I got the joke!

[johnbasalla]

Can you recall jokes on sitcoms or any show that you got a laugh out of, but believe that most people wouldn't?

On "Petticoat Junction", they often have lines referring to something that was old-hat by the 1960s when the series was made. Being interested in a number of obsolete things, I often get the joke but think that most people today, and many even a lot of people then, wouldn't get the joke.
CASE IN POINT: "Sam Drucker" referred to something sounding like..."Cohen on the telephone". I got it, but then again I collect antique records. "Cohen on The Telephone" was a near, or possibly, million-selling comedy record first put out in 1914. It lead to a whole bunch of comedy routines starring Cohen recorded on "78's".

 

[michael hagerty]

I can tell you a joke it took me 30 years to get.

GREEN ACRES premiered when I was 9. I watched all the way to the end, when I was 15, and thought it was very funny, a million jokes per show.

But I missed the core joke of the show itself.

30 years later, I started watching it again on TV Land. About the third night in, I turned to my wife and said "Oh, my God. I get the joke."

The theme song sets up the premise every night: Leaving Manhattan for Hooterville is Oliver's idea. There's every reason to believe that Lisa will be miserable and a major pain about it.

But: Oliver's the one having a stroke every episode as he deals with Mr. Haney and the Ziffels and Eb and Arnold The Pig....Lisa not only is okay with these people (and pig), they seem to make sense to her.

It's a fish out of water story twisted 180 degrees on its own premise. Oliver (Mr. Back-to-Nature) never even gets a bit of what he envisioned (six years later, for all his money, he's living in a shack with an unfinished bedroom)...and it's driving him nuts. Lisa, deprived of city life, never really seems to notice.

And that's the joke it took me 30 years to get.

 

[cd637299]

^ And don't forget, having to climb a pole to get the phone!

And in the GA ep The Beeping Rock, I paraphrase Oliver's whole scope of things: "I come to the country to get away from the rat race, hoping to enjoy the simple life----and what do I see? A pig talking to a rock!"

Yes, you had to be there....

cd

 

[kinphoenix2]

speaking of Jack Benny- watched an episode a couple months ago on Netflix, and for a sketch some character was trying to get information on Jack for a show. He asked Rochester a series of questions and one of them was "well, would you consider Mr. Benny a 'ladies man'?" The audience erupted in laughter. Wasn't til 30 years after hearing of Jack Benny that I finally got the joke. There are many, many more references in the show that finally make sense to me now.. lol.

"Get Smart" my dad used to explain a lot of the jokes to me as a kid, it ran in syndication in Los Angeles late 70s- one of the better jokes "cheap Japanese imitation!"

 

[pqgeorge]

Can you recall jokes on sitcoms or any show that you got a laugh out of, but believe that most people wouldn't?

On "Petticoat Junction", they often have lines referring to something that was old-hat by the 1960s when the series was made. Being interested in a number of obsolete things, I often get the joke but think that most people today, and many even a lot of people then, wouldn't get the joke.
CASE IN POINT: "Sam Drucker" referred to something sounding like..."Cohen on the telephone". I got it, but then again I collect antique records. "Cohen on The Telephone" was a near, or possibly, million-selling comedy record first put out in 1914. It lead to a whole bunch of comedy routines starring Cohen recorded on "78's".

Speaking of "Cohen On The Telephone", here's the actual 1913 recording.........

http://archive.org/download/JoeHayden-CohenOnTheTelephone/JoeHayden-CohenOnTheTelephone_vbr.m3u

Hard to believe this is 100 years old!

 

[firepoint525]

I never, and I mean almost NEVER, watched Welcome Back Kotter as a kid, even though I LOVED the theme song, and had it on a 45. I didn't dislike the show, I just never watched it. But I remember all the kids at school going around saying, "up your nose with a rubber hose." I probably said it myself a time or two. Fast forward about 25 years or so (2005-ish) and I am watching a Kotter rerun on TVLand, when I hear John Travolta, as Vinnie Barbarino, blurt out, "up your nose with a rubber hose." I remember saying to myself, "so THAT'S where they got that!" ;D

On another occasion, I was watching the Leave it to Beaver rerun in which Beaver, Wally, Eddie, Lumpy, and one other guy ride the roller coaster. I saw this particular episode at least twice. On at least one of those occasions, my parents were also watching this episode from their home, about 15 miles away. I loved roller coasters as a kid, but I never screamed while riding one, and never really understood why everyone else did. Anyway, my mother said that that episode reminded her of me as a kid! 8)

 

[firepoint525]

I can tell you a joke it took me 30 years to get.
GREEN ACRES premiered when I was 9. I watched all the way to the end, when I was 15, and thought it was very funny, a million jokes per show.
But I missed the core joke of the show itself.
30 years later, I started watching it again on TV Land. About the third night in, I turned to my wife and said "Oh, my God. I get the joke."
The theme song sets up the premise every night: Leaving Manhattan for Hooterville is Oliver's idea. There's every reason to believe that Lisa will be miserable and a major pain about it.
But: Oliver's the one having a stroke every episode as he deals with Mr. Haney and the Ziffels and Eb and Arnold The Pig....Lisa not only is okay with these people (and pig), they seem to make sense to her.
It's a fish out of water story twisted 180 degrees on its own premise. Oliver (Mr. Back-to-Nature) never even gets a bit of what he envisioned (six years later, for all his money, he's living in a shack with an unfinished bedroom)...and it's driving him nuts. Lisa, deprived of city life, never really seems to notice.
And that's the joke it took me 30 years to get.

Oliver was one of those types who would have been stressed out no matter where he lived. You could have put him on Gilligan's Island and he would have been the same way. Meanwhile, Lisa was such an airhead that nothing ever got to her.

 

[cd637299]

^ I think it was somebody here on RD that said that Lisa & Gracie Allen would get along just fine!

cd

 

[LKellerIII]

"Get Smart" my dad used to explain a lot of the jokes to me as a kid, it ran in syndication in Los Angeles late 70s- one of the better jokes "cheap Japanese imitation!"

Yes - post World War II, in the 50s through the early 60s, the Japanese economy was based primarily on the production and importation of cheap toys, kitchenware, etc. The stuff from Japan was always inexpensive to buy, but cheaply made, and often broke within a few days of purchase. Most of the stuff was labelled "Made in Japan," so that label became synonimous with useless junk, and a lot of jokes were made about it.

And the first Japanese cars imported to the US - Datsuns,Toyopets (first Toyota) were laughably awful cars. Of course, those Japanese car designs improved quickly while American cars deteriorated in quality, and nobody was laughing at Japan by the early 70s.


http://www.toyota.com/about/our_business/our_history/product_history/pdf/toyopet.pdf

 

[skippercollector]

2 of them

I got addicted to The Flintstones in 1968, when it went into syndicated reruns. I was in second grade. It was my favorite show growing up, especially the music episodes. I quickly fell in love with "No Biz Like Show Biz," the episode about Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm making a hit record, which originally aired in 1965.
The little duo is managed by Eppy Brianstone, manager of the Termites. For a variety of reasons which I won't go into here, I wasn't exposed to actual pop and rock music until I was in junior high school, so I wasn't familiar with the Beatles. It wasn't until high school that I read about Brian Epstein and the Beatles.
It's more than 40 years now, and I STILL have not figured out another reference on that episode. Fred wants to kidnap the toddlers to take them home, and he puts on a disguise and says he is Fritz McFritly, Department of Education. I realize that Fritz is a German nickname for Frederick, but was the name Fritz McFritly based on a real person?

 

[skippercollector]

a third one

In an episode of Third Rock From the Sun, William Shatner, the Big Giant Head, visits the Solomons. He complains that his flight was terrible and that he kept seeing a little creature on the plane wing. Dick (John Lithgow) said that he had the same problem when he flew.
I about hyperventilated with laughter with that one. But....
Third Rock was filmed before a live audience, and there was very little laughter during that scene. Did no one else but me get the joke?

 

[skippercollector]

my last one

Everwood attracted both teen and adult viewers. I participated in an Internet discussion group for the show for a while, but it was mainly adolescents, so I didn't stay long.
In a first season episode, a neighbor claims to have seen a UFO, so people from all over the country show up to see if they can see it themselves. The Abbotts are having a discussion about it over dinner. Their high school junior son Bright (Chris Pratt) who does NOT live up to his name, is playing with his mashed potatoes.
The camera quickly pans over the mashed potatoes, which Bright has built into the shape of Devil's Tower. None of the other Abbotts say a word about this. As in my previous post, I nearly hyperventilated from laughter.
The next day, I looked at the discussion page for the episode and saw no mention of the potatoes. I asked a question about the potatoes on the forum, and none of the younger viewers knew what I was talking about.
How long will be it before those teens figure out what Chris Pratt was doing?

 

[Corky Marlowe]

Here's one that I was the last one to get...You know how on Facebook and other sites when someone is talking about food and how good a particular dish looks, they type in "Om-nom-nom" to represent someone devouring said food? I watched a lot of "Sesame Street" in the early 70s, and it finally dawned on me that "Om-nom-nom" was the noise that Cookie Monster made when he was scarfing down a cookie.

 

[firepoint525]

Re: 2 of them

It's more than 40 years now, and I STILL have not figured out another reference on that episode. Fred wants to kidnap the toddlers to take them home, and he puts on a disguise and says he is Fritz McFritly, Department of Education. I realize that Fritz is a German nickname for Frederick, but was the name Fritz McFritly based on a real person?

Sort of reminds me of "Mr. McFeely" (was that his name?) from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, but I could be totally off, too.

 

[onairb]

Re: 2 of them

I got addicted to The Flintstones in 1968, when it went into syndicated reruns. I was in second grade. It was my favorite show growing up, especially the music episodes. I quickly fell in love with "No Biz Like Show Biz," the episode about Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm making a hit record, which originally aired in 1965.
The little duo is managed by Eppy Brianstone, manager of the Termites. For a variety of reasons which I won't go into here, I wasn't exposed to actual pop and rock music until I was in junior high school, so I wasn't familiar with the Beatles. It wasn't until high school that I read about Brian Epstein and the Beatles.
It's more than 40 years now, and I STILL have not figured out another reference on that episode. Fred wants to kidnap the toddlers to take them home, and he puts on a disguise and says he is Fritz McFritly, Department of Education. I realize that Fritz is a German nickname for Frederick, but was the name Fritz McFritly based on a real person?

I'd actually forgotten that scene from the episode. My guess is, it was just an inside joke by the writers(Fred wasn't the most brilliant guy in Bedrock, so while he might know the meaning of the German name 'Fritz', it doesn't say much for his cunning plan that the only fake name he could think of was a takeoff on his own.)
The only name I could think of that's close to 'Fred McFredly' is 'Fred Friendly', but I don't think the writers had a network news exec in mind.

 

[cd637299]

The Flintstones had too many references to list here, but I'll mention a couple:

During maybe season 3 or 4, Fred's favorite show is "Peek-a-boo Camera," an obvious reference to Candid Camera.

In season 1 (1960-61), Fred becomes the singing sensation "Hi Fye", after some teenagers find a record he made (sounding maybe like Bobby Darin).....to help him get through all the hysteria, they hire a Southern gentleman (colonel), who is supposed to be at par with Colonel Tom Parker, manager of Elvis Presley. Many times on that ep, the colonel keeps referring to "a Georgia boy" he once managed (oh never mind that Elvis was from Mississippi & Tennessee).

My niece & her kids I think were watching that ep on DVD, and I kinda explained it, and they seemed to understand better.

There was also the time they were watching "The Ed Sullystone Show" on TV, with the title character doing the Ed Sullivan mannerisms. He said "really big" a lot, and Wilma commented, "He's really big on those 'really bigs'!"

cd

 

[LKellerIII]

Re: a third one

In an episode of Third Rock From the Sun, William Shatner, the Big Giant Head, visits the Solomons. He complains that his flight was terrible and that he kept seeing a little creature on the plane wing. Dick (John Lithgow) said that he had the same problem when he flew.
I about hyperventilated with laughter with that one. But....
Third Rock was filmed before a live audience, and there was very little laughter during that scene. Did no one else but me get the joke?

I got it. But then again, I'm old, and was a serious Twilight Zone fan in my childhood.

 

[cd637299]

Re: a third one

In an episode of Third Rock From the Sun, William Shatner, the Big Giant Head, visits the Solomons. He complains that his flight was terrible and that he kept seeing a little creature on the plane wing. Dick (John Lithgow) said that he had the same problem when he flew.
I about hyperventilated with laughter with that one. But....
Third Rock was filmed before a live audience, and there was very little laughter during that scene. Did no one else but me get the joke?

I got it. But then again, I'm old, and was a serious Twilight Zone fan in my childhood.

Glad to understand now. I was thinking Star Trek, but I hardly watched that either.

cd

 

[skippercollector]

a brand-new one

On this week's The Neighbors, Larry Bird's father comes for a visit. The father was played by George Takei, which of course opens up the possibility of dozens of jokes. Takei didn't make any references to Star Trek, but he did say, "Oh, myyyy," like he did on a TV commercial two years ago.

 

[LKellerIII]

Re: a third one

In an episode of Third Rock From the Sun, William Shatner, the Big Giant Head, visits the Solomons. He complains that his flight was terrible and that he kept seeing a little creature on the plane wing. Dick (John Lithgow) said that he had the same problem when he flew.
I about hyperventilated with laughter with that one. But....
Third Rock was filmed before a live audience, and there was very little laughter during that scene. Did no one else but me get the joke?

I got it. But then again, I'm old, and was a serious Twilight Zone fan in my childhood.

Glad to understand now. I was thinking Star Trek, but I hardly watched that either.

cd

It's from a 1963 episode of TZ called Nightmare at 20,000 Feet in which a 32 year old Shatner plays a passenger on a plane, and sees a monster on the wing outside his window who is damaging the plane while in flight. But Shatner is the only person on the plane who can see the monster, so the other passengers and crew think he's crazy.