My favorite Simpsons moment involving the Broncos came from the episode where Homer bets on the Broncos to beat the Patriots.
[Homer]
Come on, Denver! Justify my love!
[/Homer]
He loses.
ETA: And who can forget the “They put all the jerks in Tower One” line from the Simpsons–which, contrary to popular belief has not been edited out for syndication.
I read a book once, a satire, in which the main character reminisces about her overprivileged, overindulged childhood. Her dad setting up a movie camera to film her kindergarten graduation was supposed to be way over the top. Now every parent videos practically everything their children do.
In Clueless, the cell-phone dependency of the characters was supposed to be exaggerated. Now it just looks normal. Also, I don’t react the same way to “Daddy, these people have lost everything! I’m sure that includes sporting goods!”
Another book ref and Princess Di ref (two-fer!): With the Next Man Everything Will Be Different, published in Germany in 1987 but not available in the U.S. until 1990. At which point, the main character’s fantasy about being Diana and being all cozy and loving with Charles seemed ludicrous to me, until I checked the publication dates.
Not a team but John Candy and Steve Martin.
I noticed the post about men sleeping in the same bed earlier, and it’s actually a pet peeve of mine that recent movies have used this schtick. The Ashton Kutcher Bernie Mac movie that’s not more than three years old had the two of them, a father and the intended bridegroom of his daughter, sharing a bed for some reason. I believe there was also a recent Ben Stiller movie, maybe one of the Meet the Parents movies, where Ben shared a bed with Robert Deniro.
Personally, there’s almost no way on earth you’d get me to share a bed with another person under those circumstances. Are there no sleeping bags? No cots? No couches? No blankets to lay on the floor? Any of these things would be preferable.
I know it doesn’t fit the OP because it’s not a joke but it was the same for me with Tom Clancy’s Patriot Games. In the movie Jack Ryan saves a fictitous royal. In the book he makes it clear that the royal is Charles. I don’t believe he ever uses his name, only the title but it is clear who he is talking about. Charles and Diana are shown as having very public problems with their marriage but they find out how much they love each other after they go through the danger thrown at them in the book.
See, and it’s a pet peeve of mine for the opposite reason - why on earth is it a big deal to share a bed and not want to have sex with the person in it? I mean, you’re sleeping, who cares? Why is it okay to be three inches away from another person of the same sex sleeping on the floor on inflatable mats, but if you sleep three inches away from him on an elevated sleeping platform with padding and sheets, you might catch teh gay?
Because it isn’t. Why is it not OK to walk down the street holding the hand of a man you are not involved with? It’s the culture. Go somewhere else and the culture is different.
I just realized the implications of that. If he still owned the team, he would have had no problem getting tickets.
I believe that the Broncos are the NFL team that has been mentioned the most in the Simpsons. There’s Lisa the Greek, Cape Fear, You Only Move Twice,, Sunday, Cruddy Sunday, Skinner’s Sense of Snow, The Bonfire of the Manatees, and I think there’s a couple more.
I should have said that tweaking your particular culture has been the basis of a lot of comedy (maybe most) since Thag made the first amusing cave drawing.
There was also a joke in that movie about a mental hospital being named after Reagan. According to IMDb, the film aired on TV shortly after Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, so the name was changed to “Donald Dragon.”
That’s because the producers (and the rest of the country) didn’t know which teams would actually be in the Super Bowl until a week before the episode was to air. They dubbed in the names of the teams after animation was done, and poked fun at this by having Homer and Moe cover their lips with beer mugs whenever they said the names of the teams- and the president and his wife, in a typical Simpsons gag, since it would be unlikely that they would change before airtime. (Coincidentially, John Elway was also mentioned in a tongue-in-cheek trivia viginette that aired during one of Fox’s Super Bowl telecasts. Although the rest of them had actors and characters from Fox shows ask serious Super Bowl-related questions, The Simpsons went the typical silly route and had the guys in Moe’s bar watching a TV show asking, “Who was the most handsome man to ever play in the Super Bowl, according to everybody?” The answer: John Elway.)
I find that every time I say “Denver Broncos” at a party, I put my beer in front of my mouth and say it with the monotone voice Homer used in Sunday, Cruddy Sunday.
If Hillary DOES win, I look forward to being able to do a Moe and say President “Clinton”.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s a big deal in most of these movies because the bed the two men are sharing would barely be fit to hold two small children, let alone two adult men. It’s the size and the uncomfortable close quarters, not fear of catching “teh ghey.”
Something tells me the joke wouldn’t work as well if the two guys are sharing a California King with enough space between them to park a small car. Nope, it’s always a full or a twin.
Nay, nay–there was a quickly forgotten sequel, Bonzo Goes to College, but Reagan declined to appear in it because it was “too ridiculous” (unlike Bedtime for Bonzo).
In The Simpsons episode with Burns’ toy bear (Bobo?), Burns is seen playing in the sand with Maggie, a reporter springs up and takes a photo and Burns shouts “Damn You Papparazzo”, after Diana died this was edited to “Damn you!” on Sky TV in Britain.
I was thinking about that, too. Any Simpsons episode where Princess Diana was mentioned or could be inferred was edited in the UK after her death, even going so far as to edit the word “royal” out in one episode where Mayor Quimby says “You two screwed up royal!”
For Christmas, I got a box set of the Animaniacs cartoon.
I took it over to my best friend’s house shortly thereafter. I had only watched the first couple… not the whole thing yet.
This was the day Saddam Hussein had been executed. Like it must have been the night before/earlier that morning.
Anyway, I go over to her house and pop Animaniacs in and one of the first cartoons was The Warner Brothers (& sister Dot) visiting Saddam Hussein and annoying him. It must have been made in the nineties.
It was just very strange… I don’t know if future generations will feel the same way or even if it would have been the same had we seen it this month, but right after he was executed it was just sort of surreal.
And IIRC, that episode aired about the time that Monicagate was gearing up! So that gag took on an unintended irony.
I would’ve thought the ultimate example of this was Family Guy’s joke about “Let’s hope Osama Bin Laden doesn’t know showtunes,” made before the 9/11 attacks.
In non-fiction, I have a book on German nationalism published in 1989 that ends with speculation on the possibility of re-unification, which the author quickly dismisses as ridiculous since it would require the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The dude was right, he just didn’t believe it.
In George Orwell’s classic 1984 the government is said to run a lottery for the proles (lower working class) giving them dreams of winning big but in reality only handing out small cash prizes. It was set up to give the proles some hope of becoming rich easily.