[person on phone, let’s say to a business of some sort] OK, well, I’d like to ask a question. Do you sell ____? [click.] Hello? Hello? Hello? They hung up!" The desperate trio of “hello’s” is standard.
Another telephone one: The person having a conversation has to repeat everything the other person is saying, for our benefit?
[person on phone]: “What’s that? You say you can’t make it tonight? You say the baby is sick?..And so is your husband? Why, that’s terrible!”
A third phone one: [person on phone]: “Wow! You don’t say! You don’t say! You don’t say!”…[person asks, “Who was that?”] “He didn’t say.” Alternate ending: “Wrong number” (works best after a long, friendly-sounding conversation.)
OK, I realize these aren’t quite the classic definition of sight gags, but I’m sick of them anyway.
And if one more pregnant woman giving birth in a sitcom either says to the father angrily, “YOU did this to me!/This is YOUR fault/You are NEVER having sex with me again” or says to the doctor, “I want drugs! Now!” I will scream.
A pair of handcuffs, once introduced, will inevitably be used to lock two characters together. The key will be immediately lost and/or swallowed.
Actually, the worst example of telephone abuse is on Law & Order, an otherwise excellent show. In the final minutes, as the lawyers relax in the D.A.'s office, the phone will ring, the D.A. will pick it up and say “Hello”, five seconds will pass and the D.A. will hang up and say:
Wow, you got all that in five seconds? Your secretary must be on crank!
“Watch out! There’s marbles on the floor! Oh no, we can’t walk without slipping on these marbles!” <high pitched squeal indicates he has fallen down>
That’s what I do when I get hit in the groin with something, maybe without the falsetto voice (actually the voice is more like trying to speak while someones choking you). But the slowly falling over and laying quitely is spot on.
Person driving car, forced to contend with some irritation or interference, continues to drive car at pace through busy places with hilarious consequences. No, just stop the car already.
Person carrying long ladder or plank of wood over shoulder turns back and forth so as to knock over people and things, often without being aware of the hilarious mayhem thus caused.
Person in hurry chooses wrong door which leads to closet, and rather hilariously walks straight into it at pace, before realising the error.
Middle-aged male office worker. Enter sexy younger female, allegedly a secretary, dressed like a call girl. Male starts to drool and drivel and ends up in some precarious position with his eyes very close to her breasts. Enter man’s frumpy wife who immediately assumes a posture of vindictive disgust. Man scrambles to proclaim innocence and in so doing, hilariously executes a prat fall.
A character called Jar-Jar Binks enters.
May writers everywhere consign these scenes to oblivion. Not funny, not wanted any more, thank you so much.
For days, I’ve been trying to understand the above, but I can’t. “Accidental knee/ball/random object to the groin” had an accidental knee/ball/object to the groin? I don’t get it. Help!
[Note: I do understand what the overused sight gag is, just not why it’s used twice in the above sentence.]
I have a very strict rule about movie trailers. We’ll call it Freeman’s Rule of Explosions. If either of these two cliche scenes is in the trailer, I will not see the movie no matter how good the rest of it looks.
Characters are running toward the camera and go flying through the air as a huge fireball explodes behind them.
Characters are walking calmly, smugly, defiantly toward the camera and looking extremely cool, so cool in fact, that they don’t flinch or show any reaction whatsoever as the huge fireball explodes behind them.
I hate #2 so much that I probably should walk out of the theater right then in protest. (Calmly, smugly, defiantly … as the theater blows up behind me.):rolleyes:
“Anyway I think the boss is the stupidest person ever”
(crowd laughs)
“He goes like this, ‘Na na na! I’m so big!’”
(crowd laughs more)
“He’s the biggest jerk in the world!”
(crowd stops laughing, frightened looks appear on their faces)
“He’s behind me, isn’t he?”
Not to answer for Mr. Blue Sky, but I read this as a alteration of a Simpsons quote. The film festival episode has been quoted in this thread, referring to the “Football in the Groin” short movie that Homer loved. He is judging the film festival and weighing the merits of “Pukahontas” (Barney’s film) and “Football in the Groin”, which looks like one of those videos you would see on America’s Funniest.
Homer: “But “Football in the Groin” had a football in the groin.”
Also the “It works on so many levels” quote is from this episode, also referring to “Football in the Groin.”
In closing, I would just like to ask, "Are you saying ‘boo’, or ‘Boo-urns?’
I’ve actually done this, and no, I was not trying to. I was drinking coffee in a restaurant with some friends, when one of them said something extremely funny right at the wrong moment. Let me tell you, a mouthful of coffee doesn’t wait very well.
In my own defense, I have to say it was a beautiful spit-take. I couldn’t have done it better if I tried. It was like a brown rainbow.
Hey, what’s wrong with pie/cake fights? I’m sorry, but that’s one of those things (especially if cute girls are involved) that I can never get tired of. Always entertaining.
Why is this so unbelievable? This is Law and Order we’re talking about, the secretary probably just said ‘Sorry Jack, double D, riot, mother, and misconduct’. While I like the show, they do seem to have rather frequent ‘and then the victim died’ bits; if that happened IRL, I’d expect the secretary to be able to abbreviate those common situations.
A water-skiing character who is being dragged around and through numerous hazards will always scream in panic instead of doing the logical thing: drop the rope.
You would be shocked and amazed, Scarlett. I can’t tell you how many times I had conversations like this while working in my family’s TV shop:
<ring-ring>
Me: “Hello, Balance Family TV Repair, can I help you?”
<pause>
Caller: “Is this the Balance Family TV Repair Shop?”
It really does happen.A lot
Most of my own peeves have already been covered here, but I want to second Gilligan both on the canned-good calamities and the slowly–and worse, belatedly–inflating airbags.
