My dad called me today, asking if I had read a certain comic strip in our newspaper. The strip is “Born Loser.” He couldn’t figure out the gag and wanted to know if I understood it.
The title character has been seated at a restaurant table, and asks the waiter “What comes with today’s liver special?” The waiter replies “Fava beans and a nice chianti!” and is puzzled when the guy bolts for the door. “Was it something I said?”
I’m sure you recognize the line spoken by Hannibal Lector in *Silence of the Lambs, * but as my dad hadn’t seen the movie he didn’t “get it.” Anybody else ever recognized a gag like this and had to explain it?
Occasionally. When I first saw “Brewster McCloud” I had to explain why I was laughing uproariously when I noticed Margaret Hamilton was wearing ruby slippers.
Or when I had to explain it was funny when Cary Grant in “His Girl Friday” made a reference to Archie Leach and to the mock turtle.
Or why it was so hilarious when Tony Randall in “The King of Comedy” turned to the actor playing the TV director and said, “You’re the director. Tell me what to do.”
I got to be a movie geek to a movie geek recently! A friend of mine and I were watching her copy of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and she wondered why I was laughing so hard at the line where the Bluntman movie was described as “The worst decision since having Greedo fire first.” (She’d never seen the Special Edition of Star Wars, you see.)
When I took my family to see Chicken Run on its opening weekend, I was the only one in the packed theater laughing at all the Great Escape references in the beginning. I had to explain to my wife and son why I wasn’t a lunatic (at least related to that instance).