Follow TV Tropes

Following

Funny / The Boxtrolls

Go To

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.


https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boxtrollsong2.PNG
  • "The unspeakable has happened! We must speak of it immediately!"
  • Eggs hugging the new teddy bear Fish got for him... and then ripping its head off in order to get the music box inside it.
    • Fish's expression is totally unfazed, as though he believes it's normal for human infants to dismember their toys. Maybe it's normal for boxtroll kids.
  • Fragile, the largest boxtroll, moving and/or reacting so slowly that it's practically a running gag in itself.
  • "Here come the exterminators... of justice!" "We exterminate justice!"
  • When Lord Portley-Rind is shouting his adulation for Madam Frou-Frou, his wife is standing just behind him, staring with a massive Disapproving Look at the pair flirting. Eventually, she gets tired of it and hits him in the side and crosses her arms. Even during "The Boxtrolls Song", she has the same disgusted look on her face while her husband is loving the show.
  • Winnie performs in Madam Frou-Frou's show as the Trubshaw baby. At one point, the disguised Mr. Pickles spins her around, then sets her down and walks away holding his back. Apparently she was a little too heavy for him.
  • During "Madame Frou-Frou"'s musical performance, Mr. Pickles as Mr. Trubshaw is yelled at by the audience for not noticing the boxtroll behind him, almost like a Pantomime.
    Citizen: Look out, you idiot!
  • When Winnie (who hasn't yet connected the dots and realized that he was raised by boxtrolls) enthusiastically bombards Eggs with questions on what the boxtrolls' cave was like and how he escaped, the frightened boy instinctively bites her arm. Winnie just stands there stunned, then goes from shocked to offended with this gem:
    Winnie: You bit me. You bit me! ...With your mouth!
  • When Winnie is being trailed by Eggs, she looks at him, fully aware he's following her. Eggs uses a piece of Swiss cheese to hide behind, looking through some holes in it for his eyes.
  • "Milk turns into it" and the ensuing rimshot. There probably isn't an audience that didn't end up in stitches at that moment.
  • The "cheese-tasting" scene in the exterminators' lair.
    • Mr. Trout and Mr. Pickles react with groans of "Oh, no" and "Oh, geez" as soon as Snatcher mentions bringing out the cheese. Mr. Gristle? He says "NICE!" and starts chuckling evilly.
    • Mr. Trout's attempt at stalling the inevitable: cutting the cheese into tinier and tinier pieces, and slowly inching the table around, both severely trying Snatcher's patience. Snatcher eventually just spins the table around himself. And when Snatcher tries to use his fork to get the cheese, the table suddenly moves slightly to the right, making him miss and stab the table. Cue him giving a Death Glare to Mr. Trout and Mr. Pickles, who both have their fingers on the table to try to stop him with big innocent grins on their faces.
    • Once the Body Horror sets in, the minions' desperate attempts to continue playing it cool as Snatcher goes further and further off the deep end.
    • While Snatcher is on a rant thanks to the cheese fits, Trout is heard saying "I agree, because I don't want to upset you" at one point.
    • Trout tells Gristle to get the leeches to help Snatcher "quickly and quietly". Gristle moves to do so, all while saying aloud "Quietly! Quietly!"
    • Snatcher eventually uses his (immensely) swollen hand to slap Mr.Trout.
    • Here's a bonus: look closely at the bag near Mr. Trout when he's cutting up the cheddar for the cheese-tasting. It reads "Extra Extra mild cheddar".
  • When Eggs swings on the rope to his escape, we have a Rocky Roll Call where he screams, Winnie screams, and Mr. Trout screams and uses Winnie as a Human Shield.
  • Winnie finds herself in the boxtroll lair, and then proceeds to freak out based on the stories she's heard. Once she discovers that the stories are nowhere near true, she pouts, demanding said stories to be true!
    • Before that:
    Winnie: Go ahead and eat me. I'm sure I taste delicious.
  • In the commentary, the director points out a Funny Background Event during the conversation between Eggs, Winnie, and the boxtrolls. When Eggs asks Fish if the former really is a boxtroll like the rest, Shoe is nodding his head, prepared to uphold the white lie. But when Fish shakes his head, Shoe sees this as his cue to quickly change his answer and also shake his head as well.
  • When Eggs asks Winnie if Fish counts as a father, she open-mindedly says "yes". We see Fish kneeling before a pond... before he leans down and starts lapping at the water with his tongue like a dog. Understandably, Winnie changes her answer to "no".
  • Eggs (and the other boxtrolls) freaking out when Winnie manages to convince him to take off his box.
    Winnie: First things first: off with box.
    (Eggs gulps, cut to the other boxtrolls screaming at the now-boxless Eggs, Eggs screams back, hiding his bare torso)
    Winnie: Stop that! (the boxtrolls hide)
    • Even when he was a toddler in the beginning: his box slips off, the boxtrolls freak out, Fish rushes to put Eggs' box back on, and everyone calms down.
    • It's a blink-and-you'll-miss moment: while the other boxtrolls are already screaming in horror, Fragile(the slowest boxtroll) only begins to scream with a sloooow gasp, and Bucket(the boxtroll whose box resembles a box of mathces) stutters in fear.
  • During the montage of Winnie preparing a suit for Eggs to wear to the party, Shoe offers a number of inappropriate pieces of junk, including a toilet plunger, and gets increasingly frustrated when Winnie keeps shooting his suggestions down.
  • Before going into the party, Winnie tells Eggs that he has to learn to look people in the eye and shake hands. Eggs doesn't quite get the concept at first, and just stares at her while waving his hands in her face.
    • This becomes a bit of a Brick Joke later on. Eggs starts off just fine with shaking hands (the socially acceptable way), but after he gets carried away kissing a lady's hand and she waves her hands in disgust, Eggs thinks he was right all along and starts giving everybody "jazz hands".
  • There's something oddly funny about seeing Snatcher say, whilst dressed up in his Madame Frou-Frou disguise, "That's what a man does."
  • When Eggs pulls Snatcher's Madame Frou-Frou wig off him, everybody gasps. Snatcher just says in his Frou-Frou voice, "You have me! I'm not a true redhead!"
  • When the boxtrolls arrive for their Big Damn Heroes moment near the end, the citizens of Cheesebridge are, of course, terrified of them, but are a bit more concerned with the fact the boxtrolls are naked.
  • Eggs wonders how Fish and the others made it out. Fish tells him as Eggs listens excitedly, and the camera looks over all of the boxtrolls, until it focuses on Winnie, who is quite clearly annoyed he isn't translating Fish's explanation for her yet.
  • Lord Portley-Rind's reaction to Snatcher revealing himself to be Madame Frou-Frou before Snatcher attempts to take his white hat by force.
  • During the climax, when Snatcher is about to meet his downfall, the other White Hats arrive with the giant cheese wheel they fished out of the lake. By the looks of it, that cheese wheel is well past the five-second rule, but the White Hats act like the salvaged cheese wheel is still good enough to eat.
  • When Snatcher has yet another allergic reaction to cheese, he's so grotesquely swollen that it makes Fish gag.
  • When Snatcher finally gets his coveted white hat, he demands the full tasting room treatment, which includes the company of equally-refined peers. Those in attendance are Eggs, Lord Portley-Rind, Winnie (held hostage)... and Fish, with a slightly-too-large white hat. It speaks volumes about Snatcher's desperation for the authentic experience that he grabbed one of the very creatures he had been trying to exterminate throughout the film so it could watch him eat cheese.
  • “STOP DESTROYING MY INDESTRUCTIBLE MACHINE!”
  • Snatcher's clearly shocked "You bit me! With your mouth!" to Winnie after she chomps down on his hand to escape. And when Eggs gives her a look, she gives a tiny shrug at him, as if saying "When in Rome."
  • Snatcher blows up from eating so much cheese.
    • Even better: Snatcher is lactose-intolerant. The yellow cloud created by his death? Fart gas.
  • The after-the-credits scene with Mr. Trout and Mr. Pickles Leaning on the Fourth Wall.

Top