# Don't get a joke from The Simpsons, Futurama, or Family Guy? Post here! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 27, 2005, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352 "2005-07-27T03:08:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/41 "2005-07-28T04:28:39Z")
It was Benjamin Disraeli, former British Prime Minister. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/42 "2005-07-28T04:39:08Z")
To make it even funnier, a former British PM from the Victorian era. Maybe that’d be common knowledge in the UK, but it’s fairly obscure in the US. Isn’t there a caricature of Disraeli in _Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass_, in the picture of Alice on the train going to the fourth square? ---
**Author:** ![Oregon\_sunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/50afbb/32.png) [@Oregon\_sunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oregon_sunshine)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/43 "2005-07-28T04:39:49Z")
I can honestly admit that I don’t get any modern TV jokes. In the last 15 years, I’ve only watched the X-Files. Anything else, I think I know the names because everyone talks about them. Why should I get the jokes again? ---
**Author:** ![SpartanDC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@SpartanDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpartanDC)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/44 "2005-07-28T04:55:02Z")
OK, I’ve seen the “Kicked In the Nuts” guy they used on I think the second Family Guy episode of this season, but does anyone know what those shorts actually were for?? Is it some sly commentary on how willing people are to be on TV? Are the people getting kicked in the nuts actors? And does the guy who did it have some relationship to Seth McFarlane? ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/45 "2005-07-28T06:36:38Z")
There’s one episode of the Simpsons where the family is discussing Bart’s teacher, and Homer cuts in with “Bart’s teacher is named Krabappel? All this time I’ve been calling her Krandal! Why didn’t somebody tell me, oh I’ve been making an idiot out of myself!” Is this a reference to anything or just a random Homer stupidity moment? ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/46 "2005-07-28T07:23:27Z")
> [@Big Bad Voodoo Lou](#): > > What about the scene from a recent Family Guy where Stewie is imagining himself in a rocking chair on the porch of a Southern plantation-style manor, and he says “It’s good to have land.” I’m sure it’s from a movie (Gone With the Wind, perhaps?), but which one? I asked the same thing, but it’s probably just Stewie hearing something in his sleep and building a dream around it. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/47 "2005-07-28T07:25:37Z")
> [@SNenc](#): > > OK, I’ve seen the “Kicked In the Nuts” guy they used on I think the second Family Guy episode of this season, but does anyone know what those shorts actually were for?? Is it some sly commentary on how willing people are to be on TV? Are the people getting kicked in the nuts actors? And does the guy who did it have some relationship to Seth McFarlane? I assumed it was a takeoff of old hidden camera shows. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/48 "2005-07-28T13:03:10Z")
> [@Dooku](#): > > Here’s one I always thought was a movie reference but never got. It’s the Simpsons where Bart loses his soul. At one point he approaches Ralph as he’s in his dad’s police car. He offers Ralph a proposal for his soul, then Raplh gets scared, and Wiggum shines his flashlight in Bart’s face. Bart looks at him with devilish-looking slits in his eyes, hisses, then runs off into a could of smoke from the sewer with his shadow sinisterly diminishing. I always suspected this was from some noir horror movie. [Cat People](http://imdb.com/title/tt0083722/) , the remake with David Bowie. I think. Wait, no. He wasn’t in that one. Maybe it was [The Hunger](http://imdb.com/title/tt0085701/). The \*\*Movie (and other) references \*\* part of [http://www.snpp.com/episodes/3F02.html](http://www.snpp.com/episodes/3F02.html) doesn’t mention it, but I believe that was it, nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/49 "2005-07-28T14:03:54Z")
> [@ggurl](#): > > Why should I get the jokes again? In the case of _The Simpsons_ and _Family Guy_, it would be because many of the jokes reference popular culture _older_ than fifteen years. > [@Big Bad Voodoo Lou](#): > > Stewie is imagining himself in a rocking chair on the porch of a Southern plantation-style manor, and he says “It’s good to have land.” I’m sure it’s from a movie (Gone With the Wind, perhaps?), but which one? It’s not in the book of Gone With the Wind (thank you, Australian copyright laws!) but it is the sort of thing Scarlett’s father would say. ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/50 "2005-07-28T14:22:16Z")
There was a crappy movie about a brother and sister who were really some type of demons and cats made them react that way they were afraid of them… [Sleepwalkers](http://www.scary-crayon.com/spectare/sleepwalkers/) for some reason this scene reminds me of that movie. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/51 "2005-07-28T15:25:33Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > To make it even funnier, a former British PM from the Victorian era. Maybe that’d be common knowledge in the UK, but it’s fairly obscure in the US. Isn’t there a caricature of Disraeli in _Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass_, in the picture of Alice on the train going to the fourth square? I think that in the bit with the Lion and the Unicorn fighting, Tenniel drew one to be Disraeli and the other to be Gladstone. But it’s beeb a _long_ time since I’ve browsed through my copy of The Annotated Alice, so I may be misremembering. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/52 "2005-07-28T16:02:50Z")
> [@MadderMitch](#): > > Homer: > > “I think it’s clear why he portions it\* out in those tiny little packages, and why he lives on a plantation in Hawaii” > > - sugar (from the episode where Homer steals all the sugar from a tipped over silo – or something to that effect) > So, what’s the ref.- to? I thought maybe it had something to do with how C & H sugar is distributed in restaurants, in combination with the afore mentioned cocaine reference. BTW, I think the sugar came from a truck that crashed. ---
**Author:** ![Ruckinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/977dab/32.png) [@Ruckinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruckinge)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/53 "2005-07-28T17:45:29Z")
> [@SNenc](#): > > OK, I’ve seen the “Kicked In the Nuts” guy they used on I think the second Family Guy episode of this season, but does anyone know what those shorts actually were for?? Is it some sly commentary on how willing people are to be on TV? Are the people getting kicked in the nuts actors? And does the guy who did it have some relationship to Seth McFarlane? One of the Family Guy writers has a website called [kickinthenuts.com](http://kickinthenuts.com) or something to that effect (this from a friend who claims he’s been there and it’s true). It’d show clips (not really true but made to look like it) of people being kicked in the nuts or some other effect to extreme levels of low-brow hilarity, and in that episode they wanted to give their guy a shout out. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/54 "2005-07-28T17:56:43Z")
Stewie rocking on the porch struck me as vaguely Tennessee Williams-ish, in a Big Daddy sort of way. ---
**Author:** ![brad\_mac2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/51bf81/32.png) [@brad\_mac2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brad_mac2)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/55 "2005-07-28T18:54:02Z")
In the Family Guy ep “Road to Rhode Island”…Briand and Stewie sing the little song…at one point they say “Like a masochist from newport, I’m road island bound.” What is that a reference to? ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/56 "2005-07-28T18:59:37Z")
Sounds like a parody of the title song from “Road to Morocco” (Crosby/Hope) – which had the line, “like Webster’s Dictionary, we’re Morocco-bound”. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/57 "2005-07-28T19:01:04Z")
“masochist” - bondage, bound “Newport” - a town in Rhode Island ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/58 "2005-07-28T19:17:13Z")
> [@brad\_mac2](#): > > In the Family Guy ep “Road to Rhode Island”…Briand and Stewie sing the little song…at one point they say “Like a masochist from newport, I’m road island bound.” > What is that a reference to? I have a feeling it migth be addressing the BDSM while only saying “Mascochist”, or just because Mascochists sometimes do the bondage thing. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/59 "2005-07-28T19:52:54Z")
> [@brad\_mac2](#): > > In the Family Guy ep “Road to Rhode Island”…Briand and Stewie sing the little song…at one point they say “Like a masochist from newport, I’m road island bound.” > What is that a reference to? I thought it was a dig at Newport - as in, you’d have to be a masochist to live there. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2005, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352/60 "2005-07-28T19:58:46Z")
Unlikely. Newport is where the ultra-rich New Yorkers of the late 19th-century (Cornelius Vanderbilt, et al.) built their summer homes. It has some of the most specacular [mansions](http://www.scalamandre.com/tour/breaker/breaker.htm) ever built in the U.S., and is still a very upscale place. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dont-get-a-joke-from-the-simpsons-futurama-or-family-guy-post-here/314352.md?page=4)