Okay, so I’m sitting there one day, watching “South Park.” Chef is singing, and I’m thinking about how his voice is that of Isaac Hayes, who did the theme for “Shaft.” All of a sudden, I get the connection! “Chef” is a parody of the character of “Shaft”! I blurt this out, and my husband says, “Duh. Did you just now realize that?” Well, um, yeah, I did realize it just then. I felt like such a big dummy that it took me that long to get the joke!
So, please tell me I’m not the only one. What other jokes, puns, plays on words have you guys not realized right away. I can’t be the only intelligent being who is sometimes slow on the uptake.
(By the way, if I put my darling hubby in front of the keyboard here, he’d probably have a dozen other examples of my occasional ditziness.)
“Every Breath You Take” is a song about stalking. That’s all i can think of though I swear I have others. When i heard the radio announcer say something to that effect (how it was creepy), I was sort of like…Oh yeah.
I probably have better ones; just thought i’d get you started for now.
When I was about 10, I saw the Ernie Kovacs shows being broadcast at the time. I saw a skit that I didn’t quite get.
I saw the skit again one evening in 1977 when it was broadcast on PBS, and I’ll describe it now. It had no dialog, but it was done to music which, I must emphasize, I now recognized. The music started out quietly and spooky. An operation was beginning, and the usual visual cliches were used.
SPOILER SPACE
This went on for a minute or two, when the music suddenly became lively, and the doctors and nurses appeared to be laughing under their masks. Then the music became triumphant, and the camera revealed not an operating room, but a dining room table, and the operation was really the carving of a roast turkey.
The next day at work, after morning break, I thought to myself, “Hmm, that sketch was funny. Operating room, roast turkey, music by Igor Stravinsky from his ballet “The Firebird”. Yeah that was…” Then, out loud I screamed "OH NOOOOOOO!!!"
It took me over twelve hours to make the connection between “roast turkey” and “Firebird”, the real point of the joke!
I forget how many fuzzy navels (peach schnapps and orange juice) I had fixed for my ex-GF when one day it just hit me - peaches are fuzzy, navel oranges… fuzzy navel! This drink’s name has nothing to do with belly-buttons at all!!!
Having grown up with the Monkees, one of my favorite songs was “Last Train to Clarksville”, which was a sweet song about a guy saying goodbye to his girl.
It wasn’t until YEARS later that I saw an interview with three of the former members, and Micky Dolenz mentioned it was one of the first anti-war songs. (“And I don’t know if I’m ever comin’ home. . . .”) And I realized at that moment, RIGHT! The guys going off to WAR!!
But at least I wasn’t alone, Davy Jones had never figured that out, either.
Many years ago someone had to explain to me that the crappy Extreme power ballad “More than Words” is actually a song telling girls to shut their traps and open their legs. Beautifully hidden message! Lots of my female friends still think it’s some kind of sweet, romantic song until I explain the joke.
Well, a rather famous example of the same sort of thing is Jimmy Page’s track ‘D’yer Ma’ker’ from Led Zep’s ‘Houses of the Holy’ album. It was a reggae-influenced track, but many people never made the connection. ‘D’yer Ma’ker’ = Jamaica.
In Terry Pratchett’s discworld novel Maskerade there is a significant character known as Walter Plinge. I read the whole book without clueing in to an important in-joke.
Walter is described as wearing a beret, an overcoat, and being clumsy, while all the while having this anxious, well meaning but excruciating expression on his face.
On the second read of the book, I tried to imagine what he looked like, and the first image that popped into my head was of Frank Spencer, from an old British show called Some Mother’s Do 'ave Em.
And then all clicked, and fell into place, like a locking mechanism clunk, dank, clang!
For those who are aware of the book, and of the TV show, all of the above revelation will make sense to you. It really made my day to recognise the genius of Terry Pratchett just by this small in-joke
SPOILER
*the give away clue is that Maskerade is based around Phantom Of The Opera, and Frank Spencer was a character played by Michael Crawford.
Little bit of both, actually. It’s an old joke:
man A: “My wife and I went on vacation [in the islands].”
man B: “Jamaica?”
man A: “No, she wanted to go.”
You know, after reading this, I looked up the lyrics. I would never have guessed it’s about sex. In fact, even knowing it’s about sex, I had trouble interpreting that it was about sex.
Okay, continuing with this Zeppelin/sex theme, I just recently realized that Whole Lotta Love is about sex. Yes, I know the lyrics are “I wanna give you my love, every inch of my love, way down inside” but I never really thought about it. Also, it took me until last year to discover the dirty connotation to Great Balls of Fire.
Three days ago, I was in my kitchen cooking, when the “The Alligator King” and “Ten Tiny Turtles on the Telephone” got stuck and mixed up in my head. I’m in my mid 20s. I don’t have kids. I’m not around kids, and haven’t been for years. I haven’t watched children’s TV in forever. Not sure at all how they got there. But eventually got to the lines
“And send us 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Artichokes
Ten eggplants, OVER EASY!
That’s one of our little jokes”
And I finally got it for the first time. And felt extremely stupid on several levels.
Sue’s name also only hit me last week.
That’s kind of ironic. I just posted a message on a newbie thread about how many of the SDMBers’ little inside jokes I don’t get, but I’ve known the pun behind Sue Duhnym’s name for a long time.
And I don’t get the deal with Chef; I haven’t seen Shaft, and I really have no idea what it is.
Stuff I didn’t get at first: ICQ = I Seek You. Okay, that one was kind of lame. I know there are better ones, I just can’t think of them off the top of my head.
Expanding on the “I didn’t realize it was about sex” theme:
I don’t know how many times I’d heard the song “Crash Into Me” by the Dave Matthews Band before I really heard the lyrics. I just loved the sound of the song, and listened to it without paying attention.
I totally did not get the woodstockbirdybird connection until I just read that. Good one!
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~D!~
When I was about 6 I heard, for the first time, the simple riddle:
Q: What has 4 wheels and flies?
A: A garbage truck
I thought to myself “garbage trucks don’t fly…, that’s stupid” and proceeded to forget all about it. Now I have heard or read the riddle off and on over the years and passed over it as one of those dumb kid things that just wasn’t funny.
I think I was 20 when all of a sudden it dawned on me. D’oh!
I’m not sure why I felt compelled to share that…
