Funniest Lines Spoken by a TV Character

Cafe Society
1

There must be scores of these…
Cheers
(Lilith is lamenting the death of her white lab rat. Frasier is horrified to find it in her purse in the bar.)
Frasier: Why would someone put a rat in her purse?
Carla: A snack?

Mary Tyler Moore
Ted Baxter: If Cronkite can do it, Baxter can do it!
Murray: And if Baxter can do it, a duck can do it!

Dragnet
(An officer named Phil Waverly has been accused of taking a bribe from a bookie. Friday and Gannon question the bookie, Ted Clover, who shows them a bull’s ear a matador gave him.)
Clover: About getting my buddy kicked off the force–maybe I did ol’ Phil a favor!
Friday: How do you figure?
Clover: Why would anyone want to be a cop?
Friday: Oh, I don’t know…why would anyone want a dead bull’s ear?

MAS*H
(Margaret wants to transfer a popular nurse out of the 4077th. Hawkeye and Trapper cajole Henry to use his authority to forestall Margaret.)
Trapper: …or we’ll tell everybody that your brother’s in jail!
Henry: My brother is a warden!
Hawkeye: We won’t say that part!

Beverly Hillbillies
Jethro: He’s so dumb he thinks Santa Monica is the guy who comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve!

Emergency!
Johnny: Listen, I’m skinny, but I’m tough!
Roy: So is Chet Kelly’s fried chicken!

2

On Cheers:

Sam: How’s it going, Norm?
Norm: It’s a dog eat dog world, Sam, and I’m wearing Milk Bone underwear.

On Futurama:

Bender: I feel so sad, I wish everyone else was dead!

The Drew Carey Show:

Oh, so you hate your job, do you? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called Everybody and they meet at the bar!

3

Archie Bunker:

“Watch it with the fruit! Ya appled all over my shirt!”

“Now, ya got any fried chicken in the house 'cause they like to snack on that.”

“You mean my eyes are gonna chink-up on me?”

“Hey there, Jefferson. That ain’t very nice, talking to your little mammie like that.”

“You dumb, meat-headed, unemployed, oversexed, pinko, professor-of-Polack, you!”

4

Reverend Jim Ignatowski: “Whaaaaaaaaaaat… doooooooooooes… aaaaaa… yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllooooooooow liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeean?”

Arthur Carlson: “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

5

Homer Simpson [upon being informed that there’s a waiting period for gun purchases]: “Five days? But I’m mad now!”

6

Police Squad!
Dutch Gunderson: Who are you and how did you get in here?
Frank: I’m a locksmith. And, I’m a locksmith.

Murder Most Horrid
(Tina is a naive woman trying to get past a security guard to gain access to an office building. Carmela is a worldly assassin coaching her over a hidden earpiece. Tina has accidentally offered the guard a blow job and it falls to Carmela to explain what’s she’s gotten herself into.)
Carmela: Stimulation of the, eh…
Tina: Of the whatsit.
Carmela: By the mouth.
Tina: God! You’d never think he’d be able to reach!

7

That’s one of my very favorites. From possibly the same episode:

Norm (sees his boss enter the bar): It’s my boss! Quick, Cliff, what does my breath smell like?
Cliff (sniffing Norm’s breath): Milwaukee.

8

Rev. Jim again: “OOOWWWWW!”

(Five minutes earlier, Louie had grabbed his ear with a pair of pliers and threatened to commit some mayhem if the crew kept making wisecracks about him. Jim just kept reading his comic book while his ear was being held hostage.)

9

Archie Bunker in All in the Family:

(Archie wants some legal advice, and tells Edith to look up the name of that law firm they used when they bought their house)–“you know, them 3 Jewish guys”.

Gloria overhears it and says sarcastically: "how would I find that–maybe I should look in the yellow pages under ‘Jewish Lawyers’ ? "

And Archie replies: “No…that would take too long.”

10

From the Addams Family:

Lurch: Father was right.
Gomez: Right about what, Lurch?
Lurch: My being a butler.
Gomez: Why, what did he want you to be?
Lurch: A jockey.

The humor in this line came from Lurch’s height. Ted Cassidy, the actor who played Lurch, stood 6’9" tall.

11

Lenny (The Simpsons): “Ow! My eye! I’m not supposed to get pudding in it!”

12

This one almost slipped by me:

(From Modern Family)

Cam is arranging an elaborate Wizard of Oz themed party for Mitch (or vice versa). The flying monkeys arrive…

Monkey 1: “Hey”
Cam: “Hey”
Monkey 2: “We’re the monkeys”
mmm

13

MASH:
{Radar is presenting Col. Blake with a large sheaf of paperwork, and asking him to sign here, initial there, etc.}
Blake: Do you understand any of this?
Radar: I try not to, sir. It slows things down.

WKRP in Cincinnati:
As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.
All in the Family:
{Archie Bunker and Gloria are arguing about gun control. Gloria cites a statistic about how many people are killed by guns.}
Archie: Would it make you feel any better, little girl, if they was pushed out of windows?
Archie: If God had meant for white people to dance with colored people—
Meathead: He would have given us rhythm, too.

14

Radar: Initial here, sir.
Henry: Initial, Radar?
Radar: Yes, sir. Your initials indicate that rather than signing, you initialed.

Henry: That’s a decision that I will make when I decide, and make my decision, and that will decide it.

15

I really did not expect to find that the very quote I came in to post had already been posted, but there it is. My recollection of it, which may be wrong, is that Gloria cited a statistic about how many children had been killed by guns, and Archie said “if they was “t’rown” out of windas”.

16

From Cheers:

Diane: Dr., there’s still one thing you haven’t considered…
Dr. Simon Finch-Royce: Ok; Sam, Diane, you two are perfect together. I’m sorry I made a mistake before but you are the most perfectly matched couple ever. But, why am I telling this to you? Let’s share it with the rest of the world.
[opens window]
Dr. Simon Finch-Royce: Hear this, world. The rest of you can stop getting married. It’s been done to perfection. Envy them, sofa, envy them, chair, for you shall never be as cozy as they for their union shall be an epoch-shattering success and I STAKE MY LIFE ON IT. Wait a moment, let me get this on record
[talks into his tape recorder]
Dr. Simon Finch-Royce: “I, Dr. Simon Finch-Royce, being of sound mind and body declare that Sam and Diane shall be happy together throughout all eternity and if I am wrong I promise I will take my own life in the most disgusting manner possible.” Here, take the tape, NO, take the whole machine. It’s my wedding gift to you. The most perfect couple since the DAWN of TIME.
Diane: [turns to Sam] See?

Of course, you had to see John Cleese’s rant, and especially, Shelly Long’s delivery of the final line.

17

Reminds me of another of that style of joke, from The Simpsons:

Homer, driving, runs into a deer statue with his car.
Homer: D’oh!
Lisa: A deer!
Marge: A female deer!

18

Hawkeye: Frank, the r-e-d speaks English better than y-o-u.

19

Raj: But excuse me, I have something to say. None of you may realize it, but I was very much looking forward to this weekend. It was gonna be like the old days – the four of us hanging out, playing video games, before you guys all got girlfriends. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be the only one without a girlfriend? Even if I get one someday, I’ll still be the guy who got a girl * after Sheldon Cooper!*

Kumar’s delivery of that line was perfection!

20

Yep. My two favorite television quotes from my (roughly) six decades of watching television!