A vast mob of astro grad students went to see Mission to Mars on its opening night. We hadn’t heard any reviews or anything, and we wanted it to be good, really, we did, but there were so many utterly stupid moments that it was either laugh or weep.
So here we were, chortling away at the spinning DNA helix the guy from Sliders made of M&Ms in freefall (dynamically impossible), the blinking red “Point of No Return” indicator on the spacesuit propulsion systems (snort constant thrust =/= constant velocity, kids), the first manned mission to Mars landing a hop skip and a jump away from the “Face,” the stupid woman seeing the graves of three of the four astronauts and declaring, “One of them must still be alive!” (because the last one died, surely he would have had the decency to dig himself a grave and bury himself, eh?), the aliens who left a dying Mars to travel, not to another solar system, but to another galaxy, etc., etc., etc.
Well, unfortunately the guy who was a couple rows ahead of us in the theater was there to see a Great Work of Cinematic Art, and he was pretty pissed off at us for laughing or groaning in agony at all the points of dramatic tension. I still feel kind of bad about how loud we were.
Then here’s another you’ll enjoy, Draelin: my aunt has a spirit decanter - you know, a largish glass pitcher that has a bulbous, spread out bottom that narrows into a long, skinny neck (they’re actually much prettier than my description). A friend of hers came over (after the Australia trip, natch) and was admiring it. She’d just taken off the stopper, and my aunt cried, “Oh no! You let Jefus out!”
At my brother’s wedding, the pastor’s homily involved the parable of the man who built his house upon the rock, implying that, like the house, one’s relationship needs a strong foundation to last. Of course, my sister and I immediately starting whispering the song to ourselves, complete with hand motions.
“And the rains came down and the floods came up,
The rains came down and the floods came up,
The rains came down and the floods came up,
and the house on the rock stood firm.”
Bryan had tears in his eyes up there trying to repress his laughter.
He got his revenge at my sister’s wedding - while she had a different pastor, he used the same parable in the homily. I saw it coming and pointedly avoided looking at either my sister or my brother while maintaining perfect composure as the maid of honor.
It was on Easter Sunday, and my brother and I had just watched – a few days before – a rerun of that South Park episode with Russell Crowe. You know, the bit with “Makin’ movies, makin’ songs, and fightin’ 'round the world!” where he travels all around the world in a little tugboat named Tugger and picks fights.
So, the preacher is relating the part of the Easter story wherein the disciples run into Jesus after he’s been raised from the dead. The disciples were of course sore afraid, and at this dramatic point in the narrative my brother leans over and whispers,
“It’s Jesus! [falsetto] Ohmygod, it’s Jesus! Ohmygod, it’s mahblahblah! [Russell Crowe] I oughta kick your ass!”
And that was the end of us and our straight faces.
Many moons ago I worked at a B.P. station putting myself through college. We had a tunnel carwash. This is the type that has a roller that carries your car through, and we lucky employees got to stand out in the cold and slop some soap on each car with the brushes. You have to know the set-up of the transaction to understand what happened, so bear with me.
Car pulls up about halfway, and you reach your brush into the barrel and then fling the soapy water onto the hood and front grill. Then pull the car up the rest of the way. Customer rolls down window, and you make the transaction. “Put the car in neutral, don’t brake or steer.” After these words, customer rolls up window, employee keys the type of carwash in by pushing some buttons, then goes back to the bucket to fling soapy water on the rest of the car as it is taken away.
Only a slight problem when you don’t notice the customer has rolled down her window to ask a question! I am in the middle of one of the most incredibly forceful soapy water thrusts in my life, and I notice way too late a look of absolute horror on this lady’s face as she realizes she is about to be soaked. Let me add that this was a car of 4 women, all dressed to the “T”. The water hits this lady and goes all over the front interior. I was so overcome with fear, that my nervousness turned into laughter when I started to open my mouth to apologize. The car of indignant women started going off on me! I deserved it.
Needless to say this didn’t go over to well when she complained to the boss.
Several years ago, my family and I toured a college campus. During the tour one building was pointed out to us as having been built in honor of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the college. While the tour guide was babbling on, Dad whispered to me that the building had taken 100 years to build (After all, it had the dates 1824-1924 listed above the main entrance). I got the giggles. Dad got the giggles. The tour guide noticed and said that he didn’t know what the people in the back were giggling about. We couldn’t explain it to the tour group.
My two cousins and I were visiting their mother in ICU. She’d had a massive stroke and was in a vegetative state. One of her daughters was upset that her mom’s hair looked a mess so I took out a comb to fix it up. Unfortunately, as I was combing her hair the resemblance to Bozo popped into my head. I started to giggle and then choked it back. My cousins didn’t appreciate the outburst. I’ve always felt very bad about the incident.
the other pallbearers and i were taking the casket to the grave when my cousin said “Aunt Francis, Michael isn’t carryin his share”. I was snickering for about 10 minutes after that
I posted in a CS thread last fall that the first time I saw Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, I laughed when Large Marge had her big reveal. I was the only one laughing then, too. I still haven’t heard anyone claim that they laughed, or did anything other than shriek, when they saw that, but they must be out there.
My freshman year, that passage was on the Reality t-shirts. Then when I was in Pittsburgh, someone stole my shirt. :mad:
I was chosen to make the program (argh) for my grandfather’s funeral. I chose a frilly cursive font (bad choice, in retrospect) that made certain numbers and letters difficult to discern.
My cousin read the obituary from the bulletin, and said that my grandparents married in 1986 instead of 1936. My grandmother died in 1979.
I realized what the problem was, and though I was sitting in the pulpit (since I was singing a solo at grandpa’s request) I lost it. I burst out laughing and couldn’t stop. Then everyone else did. The only people not laughing were the pastor (who was fuming at the indignity of it all) and my cousin, who thought that we were laughing at her. Afterwards, we had to talk her down, she thought that she had “ruined the funeral” for everyone. :o
On a somewhat different note from most of these stories, I first heard about the Columbine shootings from a coworker who (reading about it on the internet) said something like “some kids took over a high school”. I interpreted this to mean that some young rabble rousers had occupied the principal’s office, smoked some pot, and were making demands lest they torch the permanent records, or something similarly earnest but harmless, so my responses was “heh heh, cool”. I’ve always since wondered whether someone out there is telling the story about his coworker who seemed nice, but thought that kids getting massacred was something to laugh about.
And when my grandfather died (I was about 12) we all went to Madison for the funeral, and I stayed up late the night before the funeral playing cards with my cousins, and actually nodded off during the funeral itself, which strikes me as a lot more embarassing than laughing. On the other hand, the reason I was nodding off was because I’d been spending time with second cousins who I’ve never met before or since, and that seems like a good thing to come out of a funeral…
I’ve also laughed at the stupidity of supposedly grim and powerful moments in movies, particularly Armageddon and The Patriot, and been chastised for it.
Another church story, but fortunately not one during a service.
I was hanging out with my friend and her mom at their church while they were preparing for the Christmas pageant. The narrator was missing, so I took over and decided to read the script with my best reverend Lovejoy impression. Her mom could not stop laughing, and the lady in charge of the pageant was supremely ticked off.
Have you ever heard about The Giggle Loop? Basically, once you know you absolutely cannot laugh, you start building up contained laughter until you must burst. Now, this only works if you are aware this “Giggle Loop” exists, or so they stated in that episode. They were right: ever since I saw it, I have laughed at every single event I couldn’t possibly have done so. Funerals, respectful “momments of silence”, whenever would be the worst time to laugh. Damn that episode…
This is me. I laughed hard and long when the scientest cut his rope to sacrifice himself in The Day After Tomorrow . It was just too much. Actually the biggest laugh I’ve had at a movie in a long time.
While at a bar in Montreal I saw a hockey game where a guy really slammed his head off the wall. I didn’t realize how bad it was and went “ohhh… man, I’d love to see the replay on that!”… then I realized he wasn’t exactly getting up. :o everyone else was like “Oh… I hope he’s ok”… yup… I felt like an ass.
A cousin was married in an older church with solid oak pews. During the wedding, the minister started a prayer with the traditional “Let us pray”. During the 5 second or so pause, a very distinctive squeak of a fart being let loose could be heard.
“Heavenly Father”
putt, putt, putt, putt. Someone let a nice string of pearls fart. I made a mistake and looked at a cousin sitting at the other end of the pew. We both lost it. My older brother looked at me and he was howling. In the 3 or 4 pews around us shoulders were bobbing up and down as folks tried to stifle their laughter during the prayer. Just as the minister said “Amen” another cousin’s husband snorted and the bite the lip giggling started all over again. The cousin that was married must have noticed, as she was walking down the aisle with her new hubby, she looked over our way and asked “Who farted?”
I was talking on the phone at work the other day, to a NICU mom. We weren’t talking about anything too serious, but still.
I have a Mr. Potato Head on my desk. (I was an only child, can you tell). Anyway, my coworker started rearranging it…
and the latch opened up and all the extra stuff fell right out of his butt, bouncing on my desk and the floor. It was just like a cartoon. I couldn’t help but laugh, and had to cover it with a coughing fit.
ONE
When I was in high school, we had a school assembly for Anzac Day (for Australians and New Zealanders, this is the most solemn and moving day on the calendar - think July 4 but without the fireworks and with the reflection of Remembrance Day - it’s a national day and a war memorial in one). We had our minute’s silence to remember the fallen soldiers, and then they played The Last Post on the bugle.
Now, then as now, I love Anzac Day, and The Last Post always makes my hair stand on end, but this particular Anzac Day (and being about 14 didn’t help) came after a few days of my friends and I making fun of The Last Post by combining it irreverently with * Also Sprach Zarathustra* (which occupies rather a different headspace. So instead of the last post going Baaa Da Daaaa… Baaaa Da Daaaaa… Baaaaa Daaa Daaa D’Daaa… D’ D’… Daaaa Daa D’DAAAAA, it instead (in my mind) went all NASA moon shot-ish Baaa Da Daaaa… Baaaa Da Daaaaa… DA DAAAAAH … booom boom boom boom boom boom. I couldn’t contain myself, and started this saliva-projecting supressed laughter a la Biggus Dickus, and was hauled out of the School Hall by one of the Masters. And rightly so.
TWO
I was walking along a street in suburban Sydney last year, and I saw a man unconscious on the ground. Another passer-by had already gotten there and was attending to ascertaining his vital signs, so I took care of the 000 (911) call. Waiting for the ambulance to arrive, I saw a drug packet on the ground. I picked it up, assuming it would be important to tell the paramedics what he’d taken, and another bystander said to me, “Show me that. I’m a pharmacist.”
So I showed him.
Still very serious, he said, “This is a female contraceptive.”
“BWAHAHAHA”
stern, disapproving look
“Ahem. I see. Maybe he didn’t know what it was. Will it hurt him?”
(Still eyeing me disapprovingly) “I don’t think so”
This thread, and this post in particular, made me laugh so hard I thought I was going to pee my pants.
I was going to tell my fart-in-church story, but racer has beaten me to it. Mine was similar, but the farter was my 82-year-old grandmother. :rolleyes:
Then when I was in Pittsburgh, someone stole my shirt. :mad: