The inspiration for this thread came just moments ago–an old episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is playing in the background right now and receiving a fraction of my attention. So I hear a character say “I’ve got a problem–the nigger isn’t working.” It suddenly has my full attention. I know that he didn’t say that, so I start trying to mentally rewind the half-heard episode and tease out what he actually said–oh, wait, he’s in Sick Bay, talking to Doctor Polaski–he said “knitter”, as in “bone knitter”, a fictional device to repair broken bones! (It was this episode.)
So–other mishearings that you knew couldn’t possibly be correct?
For me, it’s not so much misheard lines it’s “what did he say?” because I can’t hear what they’re saying! There are so many shows where the actors mumble. I’m always rewinding (we have a DVR) because my husband or I am saying, “what did he say?”. Sometimes after rewinding 2 or 3 times we still can’t figure it out.
I am very grateful for closed captioning/subtitles. On the other hand, sometimes they can be so wrong it adds a layer of hilarity to otherwise mundane dialogue.
There’s an episode of Downton Abbey in which, I think in relation to the interminable Bates-may-or-may-not-be-a-murderer plotline, someone is asking a woman about some paperwork concerning where her husband is.
She says “I’ll fill it out for you”.
But it sounds EXACTLY like she says “Philadelphia”.
Fortunately the subtitles, and my wife with better ears than mine, set me straight.
The funny thing is, either one fits in context.
My daughter and I had to do this when we watched Rashomon.
Even after multiple replays we couldn’t make out half of what the characters were saying, and not just because it’s old-timey Japanese.
The two leads, Toshiro Mifune and Machiko Kyo, speak so fast and with such emotionally distorted intonation that it’s impossible to catch the full meaning.
I’ve mentioned this before in the “Amazing Race” threads, but that show has the absolute worst closed captioning I’ve ever seen. It is always about ten seconds behind the actual dialog, and is just so wrong most of the time that it’s hardly worth having on. One of my favorite “hilariously wrong” moments was an episode where one team was trying to find the Pit Stop and one person says “We must be close… I can smell Phil’s cologne from here.” Except that the closed captioning replaced “cologne” with “colon”.
I’ve learned to enjoy cheap foreign movies that have been dubbed and subtitled by different groups of people. I turn them both on and let the dialogue and the captions argue about what the hell is going on.
In the “Our Gang” short “Dog Daze,” part of the plot involves a penguin. Nerd Cousin Wilbur (Scotty Beckett) informs that it’s actually a penguin and eats fish and shellfish. Porky then says “I’ve got a pocketful of [something].” Sounds like he’s saying “Spang,” but I have no idea what it’s supposed to be.
On my TV/cable setup, Food Network shows somehow come through with the music HUGE and the narration drowned out. They try to amp up the suspense on Chopped and I can barely hear anyone say anything!
But relatedly, I thought of this thread the other night while watching Beat Bobby Flay. “I’m going to start with my pants off” :eek: Oh, your “pan sauce”!
Just had a new one–an episode of MAS*H on in the background, and I hear Charles Emerson Winchester III say something about being so bored that he almost asked to see photos of Klinger’s cousin’s nut jewels. This time I wracked my brain for anything at all that could have been that would make sense, and came up with nothing. After googling for a transcript, I see that he said: "Well, to illustrate the depths of my own despair, yesterday I came that close to begging Klinger for one brief glimpse of his cousin Hakim’s nuptials."Well, to illustrate the depths of my own despair, yesterday I came that close to begging Klinger for one brief glimpse of the photos of his Cousin Hakim’s nuptials.[URL=“M*A*S*H (MASH) S615 Episode Script | SS”]
