"What? What, sit around playing video games? GAH!"
- The beginning of the movie, Buster is narrating how he became enthralled with show business, pulling a …And That Little Girl Was Me. Unfortunately, some stagehands are waiting outside his office demanding to be paid.
Buster Moon: And I should know, because I am Buster-
Angry chimpanzee: Moon! Open this door!
- The part where he noted that his child self's "dream of becoming the first koala bear in space had become toast" is also good for a laugh.
- When Buster bikes up to the fancy restaurant he's meeting Eddie in, he tells the valet to be careful as the bike's "A classic". The minute Buster enters the building, the bike falls apart, leaving the confused valet holding a rusty handlebar and seat.
- In their introductory scene, Ash and Lance try to sing a duet together very badly, and before they've even finished, the appalled club owner has this to say about their performance:
Harry: Oh my gosh, I thought you guys said you were musicians!
- Mike's introductory scene is funny because of how much it Crosses the Line Twice. When a monkey on the street offhandedly gives him some pocket change for his music, Mike gets very angry that he didn't receive a satisfactory amount of money. He jumps on top of him so he can start rummaging through his pockets, he steals his inhaler while he's having an asthma attack, steals his wallet, and then yells out to everyone nearby that the monkey lied to him about being short on cash. And then, after he's done taking his money and publicly humiliating the poor man, Mike has the audacity to call him a bully before resuming his performance.
Mike: (examining the inhaler) What do you smoke out of this?
- The reveal that Buster quite literally lives in his office. He sleeps in his desk drawer!
- The audition scene is by far the funniest moment of the movie! Highlights include, in order:
- The shrimp singing "Crazy In Love".
- A trio of frogs singing Van Halen's "Jump".
- A sheep singing Seal's "Kiss from a Rose".
- The red panda group performing the Japanese pop song "Kira Kira Killer". Mrs. Crawley enjoys it and claps along, Buster's face screams "What on Earth?!"
- A quartet of turtles singing an a cappella version of Donavan's "I Love My Shirt".
- A hippo singing Shooby Taylor's rendition of "Stout Hearted Men".
- The rabbits with "Anaconda" invert the reactions to the red pandas: Buster enjoys the show with a big smile on his face, while a mortified Mrs. Crawley covers her face with her clipboard.
- Lance and Ash go... a bit too high in the decibels.
- A llama tries to play a tune that sounds suspiciously like "Good Feeling" by Flo Rida on guitar, but keeps stopping to re-tune it every few notes. We eventually cut to Buster and Ms. Crawly cringing.
- An alligator sings the rap song "The Humpty Dance" by Digital Underground while dancing like a robot.
- A beaver sings "9 to 5" by Dolly Parton while swaying his arm back and forth.
- Sherry-Anne's mother takes her daughter out of her pocket pouch to let her sing "The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats.
- The group of spiders singing Las Ketchup's "Asereje". Potentially even funnier to Brazilian viewers due to there being a translated version of the song that was massive when it was first released in the early 2000s, is still fondly remembered by those who grew up during that period, and overshadows the original in terms of popularity there. The song was also a hit in the UK, which makes sense seeing as the director is British.
- Pete singing a really long opera note.
- Ray, the snail, who has to stand on the microphone, singing "Ride Like the Wind".
- Daniel, the giraffe, sings Michael Jackson's "Ben". Buster's amazed reaction is just priceless.
- Meena failing to audition because of her stage fright is pretty sad, but as she walks dejectedly out, she kicks a tree and all of the leaves fall out of it.
- When Buster calls all the auditioners to the stage for selection, they are in strict posture, silent and terrified at being rejected, with only the smug Mike and bored Lance being unfazed. As such they lean in when Buster walks away, then snap back into position when he turns around.
- The moment in the final contestant selection where it is first assumed that Richard the buffalo pooped his pants, but is subverted when a Wilhelm Scream follows it, and it is then revealed that Richard actually stepped on Ray. Richard's reaction to this is hilarious:
"You alright? Just hang in there, Ray! I gotcha! Oh...oh...whoopsie...oh...gosh..."
- How Johnny was selected. In the end, it was a toss-up between him and a giraffe named Daniel, and Buster initially chose Daniel. However, Daniel's neck was so long that Buster had to speak into a megaphone in order to be heard. Realizing "This is gonna drive me nuts", Buster changed his mind and switched to Johnny.
- After she realizes the trouble she's accidentally caused for Buster, because of that typing error she made with the flyers, Miss Crawly is completely inconsolable for a while, and Buster starts to grow frustrated with her breakdown.
Buster: For the last time, Miss Crawly, I am not going to fire you! Now would you pull yourself together and please blow that nose of yours? (She then proceeds to blow into a hankie) No, no! Not in here! Blow it outside! (She scuttles out the door, still sobbing uncontrollably. Buster closes it and sighs.)
Eddie: Buster, what do you expect? She's like, 200 years old.
- When he's about to explain to Eddie why he's so dedicated to the theater, Buster points to a bucket his father used and asks if his friend knows what it's for. Eddie guesses that it's to catch rainwater, but Buster corrects him, pointing to the other bucket that happens to be full of rainwater before continuing his story.
- After Meena's audition for the singing competition turns out to be a bust, her mother tries to gently comfort her about it, while her grandfather does not mince any words about the matter.
Meena's mother: Oh honey, please don't cry. You are not a failure. There will be other chances, you just-
Meena's grandfather: Bah, the heck there will!
Meena's mother: Dad, please-
Meena's grandfather: Come on, don't you want this?!
Meena: Well, sure, but I messed it up.
Meena's grandfather: Then you gotta go back there tomorrow and say "Mr. Moon, I demand you let me re-audition!" Be confident! Show them you ain't gonna be pushed around! You got that, Meena?!!
Meena: Um...
Meena's grandfather: (grinning) Good, now go get my cocoa.
- This exchange happens when Marcus announces his intentions to make Johnny the new getaway driver of his gang.
Johnny: Hang on, hang on. Dad, Barry's always been our driver.
Marcus: Barry don't mind. Do you, Barry?
Barry frowns at the duo.
Barry: (in a disappointed and insincere tone) No. No, that's fine.
- After she's landed a spot in Buster's show, Rosita is faced with a dilemma. She needs to be able to slip off to rehearsals unnoticed everyday, while also fulfilling her usual motherly duties around the house. Her solution? Rig up an elaborate contraption with gears and pulleys around the entire house to do her daily routine for her: a machine that wouldn't look out of place in "Wallace & Gromit". The fact that she inexplicably built it all in one night just makes her accomplishment even funnier.
- Ash and Buster have this exchange when the porcupine rocker shows up for rehearsals.
Buster: Ah, talked some sense into that boyfriend of yours?
Ash: Lance is an artist, but I wouldn't expect you to understand that.
Buster: (entirely nonplussed) You're right, I don't understand that at all.
- If you pay attention to the background details, you'll notice that Johnny smiles in amusement when Buster returns some of Ash's sass to her.
- While they're discussing Ash's role in the show, the punk rock porcupine is appalled by the garishly ugly and uncharacteristically feminine dress that Buster wants her to wear.
Buster: There, isn't this a great color for you?
Ash: I can't tell, it's melting my eyes.
- The contestants naturally have some questions when the power blacks out in Buster's theater.
Buster: Talk to me, Crawly.
Ms. Crawly: When did we last pay the power company, Mr. Moon?
Buster: Oh, for Pete's sake. Okay, don't worry, everybody. I will take care of this. In the meantime, you will continue to rehearse in the dark.
Ash: What? - Buster decides to steal some power for the theater from a neighboring building, and he does so with a really, really long extension cord. When it won't quite reach the socket, he gives it a nice, good tug and unknowingly pins Miss Crawly against some filing cabinets. She weakly calls out to Johnny for help, but the teenage gorilla is too wrapped up in his piano lessons to notice her distress.
- Mike tries to enter a night club to follow another mouse he's smitten with (Nancy), but he's denied entry by a gorilla bouncer named Mario. Later, Mike rolls up outside the club with some new hot wheels to impress Nancy, and the flabbergasted look on Mario's face is priceless.
- Lance's reaction to the list of songs that Ash had to choose from:
Lance: These are the cheesiest songs of all time!
- Two during Johnny's training session for driving the escape car for his father's gang:
- Johnny, apparently getting fed up with his dad criticizing his driving cuts said criticism off by speeding off, interrupting Marcus in the process. Then we cut to him driving like a crazy person, as he imitates his old man.
Johnny: "Too soft on the corners, Johnny! You're not doin' it right, Johnny! Speed up, Johnny! Do it like I showed you-" (realizes he's charging straight towards his father) - AAAAAAAAHH!!
- When Johnny hits the brakes, his dad is nowhere to be seen. Both Johnny and the viewers are led to believe that Johnny ran his old man down... but Marcus pops up and isn't mad at all. He's ecstatic that Johnny beat his first time! Johnny scowls at him, with a face that just screams "What is wrong with you?"
- Buster twice pulling a Stealth Hi/Bye on Eddie:
- The Running Gag of Nana Noodleman's scowling being accompanied by Scare Chords.
- One of the frog singers ends up quitting in hysterics. When Buster asks why, he replies "They said I was an intolerable egomaniac! I don't even know what that means!"
- The red panda group keep showing up everywhere in the theater, either unaware that they failed to make the cut or just that determined to be part of the show. When Buster relents, he tries to tell them in Japanese, using a language book - and whatever he actually said offended them so much that the girls walk out, one taking a moment to slap him. According to the script, what Buster says translates into "You are smelly. Like toenails."
- When Rosita has to bring one of her piglets to rehearsal because he was sick, he of course spends the whole scene running wild in the rehearsal space. Rosita's reaction sells it:
Rosita: Well, you look fine now!
- The dialogue when Buster gives Ash "Call Me Maybe" as her contest song:
- You wanted to see Matthew McConaughey sing "Call Me Maybe"? This movie answers your prayers! And when Buster gets Ash to sing a bit of the song too, she does so... in the most sarcastic way possible. Yet, Buster still can't see past her sarcasm.
- Meta example: Edgar Wright had a voice cameo in the movie. Ironically, he would end up directing a heist film involving music a year later.
- Johnny is trying to learn to play the piano but struggling. Ms. Crawly's response is hilariously blunt: "Yes, that was very bad."
- Ms. Crawly's line when she hears Johnny's dad calling him on the radio, that's hidden in Johnny's jacket:
Ms. Crawly: Oh, Johnny, your jacket's talking!
- Ash is outraged when she discovers Lance has been cheating on her with some girl named Becky, and doesn't waste any time kicking them both out of her apartment.
Lance: Hey, what did you expect? You're never around anymore!
Ash: I did it for us, Lance! You and me!
Becky: Oh sweetie, I'm sorry. I think I left my sunglasses in there-
Ash slams the door right in her face.
- The last line later becomes a Brick Joke when Ash walks onstage during her performance of "Set It All Free", wearing Becky's shades, and proceeds to throw them into the crowd where they were almost certainly trampled into oblivion - because she wanted to stick it to both Lance and Becky during her song.
- Johnny is getting well and truly fed up with his father's heist once again cutting into his time at the theater, and as a result, he's much more short and passive-aggressive with him than usual.
Marcus: Stay here. We'll be back in exactly thirty-seven-
Johnny: (frowning) Yeah. Thirty-seven minutes. You told me, repeatedly.
Marcus frowns and walks off in a huff.
- While Ash is still feeling depressed about Lance's betrayal, Mike is quick as always to make a snide remark about her.
Mike: Oh, stand back! Moody teenager coming through!
- When Ash finally succumbs to her heartbreak and breaks down in tears in the middle of "Call Me Maybe", Buster quickly has Meena cut the music and tries to ask her what's wrong. He also makes this quip under his breath.
Buster: I don't think anyone's gonna call her after that.
- While the theater animals practice their acts, one by one, the scene occasionally cuts back to Johnny driving like an absolute maniac across town, breaking every traffic law in the book with a crazed look in his eyes to try to get back to the theater in time for his cue.
- As Rosita comforts a heartbroken Ash, she then leaves to go onstage for rehearsal and leaves her purse with Ash, telling her to help herself to any gum or candy in there. When Rosita comes back, Ash is chewing gum and blowing bubbles.
- Gunter has several funny moments:
- The part in the scene where Gunter and Rosita are in their dressing room for the first time where Gunter wants Rosita to warm up before dancing with him:
Gunter: Come on! Let’s take off zeez clothes!
Rosita: That—that is not necessary. Oh! That is a lot of skin.
Gunter: Don’t you look so vorried face! I’ve got one for you too! [holds up a tiny red ballerina costume as Mike walks into the room]
Mike: Hey, Porky! Keep it down, will ya?
Gunter: Oh, sorry.
- Gunter playing with glow sticks during the blackout. And the fact that Gunter even had glowsticks in the first place.
- When Rosita is comforting Ash after her boyfriend cheated on her, Gunter comes up with this nickname for him:
Gunter: Z'at super total jerk dinkleschplatt!
- This line that a bull in the prison says while talking to his mom:
"No, mom! I haven't made any friends! What do you think this is, kindergarten?"
- Once Johnny has a change of heart and decides not to pilfer Buster Moon's prize money, he winds up subjecting Miss Crawly to a jump scare, who was most certainly not expecting to find him creeping around the theater in the middle of the night.
- An anxious Meena once again helps Buster to break a few laws, as they set out to acquire some water for Buster's show from a nearby water tower.
Meena: Mr. Moon, are you sure this is legal?
Buster: Uh, I don't know. But if you keep asking questions, we'll never get this done.
- Miss Crawly agrees to stay up all night, to give Johnny some more piano lessons and help him master the skill. By the time the morning comes, Johnny feels proud of the progress he's made, while Miss Crawly has finally fallen fast asleep in her chair. At least until Meena pops in and subjects her to another jump scare.
- After working perfectly for weeks, Rosita's mechanical contraption finally starts to malfunction when Norman accidentally knocks a gear loose, causing the entire kitchen to turn on him and the piglets. By the time Rosita comes home later, she finds Norman and the kids are all strung upside down on the clothesline outside the house.
- Buster and Eddie washing cars together with their bodies, using their fur coats to spread the suds around, is certainly a sight to behold.
- While a news anchor is reporting on Buster Moon's improvised, patchwork show, he doesn't even try to hide his contempt for the koala and his cast:
Bob: Well, John, I've covered many disasters for this network, but this is sure to be… Oh, they're about to start.
- Buster is getting into position to kickstart the show when Eddie jumps the gun on his cue and winds up launching the koala all the way up into the rafters of the theater unexpectedly, much to the horror of his friends. Once the other animals look his way, Eddie sheepishly apologizes for it.
- During Ash's performance, she starts head banging, sending her quills everywhere. Her audience has to duck and hide behind their seats, some almost hit Johnny, whose too busy moping over his dad to notice or even enjoy Ash's performance, and when she's done, Ash is forced to awkwardly ask, "You guys okay?". As the audience then bursts into cheers, Buster comes out to congratulate her, and he's got about three or four quills stuck in his head (which he doesn't even notice until she points them out). And the bank representative is more or less turned into a living pincushion. Nana Noodleman, when Buster spots her in the crowd, also has a quill in her hair. Earlier in the movie, she already accidentally threw some quills in Buster's face as she was bawling over her recent breakup with Lance.
Buster: Ow! (Removes one quill) OW!
- Mike struggling to hold onto, well, the mike, as helicopters arrive and blow him away.
- When he leads her onstage for her performance, Buster asks Meena to give him her hand and then he almost immediately regrets it, when he's reminded just how heavy an elephant's hoof would be to a koala.
- When Meena goes onstage to perform her act, her clumsiness causes her to drop her microphone on top of a nearby gazelle in the audience, knocking the poor guy out cold.
- The trio of gangster bears get a moment of Black Comedy at the end of the film. After they go hunting Mike yet again, they grab him out of the final show and walk down the street with him in tow. Ignoring his pleas, the leader glances to one of his subordinates and nods at Mike as if asking 'hey, you wanna eat him?'. The other bear shakes his head, looking surprisingly repulsed, probably fed up with chasing after one mouse for so long. Even before that, when the three of them are sitting quietly in the club, and one of the bears suddenly sees Mike singing in the final show. Cue Spit Take, that visibly sprays onto his friend's jacket.
- In "Love at First Sight", we get quite a few moments.
- Ms. Crawley's profile picture.
- The Montage of Ms. Crawley and her dates:
- The first date is a python who starts to squeeze the life out of her until she give the equivalent of a slap: she bites him.
- The following date is a sheep who eats tons of food. When his eating sprays food all over the place, Ms. Crawley is not amused. To make things worse, the sheep leaves Ms. Crawley stuck with the bill.
- Ms. Crawley's date with the bull has the two dance, only for her date to throw her into the air too high. The result is Ms. Crawley hanging from the chandelier above them.
- From the "Gunter Babysits" short:
- There is one part where Gunter has been tied up with fruit strip candy by Rosita's piglets, and as he goes into one room, he sees one of Rosita's piglets licking a TV:
"My tongue feels warm..."
- This exchange after Gunter escapes from the fruit-strip candy trap, and grabs his phone:
Piglet: He's gonna call Mommy!
Gunter: I didn't want to have to do zis!
[Gunter places his phone in a dock, which makes it play Pump Up The Jam.]
- The fact that the font on Rosita's clock is Comic Sans might be amusing to some people.
- From the "Eddie's Life Coach" short:
- The part in the exercise montage where Eddie loses his pants while trying to run on the treadmill.
- At the end of the short when Eddie and the dog who created the headphones that Eddie's mother brought for him are playing a video game, Eddie sits on the remote again, causing a commercial that is similar to the one that played at the start of the short to come on the TV, except with a bull who claims he can help people who just sit at home all day and are lazy. Eddie's reaction to this is hilarious:
"Idiot."
