Funny / A Nero Wolfe Mystery

• In the pilot movie the successive Oh, Crap! moments by Amoral Attorney Dennis Horan when Saul puts back on the glasses he used for his disguise when he met Horan and the lawyer set him up to be blackmailed and then when Archie asks him if he wants to serve as a lawyer for his henchman (who will rat him to if he's deserted) and Horan tries to seize upon the henchman suggestion that it's a lawyers duty to represent something.
• In Disguise for Murder, Wolfe commandeers Archie's typewriter to write a note to the killer ... much to Archie's frustration, since Wolfe pecks out each individual letter at a glacial pace. Archie is seen drumming his fingers against the table in a 'typing' formation and a stoic expression on his face as if it's all he can do to stop himself yelling "For God's sake, just let me do it." The time and technology might be seventy years behind, but anyone who's had to sit and watch a less computer-savvy friend, family member or acquaintance agonisingly try to complete a task that they'd be able to do within a minute will be able to relate to Archie's weary frustration perfectly.
• In The Golden Spiders, Archie tries to shame Wolfe into taking a case brought to their attention by a young boy who witnessed a crime and is later murdered by the perpetrator:
  Wolfe: You brought him into this house!
  Archie: This is your house! You gave the boy cookies!
  (awkward silence; Archie crosses to his desk)
  Wolfe: (under his breath) You ate a couple of the cookies.
  Archie: What was that?
  Wolfe: Nothing.
• "The police! Shall receive! NO! SANDWICHES!!!"
• Most of Wolfe and Archie's interactions with Ellen Yeager in Too Many Clients, especially when they finally relent and take her to her murdered husband's love nest, with there being a Funny Background Event of her furiously destroying several of the decorations.
• Also from ‘’Too Many Clients’’ is the scene where Fred is enjoying himself in the love nests fancy bathtub while guarding the fort, and a woman walks in on him.
• Most of the scenes in The Silent Speaker where Wolfe is Obfuscating Insanity, and clearly enjoying himself in order to delay the police getting a warrant against him and to have an excuse to resign from the case so he can go after a bigger reward conflict of interest free.
  Wolfe: Aren't you a physician? Don't you know a nervous breakdown when you see one?
  Wolfe: They're coming in hordes. I see them on chariots with spiked wheels, waving insolent banners of inflation! Oh! Archie! They're pelting me with worthless coins!
• The visible glee Cramer has in serving Wolfe and Archie with subpoenas for a case they didn’t even get paid for in ‘’The Next Witness’’.
• While ‘’Christmas Party’’ doesn’t really add any new content to Archie pretending to be engaged and Wolfe’s awkward attempts to cover up having spied on him in a Santa costume, the facial expressions in those scenes add a degree of hilarity to them that the short story would have appreciated.
• In ‘’The Doorbell Rang’’ after Wolfe has smuggled several people into the Brownstone in orchid crates, Saul is the first one out and after telling Wolfe who is hiding in which crate, Wolfe realizes that he’s sitting on Fred. The look on Fred’s face when they help him out is priceless. A few moments later, the actor whose been hired as Wolfe's Body Double gets jammed inside of his crate and they all have to struggle to yank him out.'
  • Then there's a scene where Wolfe whispers to Archie (a bit piqued) how said Body Double looks at least twenty pounds heavier than him.
• In Cop Killer Wolfe makes a loud, petulant-sounding Sarcastic Confession to Cramer about how the suspects he's looking for are in Wolfe's guest room and to do his job and go arrest them. Cramer marches towards the door but hesitates, with some hilarious facial expressions as he goes from resolute, to thinking that Wolfe is just mocking him, to being unsure but deciding not to take the chance.
• In ‘’Die Like a Dog’’ there’s one moment where Fritz is heard yelling at the dog for snatching some food in the background.
  • At the end of Die Like a Dog, as Crammer and Stebbins are wrestling to handcuff the murderer, while the rest of the suspects are racing to console a sobbing woman, they all come to a confused stop when Wolfe opens the door and makes a whistling noise to call the dog, who races out at which point the struggling and crying resumes.
• In the final scene of the series (one which wasn't in the books) after Wolfe is fed up from a case that started when an ambassador asked him to prepare some gourmet trout at a diplomatic retreat where a murder occurred, The phone rings, Archie answers it, listens for a moment, says he'll ask and then tells Wolfe that it's the President, and he wants Wolfe to make those trout again, at Camp David. Warily, Wolfe takes the phone, as Archie gets his coat and heads for the door.
  Wolfe: Yes sir? NO! I am NOT interested in a subscription to the Saturday Evening Post! Archie, get back here!

---