Made even funnier when 30 Helens didn’t agree.
-Joe
And when he did (this is per Della Reese, who was there) people thought he was joking and laughed until he started drooling and changing color.
Yoink!
I heard they made one with John Belushi, but never aired it because he actually died.
Oops. I duplicated.
Lenny & Squiggy opening Laverne & Shirley’s door: “Hello.”
Murphy Brown’s revolving secretary.
Reno 911 has had a ton of recurring jokes like when they’re trying to read a license plate and end up crashing their car.
My favorite is when they go to visit Mike Powers, the former D.A./serial killer in prison and ask him mundane things about his job. Then they follow it up with something like “Oh, and by the way, what happened to the third body?”
The producers wanted to include it for the DVD release, but apparently, the footage was disposed of and is well and truly lost for all time.
Two of my favourites have already been mentioned.
“Hello, Newman.”
“Hello, this is Carlton your doorman,” and Rhoda’s weary, eyes-to-heaven response.
I also like many of the Seinfeld recurring gags and ‘in-jokes’, such as ‘Vandelay Industries’, ‘I don’t wanna be a pirate!’, ‘Get out!’, ‘Rochelle, Rochelle’.
On The Nanny, when Lauren Lane, who played C C Babcock, got pregnant in real life but not on the show, they kept making gags about hiding it. She talks about watching a Seinfeld rerun where Elaine was “I don’t know, about 39 months pregnant,” and how tacky it was that they kept trying to hide it.
In one scene she brings back a framed poster from the real Broadway show “BABY” and holds it over her bulging stomach.
“Her?”
On The West Wing, the President never being able to remember the names of two of his junior aides. Also, C.J.'s ability to lip-synch “The Jackal” by Ronny Jordan.
On My Name Is Earl, Earl always has his eyes shut in any photo taken of him.
The Nanny–The longest running gag was Maxwell Sheffield’s hatred of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Supposedly Sheffield passed on CATS (hardly true, but funny) and regretted the fact that ALW was so much more successful than he was.
Stewie: How you uh, how you comin’ on that novel you’re working on? Huh? Gotta a big, uh, big stack of papers there? Gotta, gotta nice litte story you’re working on there? Your big novel you’ve been working on for 3 years? Huh? Gotta, gotta compelling protaganist? Yeah? Gotta obstacle for him to overcome? Huh? Gotta story brewing there? Working on, working on that for quite some time? Huh? Yea, talking about that 3 years ago. Been working on that the whole time? Nice little narrative? Beginning, middle, and end? Some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends? At the end your main character is richer from the experience? Yeah? Yeah?
- Family Guy.
And at the end of the episode they’d say something like “He’ll join (list the names of the criminals from the previous episodes) in the State Penn.”
And the thread is won.
-Joe
“How about some H-h-h-whipped cream? Some nice Miracle H-h-h-whip?”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
-Family Guy
Too many from Monty Python to really list, Elendil’s Heir - th eappearances of Spiny Norman (not the doper), the 16-ton weight, The Spanish Inquesition, the Gumbys, Conrad Poon and his dancing teeth, “But that was my only line!”, etc …
Also, though it’s not the best comedy ever, there are parts of *How I Met Your Mother * that are Legen -
- dary.
(From a movie, I know…)
“This one time? At Band Camp?” …
J.