Best insult in TV/Film?

The old jokes are the best, aren’t they? :smiley: Yes, that joke is at least as old as I am, and it probably goes back to vaudeville or before.

From The Women:

Nancy Blake: You’re so resourceful, darling, I ought to go to you for plots.
Sylvia Fowler: You ought to go to someone.

Child on train: Mommy, will daddy come to Reno?
Lady on train: No darling
Child on train: Mommy, where is daddy?
Lady on train: I don’t know and I dont care. In the future you’ll please refer to him as “That heel”!
Countess DeLave: But whither… Whither shall I fly?
Miriam Aarons: To the arms our our pet cowboy darling!
Countess DeLave: [Gasps] Miriam Aarons!
Miriam Aarons: Why he’s plumb loco for you, Countess! He likes you even better than his horse! And it’s such a blasted big horse too!
Edith Potter: Weren’t you going to Africa to shoot, Nancy?
Nancy Blake: As soon as my book’s out
Sylvia Fowler: I don’t blame you, I’d rather face a tiger anyday than the sort of things the critics said about your last book.

Cabin in the Cotton actually.

I wish I could remember where I came from, but I don’t. It was an unintentional self-insult. Mighthave been Kiefer Sutherland who said it.

The bad guy was raving on how he had pulled the wool over everyone. “You bought the stupid act! It was all a facade.”

He pronounced it as FAKE-AID.

From the play/movie You Can’t Take it With You

For those not familiar with the play it takes place in the 1930s. Penny Sycamore (a bubbly super-nice person [not a bitch at all] from a very eccentric middle class family) is entertaining her daughter’s fiance’s parents, the Kirbys, an extremely rich and pompous couple, on an evening where everything that can go wrong does. They are talking about hobbies (Penny’s is writing plays, Mr. Kirby’s is raising orchids, and Mrs. Kirby- an obnoxious society woman- tells hers; the ironic thing is that Penny does not mean to be insulting.)
MRS. KIRBY Of course it’s more than a hobby to me, but my great solace is spiritualism.

PENNY Spiritualism? Why Mrs. Kirby, everyone knows that’s a fake!

GRANDPA Now Penny, you’ve got some unconventional hobbies of your own.

PENNY Oh yes, I know, but not silly ones!

=============================

Later in the play (omitted from the movie version) the families play a word game. Five words are called out and you write the first thing that comes to mind for each. The words are Potatoes, Bathroom, Lust, Honeymoon, Sex.

Mr. Kirby’s answers are

Potatoes: Steak
Bathroom: Toothpaste
Lust: Unlawful
Honeymoon: Trip
Sex: Male

Mrs. Kirby’s, which start a firestorm all around after the first one, are

Potatoes: Starch
Bathroom: Mr. Kirby
Lust: Human
Honeymoon: Dull
Sex: Wall Street

When her husband, already furious from the last few answers, demands to know what Wall Street and Sex have to do with each other, Mrs. Kirby- very flustered already- yells out in front of everybody “Because you’re ALWAYS talking about Wall Street! Even when we’re… I have a terrible headache, perhaps we should go.”

Anyway, always thought it was a funny scene. (I played Mr. Kirby in one production, one of my favorite roles). Also surprisingly racy for the early '30s.

“Married With Children” had a lot of good ones, for instance:

Old Lady (in Al’s shoe store that Al was waiting on): I’m still not sure I want these shoes. What would you recommend to go with them?
Al: A bubbling cauldron?
Old Lady: You’ve got a lot of nerve.
Al: To get this close to your feet, yeah.

Al: Now wait a second Peg, the kids are here. If you want to have sex, they’ll have to leave. And if you want it to be good, you’ll have to leave.
Bud: Hey, Kel. Guess what; I’ve got a date tonight with a foreign exchange student who’s so easy she makes you look like a calculus problem.
Jefferson: You copied that from Bugs Bunny.
Al: No, Daffy Duck.
Jefferson: Bugs.
Al: Daffy.
Jefferson: Bugs.
Al: Daffy.
Peggy: Why are you two introducing yourselves to each other?

That was from My Fellow American’s

From Drop Dead Gorgeous
Gladys Leeman: Hey hey, Miss Penthouse '98, close those legs, I could drive a boat show in there

Gladys Leeman: [wearing her old pageant outfit] And look, it still fits!
Loretta: So she had big ass then, she’s got a big ass now.

Gladys Leeman: He sells reproductions! His furniture’s as fake as my orgasms!
The man who Came to dinner
Sheridan Whiteside: My great aunt Jennifer ate a whole box of candy every day of her life. She lived to be 102, and when she had been dead three days, she looked better than you do now.

Sheriden Whiteside: Will you take your clammy hand off my chair? You have the touch of a love-starved cobra.

Nurse Preen: Mr. Whiteside, I can only be in one place at a time.
Sheridan Whiteside: That’s very fortunate for this community.

Nurse Preen: I am not only walking out on this case, Mr. Whiteside, I am leaving the nursing profession. I became a nurse because all my life, ever since I was a little girl, I was filled with the idea of serving a suffering humanity. After one month with you , Mr. Whiteside, I am going to work in a munitions factory. From now on , anything I can do to help exterminate the human race will fill me with the greatest of pleasure. If Florence Nightingale had ever nursed YOU, Mr. Whiteside, she would have married Jack the Ripper instead of founding the Red Cross!

I never understood this line. She doesn’t want to kiss him because that will mess up her hair. :confused:

I read it more as a tease than an insult. But then again, I found Bette Davis rather frightening looking, so that may explain it.

Regards,
Shodan

Im a big golden girls fan. After the recent death of Estelle Getty I was looking through funny quotes from teh show - there are so so many! However this one always stood out for me -

Blanche: Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to relax in a hot, steamy bath with just enough water to cover my perky bosoms.

Sophia: You’re gonna lay in an inch of water?
I love it - Estelle had amazing delivery for put downs!

Indirect insult, from “Kindergarten Cop”—Arnold is asking each of the kids what their fathers do and where they live.

Boy: “My dad drives a taxi and lives in New York. [Pause]. Oh yeah, and my mom hopes he’s gonna die real soon.”

IIRC it was “Jane, you ignorant slut! Who did you sleep with to get this job?”

from a different media - lou reed’s live: take no prisoners and said to a member of the audience:

"if you write as well as you speak, no one reads you."

sláinte,

john

It’s taking a well known insult one step futher. I’d like to go on a date with you, but I have to wash my hair, is made even nastier by moving the hair washing into the past tense, making it an even more rediculous and therefore insulting excuse to avoid someone.

“Cordelia, your mouth is open, and sound is coming out. This is never good.”

An all-time favorite Buffy exchange:

Buffy: "So then Kathy’s like, ‘It’s share time.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh yeah? Share this!’ (She punches at the air.)
Oz: “So, either you hit her, or you did your wacky mime routine for her.”
Buffy: “Well, I didn’t do either, actually. But she deserves it, don’t you think?”
Oz: “Nobody deserves mime, Buffy.”
Buffy: “Kathy does. She deserves to be locked in an invisible box and blown away by an imaginary wind and… and…”
Oz: “Forced to wear a binding unitard?”
Buffy: “Yeah, the itchy kind, it’s perfect.”
Oz: “Just here to help.”

http://www.billiedoux.com/buffy4x2.html

I’m pretty sure that wasn’t an insult. That was a joke that recurred at least a couple times on the show where someone called Jerry and launched into some kind of tirade that was so specific it was immediately obvious who was calling. He’d say, “Uncle Leo?” or “Who is this?” as a joke, because it was more than clear who was on the line.

Like Golden Girls, Cheers was from the golden age of comedy insults. A few good’ns:

Woody: Hey Mr. Peterson, there’s a cold one waiting for you.
Norm: I know. If she calls, I’m not here.

Diane: He’s trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.
Carla: He wants you to wear a padded bra?

Frasier: I’ve been taking stock of myself.
Carla: Not exactly AT&T, is it?

Sam: I’ve never met an intelligent woman I’d want to date.
Diane: On behalf of all the intelligent women in America, may I just say: whew.

Cliff: What a pathetic display. I’m ashamed God made me a man.
Carla: I don’t think God’s doing a lot of bragging either.

Frasier: Boy, I never felt so low in my life.
Cliff: Well, Doc, if it means anything to you, I’m here for you.
Frasier: It doesn’t, Cliff, but thanks.

Dilbert once responded to a similar line with “That’s okay. I’d rather someone with clean hair.”

From Real Genius-

Susan (Deborah Foreman)- “Can you hammer a six inch spike through a board with your penis?”

Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- “Not right now.”

Susan- “A girl’s got to have her standards.”
He gets her back though, when the professor she’s screwing coldly tells her to “catch a cab” in front of Chris, and he says, “I guess you’ll hammer later!”

Is that quotation missing a verb?

From Auntie Mame

Patrick: Is the English lady sick, Auntie Mame?
Mame: She’s not English, darling… she’s from Pittsburgh.
Patrick: She sounded English.
Mame: Well, when you’re from Pittsburgh, you have to do something.

Vera: If you kept your hair natural like I do…
Mame: If I kept my hair natural like yours, I’d be bald.

Sally Cato: {before a fox-hunt} Well? Shall we to the hounds?
Mame: [sub]muttered[/sub] Yeah, I’d love to meet your family.