Ah, The Carol Burnette Show! Quite a collection of great moments.
My favorite (another they show on all of the clip show) is during a “Eunice” (Mama’s Family) skit. Tim Conway is talking about seeing Siamese elephants at the zoo. He explains that they can’t trumpet like the other elephants. They can just go, “Snoorky!”.
A corrected url, please?
I think I know what happened to Bart Simpson. Here’s how the entry begins:
<b>The 213 Things Skippy is No Longer Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army</b>
Once upon a time, there was a SPC Schwarz stationed with the Army in the Balkans. SPC Schwarz was either very clever or very bored; but probably both, since he managed to attempt or be warned about 213 things he wasn’t allowed to do. He collected those things into a hillarious list and posted them to the web. The site hadn’t been updated in a couple of years and has since gone away; but the list is classic, so I saved it. A couple favorites: 2. My proper military title is ‘Specialist Schwarz’ not ‘Princess Anastasia’. and 191. Our Humvees cannot be assembled into a giant battle-robot.
Not allowed to watch Southpark when I’m supposed to be working.
My proper military title is ‘Specialist Schwarz’ not ‘Princess Anastasia’.
Not allowed to threaten anyone with black magic.
Oh, Lord, this Skippy list has got me laughing out loud (or trying not too, since I’m at work):
Not allowed to add pictures of officers I don’t like to War Criminal posters.
Not allowed out of my office when the president visited Sarajevo.
Not allowed to train adopted stray dogs to ‘Sic Brass!’
May no longer perform my now (in)famous ‘Barbie Girl Dance’ while on duty.
Must not taunt the French any more.
I really wonder what happened to this guy.
Sung in Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Movie: “Nor-mal view… nor-mal view… nor-mal view! NOR-MAL VIEWWWWW!” Many, many other MST3K things, but that may be the big one for me. After about half an hour of any episode of that show I’m just in the groove and laughing at everything.
The stateroom scene in Night at the Opera, and also the entire sequence of the actual opera. Harpo and Chico sticking Take Me Out to the Ballgame into Verdi’s Il Trovatore is hilarious- and then they use a violin as a bat.
Has anybody else seen Steve Martin Live? The Absent-Minded Waiter short is terrific, and in the main program his rendition of Mack the Knife… well, the first line of Mack the Knife… over and over… with hand-gesture sharks… still gets big laughs from my mother and I, and we haven’t seen it in years.
Eddie Izzard. Dress to Kill. The funniest stand-up ever.
From Steve Martin in The Jerk:
“I was born a poor black child…”
(reacting to spiner fire that keeps missing him and puncturing oil and soda cans behind him) “He hates cans! STAY AWAY FROM THE CANS!!!”
From Monty Python’s Flying Circus:
David Sedaris’s “Holidays on Ice,” where he talks about being an elf at the Macy’s Christmas land. It’s even better hearing him read it on NPR around Christmas each year.
Also, in “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” he talks about his brother, who calls himself the Rooster.
Tenacious D, F*ck her Gently. the line ‘I’m gonna ball you…discreetly’ never fails to crack me up.
You owe it to yourself to watch the DVD extras for that scene. He sets the guys hair on fire. I almost cried.
I cried until my tear ducts ran dry when I watched Jackass. I also laugh out loud when watching Wild Boyz on MTV. I guess it doesn’t take much thought to make me laugh in this case. What’s funnier than a moron purposely having animals and insects injure him?
Eddie Murphy from Delirious:
The ice cream man is coming!!!
I got some ice cream. I got some ice cream.
You didn’t get none. You didn’t get none.
Cuz you are on the welfare.
And your dad’s a alcoholic.
Also: Funny Faggots (Ralph Cramden, Mr. T), The Family Cookout, Aunt Bunnie Falls Down the Stairs, Hit By a Car.
from Fawlty Towers:
the Major: That’s an amazing moose you’ve got there, Fawlty. Japanese, is it?
Fawlty: Uh, no, Canadian, I think.
from Best of Show: “Ooooh, Rhapsody’s got two mommies.”
The part where he rents the car, uses it in a demoliton derby then bring it back. The line “I think I hit a dog” made me choke. I can’t think of much else funnier than that bit.
That essay is one of the single best things ever written, IMO. Favorite line: “Motherfucker, I ain’t seen pussy in so long I’d throw stones at it.”
‘Weird Al’ Yankovic’s movie, UHF: Al and friends have confronted the bad guys, but the bad guys get the upper hand and are about to put the smackdown on Al. Jus then one of the baddies hears a noise from “over there.” All eyes turn to the nearby supply closet, which is clearly labeled “SUPPLIES”. Once bad guy cautiously opens the door, revealing a bunch of Japanese me in karate uniforms who yell “SUPPLIES!” (surprise!) and jump out and proceed to kick bad guy butt.
Same movie: Stanley’s “motivational speech”. Gotta see it.
From The Simpsons:
In the episode in which Marge is arrested for shoplifting, the school bully approaches Bart on the playground:
BULLY (pointing and laughing): Hah-hah! Your mom’s a jailbird!
BART: So’s yours.
BULLY: Oh, yeah. Let’s play!
The episode in which Bart donates some blood to save Mr. Burns life. Homer thinks Bart should have been rewarded, and writes an angry letter to Mr. Burns. Upon further consideration, though, he decides to not send the letter. Bart finds the letter and mails it himself, and when Homer finds out, he comes up with a plan to retrieve the letter before Mr. Burns sees it. So he goes to the Post Office and approaches a clerk:
HOMER (with a fake voice): Hello, my name is Mister Burns. I believe you have a letter for me.
CLERK: Sure thing, Mr. Burns! What’s your first name?
HOMER (still with fake voice): I don’t know…
And finally, a standup comedian whose name I can’t remember:
“So I’ve got everybody telling me to get married and have kids. Get married and have kids! Get married and have kids! Yeah, right. Then I’d have a whole family whose life sucks! Besides, if you do get married, you’ve pretty much got to talk to these people, like, every day! That wouldn’t work for me: ‘Honey, we need to talk.’ 'What, now? Can’t this wait ‘til the cable goes out or something?’ My brother, now, he’s been married for ten years and still doesn’t have any kids. I asked him, ‘how come you’ve been married for ten years and don’t have any kids?’ He says, ‘Me and the wife have been trying, but we just haven’t had any luck yet!’ ‘Yeah? Well let me have a crack at it…’”
Rowan Atkinson playing the Devil and greeting newcomers as they arrive in Hell.
MS3K: the Movie when they unpack the velocitor(?) and parts are everywhere the wisecrack was something like this, “Before unpacking you velocitor…Doh!” I thought I was going to die at that point.
My friends and I often do prank calls to major companies. One of the best ones, was one that my friend did to a phone company, claiming that the company logo on his cell phone had been replaced with the image of a penis with a swastika on it. After a few minutes, this pretense was dropped, and my friend was just chatting with the guy, asking him ridiculously personal questions, which the guy had no problem answering. (This tech support guy was very cool!) Eventually, my friend asks the tech support guy if he’s ever done the “Houdini” to his girlfriend (whom they’ve been talking about very explictly for a few minutes.) It turns out the guy had! What are the odds of that?
Later in the same call, my friend asks the guy (borrowing a line from another prank call, which we didn’t do but found on the internet) “Have you ever had a corn on the cob, raw, shoved up your ass?” The tech support guy responds, “No, I’ve never had a corn on the cob shoved up my ass.” Now keep in mind that this guy is sitting in a cubicle at some call center and probably was overheard by his co-workers.
Makes me smile or laugh everytime I think about it (or many of the other 100+ pranks we’ve done.)
I only saw this one once, and I would kill to see it again and tape it: John Byner on Carol Burnett, doing a western salon sketch. Harvey Korman playing the bad guy takes out his gun, shoots at Byner’s feet, and tells him to dance.
What follows is 10 minutes of dancing that would make a Broadway actor jealous. The best is an overhead shot of a group of cowboys lying on the floor in a circle doing a little kick routine. The whole thing is truly remarkable.
Carol Burnett admits the look on her face during the curtains scene is from her having to keep a straight face when she wanted to bust out laughing.
It’s right up there with Cloris Leachman’s “Ovaltine.”
The funniest movie ever made, I say…
My brother, walking through the sliding screen door at our parents’ house and knocking it completely off the track. There were many of us there who had been drinking that night, but my brother has been sober for over 15 years. Of all the people to walk through the door…