Chuck Norris eternal brainless unfunny gags

Yup.

Kinda like the contention there are only seven distinct dramatic arcs, and 100% of literature must inherently be a mere variation / elaboration on one of those seven.

I lack the expertise to defend or debunk that contention. But I’ve sure read it enough times to know it has staying power. So it’s a meta-story arc. :wink:

That joke formula is a formula and the formula will continue to be followed with a new cast and new details.

Profit!

There’s a D&D webcomic I follow called “Order of the Stick”, where one of the characters is a nigh-unkillable good-ass paladin named O-Chul. Some of the “O-Chul Facts” I remember include:
“O-Chul was right when he said that Charisma was his dump stat. It’s only 30.”
“O-Chul always gets a natural 20. Even when he’s rolling a d6.”
“O-Chul doesn’t have a Constitution score. Constitution has an O-Chul score.”

OOtS is great, I need to catch back up with it.

I think it’s a lot less objectionable when it’s a fictional character who was designed to be a hyperpowered death machine and gets acknowledged as such in-universe, as opposed to a real-life random actor who gets utterly shoehorned into 500 completely unrelated YouTube discussions. I’m old-fashioned like that.

Yeah. It easily gets creepy or sycophantic when it’s an actual person, especially a living one. Fictional characters are more likely to live up to the hype.

I’ll also add it can be pretty funny when the character isn’t a “hyperpowered death machine”, but people in-setting are misinterpreting what’s going on.

I used to have the TV on but muted. So I must’ve seen Walker TR while spacing out listening to music. I know I never watched it as intended. I was always scrolling through the channels, so I never saw all that much of the show, but every time I’d watch it for even a few minutes, he would have occasion to do that roundhouse (?) kick. Every show. Must’ve been the money shot for Chuck Norris fans.

I never watched it at all, but just by osmosis via Chuck Norris jokes I’ve heard about the “roundhouse kick”. It seems to have been iconic.

The show Kung Fu also had that kick in nearly every episode. Bruce Lee movies too. For folks who like their oriental martial arts, that seems to be a real crowd-pleaser.

I think Billy Jack also. It’s impressive looking, and has a big buildup to unleashing it so there is anticipation and then a payoff. Actually, the time it takes to do the move makes me wonder if it is actually that useful in a real fight and/or match.

It seems like in movies it is usually delivered as a coup de grace, with the bad guy just sort of standing there dazed?

He’s not exactly some random actor, but one who regularly played that type of character.

And while I obviously don’t think it’s wrong to dislike these types of jokes for any reason, I do think going beyond that to calling it objectionable, let alone creepy, kinda requires an assumption of the target’s discomfort.

Conan O’Brien started (or popularized) the joke. Originally with Walker, Texas Ranger clips, which evolved to just Chuck Norris in general. People likes the joke, and the popularity of Conan and Norris meant it was a common touchstone for enough people that this type of joke worked.

Until it got overused like any joke and people stopped liking it, so people stopped making it.

Don’t get me wrong. I love your OP. You brought the fun and humor back.

Perhaps.

Earlier @Der_Trihs also used the word “sycophantic” which resonated with me.

When random Bob tells a Norris joke, I think Bob is (a little bit) showing off his boot-licking side. Which isn’t a good look for Bob regardless of what Norris might think if he heard the joke.

It’s also sometimes the first move after the stare-down / toughguy talk.

There’s a scene in (IIRC) Billy Jack where the evil Sheriff and a few goons surround BJ in a park. BJ confronts the Sheriff who orders him to leave town or whatever; or else. BJ calmly answers something like “I’m going to kick you right here <gestures towards Sheriff’s left ear> and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.”

Count to 3, maaybe 5, for the audience to savor the moment then sure as shit, the Sheriff gets a boot in the ear before he can react and goes down like a bag of rocks. The remaining 5 goons politely take turns in their attack so BJ can deal with each one at a time; not all at once.

The Billy Jack scene. Fast forward to 1:20.

Every Steven Seagal movie ever made: He is standing in the middle of a large circle of 20 guys, each with some semi-auto weapon, or at least a baseball bat & they all come after him One. At. A. Time. If any one of them decided to use the weapon (that they were competently using for target practice in the prior scene) then he’d have gone down like a box of rocks, but nooooo. He emerges victorious over an entire bus full of 'em. :roll_eyes:

Well, you see, you use different moves when you’re fighting half a dozen people, than when you only have to be worried about one.

Thanks for the cite.

Except for the fact there were 10 goons, not 5, and he kicked the Sheriff on the right side of his head, I think I did pretty good for a 20 year old memory. :slight_smile:

Better than my recent average for sure; I’ve recently told a few whoppers of botched memories I should’ve researched before posting.

Every time I see that trope I think of the Disney cartoon chipmunks Chip ‘n’ Dale - Wikipedia who are always ever so polite to one another:

Chip: No, please, Dale; you attack first; I’m honored to wait my turn.
Dale: Chip Dear Sir, I must insist you go first; indubitably you deserve the honor of despatching our foe.
Chip: No, I insis …
Hero: Kick kick, punch punch, stomp stomp. Both Chip and Dale are dead, dying, or unconscious depending on the hero’s rep between stone cold killer and cartoon vigilante.

Or more generally, audiences of varied demographics enjoy seeing someone kicked in the head.

I understood that reference…