Funny / The Hunger Games

As this is a Moments page, all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

The Book

• Katniss describing the arenas:
  Katniss: The arenas are historic sites, preserved after the Games. Popular destinations for Capitol residents to visit, to vacation. Go for a month, rewatch the Games, tour the catacombs, visit the sites where the deaths took place. You can even take part in reenactments.
  They say the food is excellent.
• On Effie and manners:
  • Effie tries to impress upon Katniss the importance of smiling at people she despises. Katniss questions how she could possibly smile at people who are betting on how long she'll live.
    Effie: Well, try and pretend! (suddenly beams) See, like this. I'm smiling at you even though you're aggravating me.
  • When Effie is teaching Katniss how to be more ladylike, admonishing her for pulling her skirt above her knees and eating like a slob, both which Katniss does deliberately to aggravate the more proper Effie.
  • As Katniss and Peeta eat lamb stew in the cave, Peeta makes fun of Effie Trinket's disapproval of their manners by licking his plate, blowing a kiss in the general direction of Effie.
    Peeta: We miss you, Effie!
• On Cinna's "girl on fire" idea:
  • Katniss' early impression of Cinna when he first describes her as "Katniss, the girl who was on fire":
    It crosses my mind that Cinna's calm and normal demeanor masks a complete madman.
  • Katniss' guess as to why Haymitch isn't around to protest them being set alight on the chariot:
    With all that alcohol in him, it's probably not advisable to have him around an open flame.
• "When you put enough pressure on coal, it turns to pearls!" And Effie's so proud of it, as if it were the cleverest thing anyone could have possibly said.
  • Right after the "pearls" bit, Effie says she'll get Haymitch to meet the potential sponsors at gunpoint if necessary.
    Although lacking in many departments, Effie Trinket has a certain determination I have to admire.
• Peeta and Katniss on the usefulness of camouflage in the arena
  • In the Training Center:
    Katniss: It's lovely. If only you could frost someone to death.
    Peeta: Don't be so superior. You can never tell what you'll find in the arena. Say it's actually a gigantic cake—
  • In the arena:
    Frosting, the final defense of the dying.
• Katniss realizing she must be hallucinating when it looks to her like Peeta is sparkling.
• Cato's reaction to Katniss and Rue blowing up the Career's food:
  So people really do tear out their hair and beat the ground with their fists.
• This exchange, shortly after Katniss finds Peeta by the river:
  Katniss: For all I know, I am killing you.
  Peeta: Could you hurry it up then?
  Katniss: No. Shut up and eat your pears.
• This one:
  Katniss: The audience must be sick to death of the star-crossed lovers from District 12. I know I am.
• Katniss on what desperately needed thing another surviving tribute could possibly receive at the feast as the arena temperature drops for the night:
  I wonder if the thing someone needs desperately is a good blanket.
• "While I was waiting... I ate your lunch."
• This exchange, when Katniss is still mad at Peeta for not returning her signal and scaring her to death, so she accuses him of eating some of their cheese just to pick a fight:
  Katniss: Oh, and I suppose the apples ate the cheese.
  Peeta: (slowly and distinctly) I don't know what ate the cheese, but it wasn't me.
  • Geez, they fight almost like a married couple…
• There's a passage towards the end of the book that's not funny in any way, a Tear Jerker really. Yet the last line is laugh out loud because of its absurdity within the context (and how Capitol-typical it seems):
  Peeta's so pale and still on a silver table, tubes and wires springing out of him every which way, and for a moment I forget we're out of the Games and I see the doctors as just one more threat, one more pack of mutts designed to kill him. Petrified, I lunge for him, but I’m caught and thrust back into another room, and a glass door seals between us. I pound on the glass, screaming my head off. Everyone ignores me except for some Capitol attendant who appears behind me and offers me a beverage.

The Movie

• Katniss threatening the cat.
  "I'll still cook you."
• Gale mouthing "War. Terrible war..." to Katniss, anticipatorily mocking the opening lines of the propaganda video Effie's about to display like every year.
• Haymitch's opening scene.
• Pretty much anything that came from Effie's mouth.
  • (with a scolding finger) "Manners!"
  • "That is mahogany!"
  • The Impossibly Tacky Clothes make her funnier.
• In a Black Comedy kind of way, Peeta trying to get some useful advice out of Haymitch on the train:
  Peeta: You're supposed to tell us how to get sponsors and give us advice.
  Haymitch: Oh, okay. Embrace the probability of your imminent death. And know, in your heart, that there's nothing I can do to save you.
• Haymitch's reaction to Katniss getting sick of his lack of assistance and almost stabbing him in the hand:
  Haymitch: Look at you, you just killed a placemat.
• "I'm not going to kill anyone with a sack of flour."
• Cato yelling at some male tributes for taking his knife. Cut to Rue up in the rafters, holding it.
  • Even one of the training staff, a normally dour lot, looks amused.
  • Also amusing are Katniss and Thresh's approving gazes.
• The way Katniss sarcastically curtsies to the Gamemakers after her private session with them.
  • She also walks off and then awkwardly doubles back, having almost forgotten to replace the bow.
• Effie is bagging out Katniss for shooting the apple out of the pig's mouth and turns to Haymitch for help. He gives Katniss a silent thumbs up. Effie's face is hilarious. "Thank you for your consideration." (curtsy)
• The first part of Snow and Seneca's conversation in the rose garden:
  Snow: An eleven?
  Seneca: She earned it.
  Snow: She shot an arrow at your head.
  Seneca: At an apple.
  Snow: Near your head.
• When Caesar turns to address the audience. Cue super pearly white grin.
  • One Tumblr user made this one funnier by posting a gif of the scene with an audio clip that plays "My Shiny Teeth and Me".
• On Caesar's talk show, there are like twenty different shots of him smiling this super pearly white grin in the background. The epitome of a corny talk show host.
• "Tell me, do I smell like roses to you?"
  • Followed by Peeta striking a pose that mirrors Caesar's.
• And the almighty Haymitch strikes again:
  Haymitch: (turns to Katniss) Nice dress. (turns to Effie) Not yours.
  • The look Effie gives him after was the cherry on top.
• A rather twisted moment, but Caesar Flickerman appearing in Katniss' hallucination to provide exposition was kind of amusing.
• "You call that a kiss?"
  • Her Aside Glance after that was pretty priceless, too.
• Peeta telling Katniss he'll take the bow and her affronted and confused look. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming when he tells her he's kidding and she smiles affectionately. It reminds us that Katniss and Peeta are just two teenagers and Peeta is just trying to flirt with her.
• One that probably wasn't supposed to be funny, but becomes that way thanks to Donald Sutherland's bone dry delivery.
  Seneca: Everyone loves an underdog.
  Snow: I don't.
• This exchange when Katniss and Rue first get together and Rue tells her who died while she was out:
  Katniss: And the boy from my district?
  Rue: Yeah, he's okay...
  • What makes it really funny though is the way Rue slyly smirks as she says he's okay. The middle of the Hunger Games, and Katniss is getting teased about a boy by a younger kid...

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