Fiction
Mr. Potato Head (messing with his face): Hey, Hamm, look. I'm Picasso!
Hamm: I don't get it.
Mr. Potato Head: You uncultured swine.
Hamm: I don't get it.
Mr. Potato Head: You uncultured swine.
Chandler: I know I'm a little bit older, but I'm not exactly Bob Hope. [blank Stares] Come on! U.S.O.!
Intern: [ahem] Um, it's U.S.A now, sir...
Intern: [ahem] Um, it's U.S.A now, sir...
— Friends, "The One With The Mugging"
"If you give up at this level, you'll never beat the Warlock Lord. 'My adventure ended like this...' That's all you're going to get. Huh? I can't believe you didn't get my Shadowgate joke."
— Chiaki Nanami, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
"HA HA HA HA! Oh gosh, that's funny! That's really funny! Do you write your own material? Do you? Because that is so fresh. You are the weakest link goodbye. You know, I've never heard anyone make that joke before. You're the first. I've never heard anyone reference that outside the program before. Because that's what she says on the show right? Isn't it? You are the weakest link goodbye. And—and yet you've taken that and used it out of context to insult me in this everyday situation. God, what a clever, smart girl you must be; to come up with a joke like that all by yourself. That's so fresh, too. Any Titanic jokes you want to throw at me, too? As long as we're hitting these phenomena at the height of their popularity?"
— Stewie, Family Guy
"I did play Rum Tum Tugger in Cats. Anybody see it?"
— Buddy Hodges at the Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con, The Simpsons, "Three Men and a Comic Book"
"Man, I miss The '90s when it was still commonplace to reference movies from The '40s. Nowadays, if you make a Casablanca reference the kids won't know what the fuck you're talking about."
Archivist: Where the hell did she get this? I – Martin, don’t touch it! Is it stable?
Melanie: How should I know? I don’t even know what kind it is!
Archivist: I mean, it looks like... C4?
Melanie: Are you just saying that because it’s the only plastic explosive you’ve ever heard of?
— The Magnus Archives, "MAG 113: Breathing Room"
Real Life
"Steve learned the hard way that all his jokes for TV had to be about events that had been made much of by TV itself, and very recently. If a joke was about something that hadn't been on TV for a month or more, the watchers wouldn't have a clue, even though the laugh track was laughing, as to what they themselves were supposed to laugh about."
— Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake
"Those who do not like Family Guy — and I confess that I include myself among their number — criticize it for replacing actual jokes and humor with contentless pop culture references. Although I find this critique stingingly accurate, I understand how a show could get to be like that. I'd like nothing more than to just shout 'OMG COOL WORLD' and call it a blog entry. But then I'd risk disappointing you, my imagined interlocutor, and I should hate to do that. And anyway, dipping into the Cool World level of obscure cultural reference is a bit much."
"The majority of the film plays like Family Guy skits left on the cutting room floor, only this film doesn’t let the viewer off so easily...There’s a scene where John and Lori reminisce about the beginnings of their relationship, which leads to a parody of that scene in Airplane! which was a parody of Saturday Night Fever, except it’s not so much a parody as an exact recreation. I’m frankly surprised they didn’t lead into this flashback with the line, 'This is worse than the time we went disco dancing!'"
"Anyway, the short version of this story is that Doom blames Reed for the accident. The long version includes him delivering a takeoff on one of Joe Pesci's lines from Goodfellas, so nobody should endure the long version."
"My first response when somebody doesn't get a Hudsucker reference is to say, "Just see the movie." There's one big problem with that, however....its only DVD release was way back in 1999, in a lousy snapper case, on a despised flipper disc, with no bonus features other than "Interactive Menus" and "Scene Access." To make things worse, Warner Bros. placed a big spoiler for the film on the front cover.
Sooo....if you get it yourself, you're going to know the big twist before you start to play it, meaning I might as well spoil the whole thing for you right here."
Sooo....if you get it yourself, you're going to know the big twist before you start to play it, meaning I might as well spoil the whole thing for you right here."
"Shia LaBeouf recently stole the spotlight by stealing an entire screenplay... He also changed a mention of Contempt to Shakespeare in Love, because he doesn't think a lifelong professional film critic would have heard of one of the most famous French movies ever made."
"The coolest thing you can do in Buffalo right now is trash Jon Bon Jovi. True to form, Buffalo is a quarter-century behind on what's cool."
— ''Deadspin "Why Your Team Sucks 2014: Buffalo Bills"
"‘You are correct, sir!’ is a line that Scully would never say in a million years."
— Joe Ford on The X-Files, "Kill Switch"
on The X-Files, "Kill Switch"David: The amazing thing about Chloe’s P. Diddy reference is that it’s still timely.
Chris: P. Diddy will always be relevant. He’s the Keats of our times. Seriously, it’s a little known fact that “Ode on a Grecian Urn” was written about Ciroc Ultra Premium Vodka.
Chris: P. Diddy will always be relevant. He’s the Keats of our times. Seriously, it’s a little known fact that “Ode on a Grecian Urn” was written about Ciroc Ultra Premium Vodka.
— Chris Sims and David Uzumeri on Smallville, "Red"
Smallville, "Red""And to show just how ‘fresh’ Todd was, we get a Reverend Jim impersonation.
You know, the guy from Taxi.
A show that ended its run in 1982.
Todd, right on the bleeding edge, was doing this in 1993."
You know, the guy from Taxi.
A show that ended its run in 1982.
Todd, right on the bleeding edge, was doing this in 1993."
Todd: .......Wait. Hold on, I missed that one. Did I hear that right? Did he just go "Schwing"? Wow. What a clever reference.
Wayne: NOT.
Wayne: NOT.
— Todd in the Shadows on Jason Derulo's "Wiggle" ("Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2014")
"Janine Melnitz from Ghostbusters, Mac Tonight, Snorks, and the cartoon mechanics from a-ha's "Take On Me" video need to call up Erin Brockovitch and prep a class action lawsuit against Lady Gaga, because it’s only a matter of time before this stunt queen runs out of real people to steal from and starts ripping off non-reals. We’re closer than you think to a music video where she runs through a fucking animated newspaper comic strip in circle glasses and a giant moon-mask with a tube coming out of her head. Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the 80s?!?"
, Snorks, and the cartoon mechanics from a-ha's "Take On Me" video need to call up Erin Brockovitch and prep a class action lawsuit against Lady Gaga, because it’s only a matter of time before this stunt queen runs out of real people to steal from and starts ripping off non-reals. We’re closer than you think to a music video where she runs through a fucking animated newspaper comic strip in circle glasses and a giant moon-mask with a tube coming out of her head. Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the 80s?!?"— Michael K. on Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga"Since its release was well into the twilight years of the 16-bit generation, Mega Man & Bass never saw an international release until its remake on the Game Boy Advance nearly half a decade later. The portable port is far from an ideal experience... The English translation is dodgy at best, particularly with the CD data, opting for terrible pop culture references among the Robot Master quotes, like Ground Man parroting Anakin's infamous line from the then-recently released Episode II: Attack of the Clones, 'I hate sand'."
"Look. If you're gonna reference the 'extended universe' you might as well reference a dream you had 'cuz nobody knows what you're talkin' about."
If you do the routines I used to do, you genuinely get members of the Christian right coming up to you after gigs and online and going "Oh, yeah" — they love saying this, by the way — "Oh yeah, you'll make jokes about the Catholics. You'll make jokes about the Protestants. But you won't make jokes about the Muslims, will ya?! No, you're not that brave to make jokes about the Muslims!" [...] To which I always say: there are two main reasons I don't make jokes about Muslims. A: I don't know a single fuckin' thing about Muslims. And B: Neither do you. Frankly, it'd be pointless. I could research and write the greatest Muslim-based material you've ever heard — "Hey, what's up with the big golden horse that comes over the hill once a year and hands out cake to the kids, what's that all about?" — and you'd all be there going "Is that a thing? I've never heard of that, is that a thing? Geez, you really nailed the Muslims there, Dara, well done, congratulations." By the way, apologies to any Muslims in the room who are now sitting there going "What golden horse? What the fuck is the man talking about?! The man's a fuckin' idiot, I've read the book cover to cover and I've never heard of that."
You know, one in two people claiming to be a spokesperson for the entire British Muslim community is in fact the unelected leader of a non-democratic special interest fringe group given ideas above its station by a misguided New Labour bridge-building initiative.
Some laughs there, a lot of people going "What was that? What was that supposed to be?" I'll tell you what that was; that was the best joke about Islam anyone in Britain's ever done, that was. It was even-handed, it was informed, it's what you say you want, isn't it? You go "Do stuff about Islam!" I just did. "Not like that Stew. Not where you have to know anything. When we said 'do stuff about Islam', we meant 'make fun of their hats'."
Some laughs there, a lot of people going "What was that? What was that supposed to be?" I'll tell you what that was; that was the best joke about Islam anyone in Britain's ever done, that was. It was even-handed, it was informed, it's what you say you want, isn't it? You go "Do stuff about Islam!" I just did. "Not like that Stew. Not where you have to know anything. When we said 'do stuff about Islam', we meant 'make fun of their hats'."
— Stewart Lee, Carpet Remnant World
Guy who has only seen The Boss Baby, watching his second movie: Getting a lot of 'Boss Baby' vibes from this...
