Misused: Brick Joke

A Brick Joke is a joke whose punchline is delayed for a very long time. However, it is frequently misused, usually as a Call-Back or a Continuity Nod, and attracts Zero-Context Examples. Brick Joke Wick Check compiles 114 wicks. Of these 114 (note that the total is more than 114 due to multiple wicks per page):

• 6 correct (5%)
• 52 misused as a Call-Back or a Continuity Nod (46%)
• 21 other misuse (18%)
• 16 ZCE (14%)
• 23 potholes without context (20%)
• 2 unsure (2%)

Edited by LaundryPizza03 on Dec 24th 2020 at 6:38:15 AM

I'm back!

Opening.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

So...any ideas? I participated in the Wick Check, and yet I still have no idea what can actually be done to fix this.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I notice that the description of Call-Back says:

Probably contributing to some of the confusion.

Ideas:

• make a Call-Back subtrope for Call-Back jokes
• rename Brick Joke to something clearer, like Delayed Punchline

Edited by Twiddler on Feb 14th 2021 at 10:12:37 AM

I think Delayed Punchline would work as a name.

Edit: I checked to see if there are any redirects, since Deader Than Disco's Hype Reversion redirect was mentioned in its thread, but there aren't any. That said, I saw that the wick count is so high that expanding it to encompass Call-Back/Continuity Nod jokes would definitely be easier.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 14th 2021 at 11:49:32 AM

You can't always get what you want.

Brick Joke is an existing term outside of the wiki, so I don’t think it should be renamed.

I am aware of the difference between the two in theory but have probably added to the misuse because it’s hard to tell in practice sometimes. Part of my confusion comes from how long you have to wait for something to be a Call-Back? Can you have a call back to something earlier in an episode?

It’s also hard to differentiate a brick joke from a joke that doesn’t land and later gets a call back. Not all humor necessarily involves a punchline either, does it?

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Googling it suggests that Brick Joke is not an existing term outside of this wiki. In fact, the trope description itself points out that outside of this wiki, it is called "The Plant".

So I suggest merging-and-redirecting to Call-Back, since it is mainly used for Call-Back. Late punchline could be a subtrope, but for many people, referring to something that happened (way) earlier is inherently funny.

Edited by Spark9 on Feb 15th 2021 at 1:36:31 AM

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

Well, I do Google Brick Joke and I get a lot of hits like this one so it looks like your search omitted a lot of things.

Anyhow, between that and the 145864 inbounds it looks like the term has indeed caught on but is still commonly used incorrectly on TV Tropes. I think the recommended fix is either a cleanup effort or to rework the trope page to an explanatory page akin to Mary Sue.

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Feb 15th 2021 at 12:59:53 PM

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I'm basing it on

(1) low amount of google hits, suggesting this is not an "established term";

(2) the top search result and several links on the first page are T Vtropes-related, suggesting the term mainly spreads from us; and

(3) the trope page itself spells out that the actual established term is "the plant", not "brick joke".

Edited by Spark9 on Feb 15th 2021 at 4:14:10 AM

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

Also worth noting that the Canonical List of Subtle Trope Distinctions does not distinguish Brick Joke from Call-Back, and when distinguishing Brick Joke from Chekhov's Gag, describes it in terms that sound like the OP's definition of Call-Back:

This appears to be referring to this part of the Brick Joke description:

I suspect the idea, at least according to whoever wrote the Trope Distinctions page, is supposed to be that a Brick Joke comes off as a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment until it eventually pays off, unlike both Chekhov's Gag and Call-Back which are complete in themselves until they come up again later. But I don't know how that can be Played for Drama without just being Chekhov's Gun or one of its related tropes. (It doesn't help that the page itself doesn't really do a good job of defining it, bordering on using the Trope Namer as Example as a Thesis.)

This idea does seem to be the origin of the page, with the original YKTTW including a brief discussion of what might separate it from Chekhov's Gun outside a comedic context. I don't know if that's an idea that might be worth salvaging, but if so it would probably need a different name.

I would agree that a humorous Call-Back can feel very similar to a Brick Joke. Not sure where to draw the line.

So, if I'm getting this right, the problem here is people can't tell the differences between Brick Joke, Call-Back and Continuity Nod, which are:

• Brick Joke: A joke is set up but doesn't pay off until later
• Continuity Nod: A reference to something that happened earlier in the work.
• Call-Back: An event from earlier in the work that becomes revelant to the plot again

There could be some overlap between Brick Joke and the other two (depending on how long the gap is), but the extent of that overlap seems really unclear. For example, this is on Call-Back:

• Even Garfield, one of the most stagnant and continuity-free strips in newspapers, has gotten in on the act a few times. In a strip from February 2017, Garfield thinks back on a time when he couldn't sleep: November 8, 1992. Sure enough, in the November 8, 1992 strip, Garfield can't get any sleep because of "night noises" keeping him awake.

And this is on Brick Joke:

• The strip from November 8, 1992 featured a joke about Garfield getting ready for bed and being unable to get to sleep. On February 9, 2017 (Twenty five years later!) Garfield remarks "Sometimes I can't sleep...I think it was November 8, 1992"!

I'm not sure what to do besides make the definitions clearer. Brick Joke does look like a separate enough idea from Call-Back, so I don't really see the point in merging it.

If you put it like that, the difference is that a Brick Joke is brought up earlier and explicitly left hanging in an uncertain state (so it automatically is either Whatever Happened to the Mouse? if it is not brought up again, and Brick Joke if it is); whereas Continuity Nod is simply referring to anything that happened earlier. That makes Brick Joke a subtrope of Continuity Nod.

A Call-Back has to be something that becomes plot-relevant later on, instead of just a reference. I wouldn't be surprised if CN and CB also get misused for one another constantly. For instance, Call-Back calls Running Gag a subtrope of Call-Back, but running gags are not usually plot-relevant; therefore running gag should actually be a subtrope of Continuity Nod (in that it's a repeated nod). Or, Remember When You Blew Up a Sun? calls itself a subtrope of CN, but the CN page calls RWYBUSA a subtrope of either CN or CB depending.

So IIUC,

• Mentioned first, mentioned later = Continuity Nod
• Mentioned first, mentioned second, mentioned later = Running Gag
• Mentioned AND left hanging first, mentioned later = Brick Joke
• Mentioned first, plot-relevant later = Chekhov's Gun
• Mentioned first, plot-relevant second, plot-relevant later = Chekhov's Boomerang
• Plot-relevant first, never mentioned again = Whatever Happened to the Mouse?
• Plot-relevant first, mentioned later = Something We Forgot
• Plot-relevant first, plot-relevant later = Call-Back

...that probably shouldn't be so many distinct tropes though; it gets pretty confusing.

Edited by Spark9 on Feb 15th 2021 at 1:44:41 AM

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

^ Good starting point. It boils down to the question what "left hanging" means. Does it mean there is only a setup at first and the work/scene feels incomplete if the plot point in question doesn't get revisited/resolved?

E.g. you listed Gag Echo as "left hanging" while probably no one would have noticed if the line was said once and never picked up again. So I would argue it's a sister of CN. Or what's with the slug scene in Monsters University? We first get a funny scene of the slug hurrying to class. After the credits, we revisit the slug when it arrives. It never felt like the first scene was "left hanging" but it certainly set up the joke at the end.

Oooh boy, that's another can of worms. Gag Echo refers to Meaningful Echo to explain itself, but Meaningful Echo in return refers to Ironic Echo. That's annoying and we should fix that.

The point of these echo tropes is that a line is repeated more-or-less literally (not necessarily by the same person), meaning that both the quote on Gag Echo and the image on Meaningful Echo are misleading and should be removed.

• Ironic Echo, a line is repeated, the first time is meaningful and the second time is ironic. So that's a subtrope of Call-Back.
• Meaningful Echo, a line is repeated, the first time is throwaway and the second time is deep. So that's a subtrope of Chekhov's Gun.
• Gag Echo, a line is repeated and the second time is funny. This is a subtrope of CN or BJ or SWF (since Gag Echo gives conflicting ideas on whether the first mention is important or not). It is also a supertrope of Strange Minds Think Alike.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

Speaking of the phrase "left hanging", we actually have a trope called Left Hanging that discusses plot threads that come up in the work, only to stay unresolved when the work ends.

Also, the first sentence of its description ("The special feeling that you get when you've watched a show and realized that an unusually large number of loose ends have been left dangling") makes me wonder if it should be YMMV, but that's outside this thread's scope (it's possible that the first two paragraphs can just be removed or repositioned to put more focus on the objective parts).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 15th 2021 at 7:09:03 AM

You can't always get what you want.

This is getting confusing. Don't we have a supertrope for all these?

Yeah, this is a rabbit hole.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

So what, if anything, is the difference between Left Hanging and Whatever Happened to the Mouse?

LH specifies that if it's plot-relevant, then it's automatically an example of WHTTM too. But if it's not plot-relevant, then it's not really being left hanging, is it?

Edited by Spark9 on Feb 15th 2021 at 11:52:28 AM

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

I don't think there is a difference. The first sentence (the "That special feeling that you get..." part) implies that Left Hanging is an Audience Reaction (despite not being classified as YMMV), but "What Happened to the Mouse?, but with audiences feeling puzzled" is The Same, but More Specific.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 16th 2021 at 2:57:21 PM

You can't always get what you want.

Fair point. I get the impression that the "feeling" is just florid language and not actually a required part of the trope, meaning it's actually the exact same thing.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

Actually, what it says is that it's WHTTM if "the hanging thread is trivial to the plot", ie, if it's not all that plot-relevant. This is clearer on WHTTM's own description.

So...anyone want to try breaking this all down in layman's terms?

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Tying this back to Brick Joke specifically, I am personally torn between thinking that expanding the definition to include the misuse has some merit and wondering if it would be redundant to have "Call-Back or Continuity Nod to a joke".

Pinball cleanup thread

I like the idea of renaming Brick Joke to Delayed Punchline. I think it's a viable trope distinct from Call-Back, which isn't necessarily comedic.

I also think it should be restricted to jokes, where the setup is late in the episode (and can be funny on its own but still feels incomplete) and the punchline is late in the work. It needn't be plot relevant, like Chekhov's Gag, and can just exist for laughs.

So here's a random example I think might qualify as Brick Joke. There's a South Park episode where Kenny is dropped into a pool with bricks on his feet to drown, but the water is shallow. So that could be considered a punchline. However, we then see him wade through the water and it's clear something else is gonna happen, especially because, well, you know what always happens to Kenny. Then at the end of the episode, during the credits, we get a scene of Kenny where he finally falls face down and presumably drowns. There's our resolution to that hanging thread of what would happen to him. Another episode has Kenny die and then the characters mention it later, but that's a Call-Back because the joke was complete the first time, without any loose thread. The above Garfield example is Call-Back, not Brick Joke, because it's a reference to an older comic, but the previous comic was a complete joke on its own. It doesn't even rely on you to know that the date was a specific related comic strip, just that it was long ago.

So a setup for a Brick Joke can be funny, but the ultimate punchline, the resolution that confirms the joke is complete, has to come way later. If there was no indication earlier that there was more to the joke, then it's just a Call-Back to the joke.

---

As for all those other items...they could all use some help. What Happened to the Mouse? needs its own TRS because it's a borderline audience reaction, and Call-Back and Continuity Nod need more distinguishing, IMO.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 17th 2021 at 4:19:44 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.