy: Question number one: Dara's mum's name.
Romesh: I know this one!
- This was the answer Noel Fielding and Richard Ayoade gave to a question. They then proceed to make cracks about Jimmy Carr's mother. (Notably, it's one of the few times Deadpan Snarker Richard Ayoade loses his composure.)
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine:
- Defied in a first season episode. Detective Peralta gets into a Volleying Insults match with the obnoxious Fire Marshall Boone. Boone makes a comment that leaves a perfect opening for a "your mom" joke — but before Peralta can take advantage of it, Boone immediately points out that his mother happens to be dead, "so let's tread lightly on the response."Peralta: That's not fair!
- In the fourth Halloween episode, this is Peralta's response to Holt calling him a has-been. He apologizes for it immediately.
- Defied in a first season episode. Detective Peralta gets into a Volleying Insults match with the obnoxious Fire Marshall Boone. Boone makes a comment that leaves a perfect opening for a "your mom" joke — but before Peralta can take advantage of it, Boone immediately points out that his mother happens to be dead, "so let's tread lightly on the response."
- One episode of Castle has Detectives Ryan and Esposito, two extremely close friends, captured by the Big Bad. Ryan is tortured for information while Esposito is Forced to Watch. Esposito says he can't stand it anymore, and tells the Big Bad: "Listen to me. You're too late. The cops already know everything about... me and your mom." Then he starts cracking up.
- El Chavo del ocho has a Running Gag where whenever Doña Florinda slaps Don Ramón for something she thinks he did or tried to do, she usually tells him to do it to his grandmother. If El Chavo is around, he usually asks Don Ramón something about said grandmother. Feeling offended by the question, Don Ramón hits El Chavo and usually comments something about his grandmother as the sole reason he won't hit Chavo a second time. For example:Doña Florinda: Next time, go act like a clown with your grandmother!
Chavo: Don Ramón, your granny likes the circus?
Don Ramón: Toma! (hits Chavo) And I won't hit you twice only because my granny was a trapeze artist. - Community:
- Here:Stormtrooper: Who are you?
Pierce: Your mother's lover. (shoots) - Jeff fires one off at Shirley when she and Annie are interrogating him over a backfired prank that's caused nothing but trouble. While Shirley is naturally less than impressed, unfortunately for Jeff it backfires on him when Annie takes it as a good excuse to slam his head into the study room table.
- Here:
- Cram once had a contestant recall lines from a book literally called Snaps: A Book of Insults. Graham Elwood would start the insult and the contestant had to finish it, just like on In Living Color!. To her credit, she recalled seven of them successfully without missing, only stopped by the clock.
- In a later episode of Criminal Minds Tara Lewis spends the episode making jokes about Luke Alvez's mother, including this gem at the end:Alvez: No. How could different sexual positions result in ugly babies?Lewis: They've done studies that prove it.Alvez: Studies by who?Lewis: Your mom. *laughs*
- In the CSI episode "Ending Happy", the owner of a brothel that is a crime scene gets annoyed when Nick won't speed up the search to let him reopen the rooms and comes out with the unusual gem, "Your mother sleep with Azerbaijani!"
- In an episode of Dark Angel, when Alec confronts a gang of steelheads who are monopolizing the steroid black market he's trying to break into, a British steelhead named Eddie asks what he needs five hundred dollars for:Alec: (in British accent) Actually, I need it for a ride on your mum.
- Doctor Who:
- A variant in "The Girl in the Fireplace": The Doctor (who is Playing Drunk) confronts the clockwork robots, telling them, "You're Mr. Thick Thickity Thick-Face from Thick Town, Thickainia... and so's your dad."
- In "The Runaway Bride", Donna and the Doctor are stuck in the middle of nowhere and trying to take a cab back to the church. Eventually, they realize neither of them has any money. The cabbie dumps them out and all we hear is Donna scream, "And that goes double for your mother!"
- In "The Vampires of Venice", Rory, attempting to draw the Monster of the Week away from Amy, tells it, "The only thing I've seen uglier than you is your mum!" The monster's reaction cues an Oh, Crap! look.
- In the Farscape episode "Green Eyed Monster", Stark has Rygel Bound and Gagged while he's rambling away, but stops when he hears Rygel mumble an insult.Stark: What's that? My mother sucks what?(Stark removes the gag only for Rygel to projectile-vomit all over him)
- The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: Phillip Banks had an excellent response to this. Don't insult his wife, don't insult his children, and do not insult his mother
:Bully's Father: I think you must have her confused with yo mama!Uncle Phil: (decks him across the room)Will: That's it, Uncle Phil, you're grounded! - In Galavant, Sir Jean Hamme makes these constantly, which Galavant points out are getting a bit overused. In 1256.
- From Glee:Puck: Hey, ankle grabber! I had sex with your mother. No, seriously. I cleaned your pool, and then I had sex with her on your bed. Nice Star Wars sheets.
- The Golden Girls had this a few times in an episode. Made funnier by how in a second scene it was Sophia, Dorothy's mom, about to say the line:Dorothy: Now are there any questions?
Kid: Yes, Ms. Zbornak, what does Joe have to say about all this?
Dorothy: Joe who?
Kid: Jo' mama! - The Good Place: The Bad Place demons love this trope and so frequently use it to insult others (including each other, since for them mean comments are the equivalent to compliments).Shawn: And Val. Who's a bigger skidmark than Val?
Val: Maybe your mom. (everyone in the Bad Place meeting room laughs, including Shawn)
Shawn: Classic. - Gotham: Fish Mooney comes back with a crack about Peabody's mama when the other woman insists on calling her "number 13" rather than by name.
- Home Improvement has a Running Gag about Tim's Tool Time co-host Al's mother being very large, often taking the opportunity to make "your mom" jokes to him — sometimes during the show. But she really is that large; at her funeral, his momma really did require eight pallbearers to carry her casket.Tim: Your mother is so large, she has her own zip code!
- In the Horatio Hornblower episode "The Even Chance", during the Inquisition scene where Simpson questions and tortures Horatio, he insults his mother by saying she earns her living on her back. Horatio is absolutely infuriated and tries to fight; however, the evil, villainous Jack is stronger and beats him up frightfully.
- House:
- Chase has a deliberately cringe-inducing moment when he attempts a "yo' mamma" joke. It's truly horrific.
- Used subtly (well, as subtle as a "your mom" joke can be used) in later episode:Foreman: How many of those have you had today?
House: I don't know. Is "your mother" a number? - Done even more subtly in the episode "Distractions," by way of a Bilingual Bonus. While trying to sabotage an old rival's lecture, House uses a couple of phrases in Hindinote . House says "teri maa ki," in a tone that implied that he was apologizing for interrupting the lecture—when, in fact, the phrase near-literally translates to "Your mother."
- Chase has a deliberately cringe-inducing moment when he attempts a "yo' mamma" joke. It's truly horrific.
- From How I Met Your Mother, when the gang is helping Barney's mother move:Barney: Whoa, Ted, that thing you're packing is way too big to fit in that box.
Ted: Yeah, that's what your mom said.
Barney: How dare you!
Ted: No, she actually said that.
Barney's Mom: (walking in) Oh, dear, I thought I told you, that's just not going to fit in there. - A recurring sketch on In Living Color! had a Game Show called "The Dirty Dozens", in which the host would supply the first part of the insult, and the contestants would ring in to finish it. Unfortunately, not all categories lend themselves well to the joke (e.g. "Yo' momma so good at math..."). But it worked well enough that they later made "spinoff" versions such as Wheel of Dozens and Family Dozens. For example:Host: (deadpan) "Yo' mama so hairy..."
("T-Dogg" buzzes in)
Host: T-Dogg?
"T-Dogg": Yo' mama so hairy, Bigfoot be takin' pictures of her! - In an episode of The IT Crowd, Moss is being bullied, and Roy attempts to help him stand up for himself by roleplaying:Roy: Nice glasses!
Moss: Not as nice as your mum's glasses!
Roy: Still a little bit complimentary, but it's getting better. - Jeopardy! was no stranger to the joke itself:
- The show had a category called "Your Momma!" on 12/16/2010, which brought laughter the first time a contestant picked it. The exact wording didn't help:
Contestant: Alex, I'll take "Your Momma!" for $400.- A category (20th Century Women) in a 2004 "Power Players" episode prompted Al Franken to quip that he didn't know a lot about women. Alex responded with "That's what your wife said." The future Senator from Minnesota lunged at him, but was tackled by Keith Olbermann before he could reach him.
- One episode of sitcom Ladies Man has Alfred Molina's character learning to fight with someone else. One stage of the fight involves the "ritual" of insulting the opponents mother, and they start practicing it.
- Shoresy in Letterkenny lives for this.Shoresy: Fuck you, Reilly, I made your mom so wet, Trudeau deployed a 24-hour infantry unit to stack sandbags around my bed.
- Phyllis uses this to get one over on Gene in Life on Mars:Gene: Serves you right for staying up all night rutting with that new fella of yours. D'you let his guide dog watch?
Phyllis: His guide dog's giving your mam one. From behind. (Sam smirks)
Gene: (to Sam) Whatever 'appened to all the classy birds? - Happens in the season finale of Luke Cage (2016). Luke is fighting Diamondback, who is revealed to be Luke's half-brother with the same father. He tells Luke that their father never loved Luke's mother, but a bystander overhears:"Wait, wait, wait. Yo, the dude's talkin' 'bout your moms, Luke? You reppin' Harlem, you better put it on him, son."
- In Married... with Children:
- Episode "Bearly Men", Al is about to fight with a street gang.
Al: Any last words, punk?
Gang member: Yeah, your wife's good in bed!
Al: So, you're a liar, too! (punches him)- Episode "Children of the Corns", Al and Griff are about to compete to see who can sell the most shoes.
Al: Let's rock, fat boy.
Griff: Yo momma!
Al: My wife!
Griff: [Beat] You win. (walks away)
Al: (chuckles, then frowns) No, I don't! - From M*A*S*H:
- Winchester is angry with Hawkeye and B.J. and stops talking. The two try to goad him out of his silence, saying to him, "Your mother wears very expensive combat boots!" They very nearly get him to crack with "Your parents voted for Roosevelt. Four times!"
- This exchange in the mess tent between Burns and Houlihan, post-breakup:Burns: This place is a mess. Hey, I made a joke!
Houlihan: So did your parents.
- Dave Gorman examines and deconstructs the stock "Your mother is a whore!" insult in one episode of Modern Life Is Goodish. He starts by pointing out that, when used against you by a stranger, they're simply saying something they do not know to be true, and the phrase is essentially someone saying "I'm trying to upset you!". He then illustrates this by substituting the words to make other non-insulting phrases that also may or may not be true, such as "Your cousin is a dentist!", "Your brother is a printer!" and "Your printer is a Brother!".
- MTV used to have ad bumpers of New Yorkers trash-talking each other with "your mama" jokes (often at one of the city's famous public basketball courts). They would later base an entire show around the trope, appropriately titled Yo Mamma and hosted by Wilmer Valderrama (better known from That '70s Show).
- Played with in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 showing of "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians", when Santa greets a Martian family, and the Bots start quipping, "And so's my dad. And so's your dad! And so's your mom! And your sister swims out to troop ships!"
- Stephen Fry demonstrates one on QI:"Your mama’s so fat, she could usefully have a calorie-controlled diet and regular exercise."
- Saturday Night Live:
- Sean Connery in the Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches would repeatedly throw these at host Alex Trebek:Trebek: This is the sound a doggy makes.
Connery: Moo.
Trebek: That is incorrect.
Connery: Well that's the sound your mother made last night!
Trebek: ...We would have accepted "bow wow" or "ruff".
Connery: Ah, rough! Just the way your mother likes it, Trebek!- or:Connery: It's been a long time, Trebek.
Trebek: Not long enough.
Connery: That's not what your mother said last night! - or:Tom Hanks: (hand is stuck in a pickle jar) But I want a pickle.
Trebek: But we can't keep playing unless you let go of the pickle.
Connery: That's what your mother said last night! - One segment saw Trebek become aghast upon reading the final Jeopardy category "Famous Mothers", simultaneously sparking joyous exaltation from Connery, screaming, "My day has come, Trebek!" Host Alex tears up the category card, saying "I won't give you the satisfaction."
- or:
- The Talk Show parody I'm Chillin' had a running "Mother Joke of the Day" segment.
- A satire of Timothy Geithner's "stress test" for banks had CitiGroup writing things that made fun of Geithner, complete with this gem:And CitiGroup wrote: "Hey Geithner, WE'VE got a job for your MOTHER!!" Now, I don't know if they're serious about that job or not, but I think my mother would be really pumped.
- The "Samurai Hotel" sketch, the first appearance of John Belushi's Samurai character, has him dueling against Richard Pryor's fellow samurai character. The duel ends with Belushi's character yelling, "Yo' mama-san!" to which Pryor's character replies with, "My mama-san?!" Interestingly, this is the only sketch that ends with the Samurai character speaking English. He tells Chevy Chase's customer character, "Well, I can dig where you're coming from."
- In the same episode, in the famous "Racist Word Association" sketch, Pryor's character, still angry with all the racial epithets that Chase called him, yells out "Your mama!" and "Your grandmama!"
- In one of "The Ferey Mühtar Talk Show" sketches, co-host Tarik Ozekial responds to Ferey making fun of his suit by saying, "Well, your mother gets boned by goats." Ferey is stunned, and Tarik apologizes, making a vague excuse about his unhappy home life.
- Sean Connery in the Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches would repeatedly throw these at host Alex Trebek:
- The E4 Voiceover Man gets a great one during an advert for School of Comedy.Kid: Slaphead!
Peter Dickson: Yeah? Well, your mum didn't seem to mind! - The dirty dozens are Serious Business for Mo and Marcus of Smart Guy, who treat it like a martial art, even bowing before and after a match. When they attempt to instruct Marcus' little brother TJ, the eponymous Smart Guy, as a method of standing up to a bully, it ends up backfiring on him when one of TJ's "yo' momma" jokes (well, technically "yo' daddy"), "Hey, yo' dad's so ugly that he ended up arrested for mooning", turned out not only to be very much true, but also the bully's Berserk Button. He was forced to become the man of the household after his father was hauled off to jail, and the stress and need for attention was the very reason he became a bully.
- Stargate SG-1: In the fifth season episode "Failsafe", O'Neill and Jackson recount how a particular negotiation with the Asgard went south:O'Neill: And after that, I kind of lost my temper.
Hammond: What exactly does that mean?
Jackson: Let's just say Jack made a reference to Freyr's mother.note - Star Trek:
- One of the most offensive Klingon insults is "Hab SoSlI' Quch!", which translates to "Your mother has a smooth forehead!"
- The Star Trek: The Original Series episode "This Side of Paradise" has Kirk trying to snap Spock out of the influence of mind-altering spores by making him angry:Kirk: What can you expect from a simpering, devil-eared freak whose father was a computer and his mother was an encyclopedia?
- In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Samaritan Snare", Captain Picard tells the story of how he came to need an artificial heart after unwisely insulting a group of Nausicans. He recounted directing a "your mom" crack at the most fearsome in his opponents, showing that the upright and noble Captain Picard was Not So Above It All, at least when he was a young ensign recklessly inciting a Bar Brawl. He tells it in his most typically Picardian urbane way with a Narrative Profanity Filter:Picard: I stood toe-to-toe with the worst of the three and I told him what I thought of him, his pals, his planet, and I possibly made some reference to his questionable parentage.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
- This exchange in "The Siege":Bashir: Quark, leave it!
Quark: I can't leave it, it's all that I have. My personal mementos, my family album...
Bashir: It's full of gold-pressed latinum, and you know it.
Quark: ...Who told you?
Bashir: Your mother did, the day you were born.
Quark: Never-make-fun-of-a-Ferengi's-mother. Rule of Acquisition Number 31!note - In "The Way of the Warrior", Klingons attempt to insult Odo in Klingon, and Garak replies with "Actually, I'm not sure Constable Odo has a mother."
- This exchange in "The Siege":
- Star Trek: Enterprise
- In "Cold Station 12", Arik Soong has one of Dr. Lucas's colleagues exposed to a deadly pathogen to force Lucas to cooperate. When Lucas calls him a son-of-a-bitch, Soong replies, "Actually, Mother was a chemist."
- In "In a Mirror, Darkly", Hoshi interrogates a Tholian and interprets one of his defiant remarks as "something about your maternal ancestor".
- From Summer Heights High:Kearin: All you FOBS have man-boobs!
Jonah: Yeah, well, ya mum has man boobs! - Supernatural:
- In "Time Is on My Side", Dean is torturing a demon with holy water:Dean: I'm gonna ask you one last time! Who holds my contract?!
[Demon suddenly has Black Eyes of Evil and a nasty smile]
Demon: Your mother. Yeah, she showed it to me right before I bent her over. - In "Family Matters", Christian Campbell catches Dean snooping around Samuel's office. As Dean comes up with a weak excuse about needing to call someone in privacy:Christian: Ah. Samuel's locked office. Pretty private. Who you calling?
Dean: Your wife. Let her know I'm not gonna make it over tonight. - When Dean and Crowley meet for the first time since the former was sent to Purgatory with Castiel, we get this exchange:Crowley: Where's your angel?
Dean: Ask your mother.
Crowley: There's that grade school zip. Missed it. I really did.
- In "Time Is on My Side", Dean is torturing a demon with holy water:
- In The Unit, Bob knocks out a guard at SERE school:Bob: Tell your mom I'll drop by around 8.
- In Veep, Mike and Dan have this exchange after Mike buys an used car:Dan: Nice wheels, Mike. Is it new?
Mike: Not quite. Like your mother, it's been previously loved and paid for by a couple of guys. - Averted in Welcome Back, Kotter, when Kotter contrasts the Dozens with the "modern" (1970s) style of insult-duelling starting with the beginning of a classic "Your momma..."Barbarino: Hey, say whatever you want about my dad or myself, but you don't talk about my mother! That woman's holy.
- Whose Line Is It Anyway?:
- One session of Hollywood Director had Colin "ordering" his "actors" to redo the scene in "yo' momma" jokes."We're not that big on Yo Momma jokes in Canada."
"Yeah, we go 'Eh Momma'". - The Weight hoedown had Drew get payback for a jab at his weight from Wayne by claiming that he "burned all [his] calories [bleep]ing Wayne's mother". Wayne was laughing so hard afterwards that he had trouble standing up straight.
- One session of Hollywood Director had Colin "ordering" his "actors" to redo the scene in "yo' momma" jokes.
- WKRP in Cincinnati: Herb reluctantly buys a painting at a charity sale to score points with the boss. Bailey likes it and says so, and he gives it to her. Later, he hears it may be worth a fortune and tells her he wants it back, saying "I meant 'It's yours' like a figure of speech, like 'I love you' or 'So's your mother!'" When she won't give it back, he tells her "I'm very disappointed in you." She looks conciliatory and says "Herb? So's your mother."
- The X-Files has the father variant in "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" thanks to Mulder and The Stupendous Yappi, a Phony Psychic so phony that not even Mulder believed in his abilities (though he might have had some faint Psychic Powers):Yappi: Skeptics like you make me sick.
Mulder: Mr. Yappi, read this thought.
[Yappi stares at him, then suddenly leans back as if he was hit and raises his eyebrow]
Yappi: So's your old man! - A sketch on You Can't Do That on Television has the mother walk into the living room, to her child's embarrassment, wearing combat boots. She claims it's (literally) to stamp out cockroaches on the floor.
- One sketch on You're Skitting Me had a school dedicated to teaching people how to master the art of insulting others by using "Your Mum is!" in response to any comment.
