
"We're buddies who make comedy sketches."
Chris and Jack
is a YouTube Sketch Comedy series co-created by Chris W. Smith and Jack DeSena which uploads on the first and third Friday of every month.
Chris and Jack contains examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The subject of "Sci-Fi Movies never pick the right year
", which talks about how ridiculously advanced technology in sci-fi movies tends to be compared to what the actual technology of the year ends up being (or the advances that can be reasonably expected between the current year and the year of the setting). - Accidental Wish: In "The Perfect Wish to Outsmart a Genie
", when discussing hypothetical wishes and their potential downsides, Geoff gets tired of the genie lazily adding Geoff's eyeballs falling out as the catch when a wish has no other issues. The genie suggests that Geoff should just wish for stronger eyeballs, which Geoff sarcastically echoes, realizing too late that he has just used up his second wish. - Actor Allusion: In "Sci-Fi Movies never pick the right year
", we get this exchange when Chris states that Avatar was set in 2019note :Janet Varneynote : Which Avatar are you talking about? Can't be talking about the...
Jacknote : Yeah, the animated series isn't even, like, set in our world.
Janet: Yeah, or the sequel series — also great. - Be Careful What You Wish For: Defied in The Perfect Wish to Outsmart a Genie, where Jack burns one of his wishes to go through the potential twists granted by the Genie. Played straight when he asks for the ability to commune with the dead.Genie: No catch on that one, it's just a lot worse than you think it is.
- Brick Joke: Two from "Split up, the zombies are closing in
":- Chris's character briefly speculates that Jack is only able to break the cord holding the Tragic Keepsake around his neck because he's been infected, giving him super strength and a high tolerance for pain. When Chris is later revealed to be infected, he quickly concocts a plan to break his own chord while using the super zombie strength / pain tolerance, which doesn't pan out.
- Due to how tight the cord is tied around his neck, Chris fears that he will decapitate himself should he tug on it too hard. Jack is later able to decapitate Chris's zombified self by pulling the chord around his neck with a sufficient amount of force.
- Chair Reveal: "Perfect-Timing Villain
" parodies the swivel chair turnaround trope as Chris anxiously awaits the hero's entrance, only to repeatedly botch his supposedly menacing chair reveal due to comically poor timing. - Despair Event Horizon: Parodied in "I command you to make me sad
", in which all of the Jester's attempts to make the king feel sad fall flat until the jester drops the ball he was juggling, leading the King to the realization that joy is fleeting and the feeling of loss will stay with him forever. - Dumb Muscle: Special Agent Sparxx from "In English please
" epitomizes this, being very adept at killing people but having little to no knowledge about how computers work. Even after The Smart Guy of the team attempts to teach him, Sparxx produces a half-decipherable Hulk Speak-filled "explanation" that makes no sense to anyone in the room."I'm the shoot 'em up guy! I'm the run-and-gun son! I'm the bang-bang boy!" - Eye Color Change: When the all-knowing lie detector possesses the suspect; his eyes switch between green and red, like the lights in the machine indicating truths and lies.
- Famous, Famous, Fictional: Inverted in "Checking into the Heartbreak Hotel
":Hotel Receptionist: We also have a television with all of the streaming services you could ever want — Regretflix, Dismay+, AM-C All the Things You Did Wrong in the Relationship... Hulu. - "Freaky Friday" Flip: "Body swap
" takes place in the aftermath of one, with Chris and Jack discussing their relatively mundane physical and psychological differences (i.e. height, sleep schedule, color perception) as opposed to ruminating on the broader moral lesson. The witch who cast the spell in the first place eventually switches bodies with Chris to get revenge, but immediately ends up distracted by the fact that "[Chris's] blue is [her] brown". - George Lucas Altered Version: In "George Lucas is a time traveler and I actually wrote Star Wars
", it turns out the reason for the infamous edits of the Special Editions such as Han shooting second was because Lucas, in the process of plagiarizing Star Wars, didn't have a perfect memory of what he stole and so frequently edited the films in an attempt to closer match what he thinks the originals were. - "Groundhog Day" Loop: "Groundhog Daying
" naturally has Chris looping through a day like this, complete with liberal references to the trope-codifying film. Unfortunately, whenever Chris gets bored, he decides to go on a murder spree a-la Westworld. - Jump Scare: Whilst discussing cord tightness in "Split up, the zombies are closing in
", a zombie suddenly pops around the corner. Jack's character immediately headshots it before both return to their Seinfeldian Conversation. It does later become plot relevant when it's revealed that the Zombie managed to bite Christ offscreen and transfer the infection. - Layman's Terms: Parodied and Exaggerated in "In English please
", where Jensen (Chris) is forced to dumb down his Technobabble for Special Agent Sparxx (Jack), who understands very little about hacking — or, indeed, computers. - Literal Genie: "The perfect wish to outsmart a genie
" chronicles Jack's attempts to avert this by wording his three wishes as specifically as possible to get exactly what he wants in the manner that he wants it, with Jack even using his first wish to ensure that Chris's genie has to tell him the potential consequences of said wish prior to him making it. To the disappointment of both, the genie still manages to get one over on Jack. - Literal-Minded: The plot in "I Need It Yesterday
" is kicked off by Chris taking the titular phrase literally, leading to him developing a fully-functional time machine in order to send an email to that relative yesterday. This turns out to be exactly what the boss wanted in the first place, and Jack is fired for not following his instructions to the letter. - Literal Metaphor: The Heartbreak Hotel
, a metaphysical location that people stay at to process their break-ups. - Loved by All: George Lucas tells Kenneth Oliver Bell that, in the original timeline where Bell was the real creator of Star Wars, his films were so acclaimed that Bell is practically worshipped by everyone on the planet, unlike Lucas who made copies with a few inaccuracies and thereby became a famous but often controversial filmmaker.
- The Mole: Deconstructed in "The 'woah, didn't expect to see him there' Guy
". Jack's character details that, in order to convincingly pass as a security guard, he's become thoroughly embedded in the company, having worked at the firm for eight months and built up trust. One job required him to spend a year building his way from host to waitstaff before switching shifts with a co-worker, who then proceeded to hold it over his head. - Mundane Solution: "Split up, the zombies are closing in
": The reason that Chris's chord holding his Tragic Keepsake is so tight is because it's tied in a quadruple knot. - Noodle Incident: In "The art of the heist
", when mentioning the fountain Veronika chimes in with "Great. More water.", and the rest of the crew chuckles. - The Omniscient: The all-knowing lie detector has an interrogator and suspect discover that the lie detector they're using can detect objective truths, even about things occurring in the future; the two characters spend a good while playing around with it. Subverted when it's revealed that the machine can't actually detect lies and was buying time to absorb the suspect's brainwaves to possess him.
- Reality-Breaking Paradox: The ending of "Deja Vu" has Jack's character putting another hat on top of his own hat, which (since both hats send people on their destined path) causes the universe to collapse.
- The Reveal: The titular device in The all-knowing lie detector was actually bluffing about its lie-detecting capabilities the whole time; it was just buying time to absorb the suspect's brainwaves and possess him.
- Running Gag: Series-wide: one character mentions writing a novel or report but never gets around to finishing it.
- Sequelitis: In-universe, it turns out in "George Lucas is a time traveler" that the questionable quality of the Star Wars Prequel and Sequel Trilogies was because Lucas decided to start with the middle films first since they were the best regarded ones, and also forgot to include all the foreshadowing for how Palpatine somehow returned.
- Spot the Imposter: Which falls apart because the action hero Greg - played by Chris - can't come up with good questions for the two Petes - played by Jack - and both Petes criticize Chris for the bad questions.
- Sudden Soundtrack Stop: Employed in almost every sketch where the music goes triumphant and then stops for someone to deliver an anti-climactic punchline.
- Take Our Word for It: When feeling out the consequences of various potential wishes
, this exchange occurs:Jack: What if I wish to commune with the dead?
Genie: No catch to that one, that's just a lot worse than you think it is. Doing you a solid here, that really doesn't play out well. - Time-Compression Montage: "The moments between the montage
" spoofs this trope by showing, well, the moments between the montage. Which are mostly just the two members of the heist team driving around between relevant locations, talking about mundane stuff, and Jack having to remind Chris what he was talking about several hours ago so that he can launch right back into the montage script. Several times it even turns out the dialogue in the montage wasn't actually about the original subject, but just unrelated small talk that happened to match the original topic. - Wait, What?: Chris, playing a detective, is interrogating Jack with a polygraph in "All-Knowing Lie Detector", when he notices an innocuous comment Jack makes about the possibility of time travel is recognized as a truth on the machine. And he begins probing further to see what's going on.
- Weaksauce Weakness: When the all-knowing lie detector absorbs the suspect's brainwaves and possesses him, the interrogator quickly reverses the effect by taking out the machine's batteries.
- Who's on First?: In "Our unauthorized "Who's On First?" sequel
", the duo redoes the original sketch from Abbott and Costello but twists it by using "What" on the second base.
