Classic Comedies:

Funniest Movie
Moments and Scenes


N-O



N
Title Screen
Movie Title/Year and Scene Descriptions
Screenshots

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)

Deadpan, bumbling LA detective Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) starred in this gag-filled comedy from the directorial team of Zuckers and Abrahams (also responsible for Airplane! (1980) and Top Secret! (1984)).

  • there were many insanely silly scenes and dead-panned jokes, including the opening of a speeding LA cop car (shot behind the revolving cherry-top) down nighttime streets, into a carwash, and then barreling into a house - and a shower with naked women - and then down a rollercoaster before coming to a stop in front of a donut shop
  • Detective Nordberg (O.J. Simpson) was on the receiving end of very bad luck while attempting to bust a heroin drug operation at the docks led by shipping magnate Vincent Ludwig (Ricardo Montalban): he was shot multiple times, bumped his head, burned his hand on a hot stove, stumbled into a door with 'wet paint', smashed his hand in a closing window, dove face-first into a frosted cake, stepped into a bear trap, and fell overboard

Hapless Detective Nordberg (O.J. Simpson)

Lt. Drebin in Driving-School Vehicle

Drebin Visiting Nordberg in the Hospital

Drebin's Insensitive Comments to Nordberg's Wife
  • bumbling LA crimefighter and detective-lawman Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) commandeered a driving-school vehicle with an unflappable and calm Driving Instructor (John Houseman): ("It's okay. Normally you would not be going 65 down the wrong way of a one-way street. Apply the brakes. Now, put it in reverse..")
  • Drebin visited badly-wounded partner Detective Nordberg in his hospital room - and caused his bed to fold up on him by sitting on the bed controls, and made insensitive and blunt comments to his wife Wilma (Susan Beaublan): ("And I wouldn't wait until the last minute to fill out those organ donor cards")
  • in one of the scenes, all the most-feared enemies of the US sat at one conference table and plotted to destroy America -- Muammar al-Qaddafi, Arafat, Khomeini, Idi Amin, and Russian leader Gorbachev; Drebin appeared (in disguise) and thwarted them
  • Drebin completely destroyed and trashed shipping magnate Ludwig's apartment of priceless art objects and treasures
  • this film contained the famous double-entendre one-liner of Frank Drebin: "Nice beaver" as he looked up the dress of Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley), Ludwig's ex-girlfriend assistant, as she climbed a ladder - to which a stuffed beaver was produced and she responded: "Thank you...I just had it stuffed"
  • the scene of Drebin having "safe sex" with Jane - both wore complete body condoms
  • in a slapstick scene, Drebin slid across the table and landed, embarrassingly, on the visiting look-alike Queen of England
At the Ball Park

Drebin Butchering the National Anthem

Drebin Behind the Plate as Umpire
  • at a ballgame, Drebin awkwardly butchered the singing of the national anthem while impersonating opera tenor-singer Enrico Pallazzo: ("Oh say can you see / By the dawn's early light / What so proudly we hail / In the twilight's last gleaming? / Whose bright stripes and broad stars / In the perilous night / For the ramparts we watched / uh, da-da-da-da-da-daaaa. / And the rocket's red glare / Lots of bombs in the air / Gave proof to the night / That we still had our flag. / Oh say does that flag banner wave / Over a-a-all that's free / And the home of the land / And the land of the - FREE!")
  • and Drebin -- wearing a live police wire while going to the bathroom was overheard over the stadium loudspeakers at a speech given by flustered Mayor Barkley (Nancy Marchand)
  • going undercover, Drebin took the role of the the home plate umpire at the baseball game, calling the pitches: "Steeerikkke!", and dancing around the plate with funky moves
  • Drebin delivered a smaltzy "Power of Love" speech to a hypnotized Jane (as she held a gun on him); his words were broadcast on the Jumbotron as he professed his love to her, asked for her engagement, and attempted to break her homicidal spell: "Jane, it's me, Funny-face. You love Frank Drebin. And Frank Drebin loves you. Jane, listen to me. If you don't love me, you might as well pull that trigger, because without you, l wouldn't want to live anyway. l've finally found someone l can love - a good, clean love - without utensils...lt's a topsy-turvy world, Jane, and maybe the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans, but this is our hill and these are our beans. Jane, since l met you, l've noticed things l never knew where there - birds singing, dew glistening on a newly-formed leaf, stop lights...Jane, this morning... l bought something for you. lt's not very much, but pretty good for an honest policeman's salary. lt's an engagement ring. I would have given it to you earlier, but l wanted to wait until we were alone....l love you, Jane" - she melted at his words, dropped her gun, and embraced him for a kiss
  • and in the conclusion, the visual joke at the top of the stadium when wheel-chaired, recuperating partner Nordberg was slapped on the back by Frank and was sent helplessly down the aisle of the stadium steps and flipped 360 degrees to the ballfield below as Jane gushed to Frank: "Everyone should have a friend like you!"

LA Cop Car Crashing into House and Shower

World's Leading Terrorists at One Table

Drebin's Trashing of Ludwig's Apartment

Gag Line: "Nice beaver"

Safe Sex - Full Body Condoms

Drebin On Top of the Visiting Queen of England


Hypnotized Jane Holding a Gun on Drebin

Drebin's "Power of Love" Speech to Jane Broadcast on Jumbotron To End Her Hypnotic Spell

Wheelchaired Nordberg Sailing Down Stadium Steps

The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991)

  • in this hilarious sequel, among many other very funny sequences, the self-consciously syrupy sex scene between buffoonish Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) and his ex-girlfriend Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley), the secretary of her new love interest, kidnapped Dr. Albert S. Meinheimer (Richard Griffiths); the spoof sequence began as a parody of the clay-molding love scene in Ghost (1990) to the tune of the Righteous Brothers' Unchained Melody; a mysterious third pair of hands appeared over theirs (an in-joke about body doubles), and they began using their feet to massage the clay pot; soon after they kissed and began to ignore the spinning pot, the clay splattered all over them; suddenly Frank took on the chiseled torso of Arnold Schwarzenegger and when Jane reached down into the front of Frank's jeans-pants, she pulled out a large wad of clay that she fondled into the shape of a square ashtray
  • the love-making sequence ended with a clever montage of sexual metaphors for sexual intercourse and orgasm (similar to the final scene of North by Northwest (1959)), as Jane (in the missionary position) gripped the headboard posts behind her and forcefully broke them off:

    - a rapidly-opening and blossoming red flower, and its pairing up with a purple flower
    - the sight of Egyptian slaves raising a heavy stone obelisk
    - the initial blast off of a phallic-shaped rocket
    - the view of a long hot dog placed inside a bun by a street vendor
    - a human cannonballer inserting himself inside the round end of the cannon
    - a train at full speed barreling into a tunnel
    - two oil rigs thrusting in and out
    - a roller-coaster careening around a corner
    - the expulsion of the cannonballer from the cannon
    - the sight of black, liquid oil gushing from a well
    - the firing of an underwater torpedo
    - the collapse and bursting of a dam holding back water
    - the activation of a dynamite plunger
    - exploding fireworks
    - a basketball slam-dunk


  • the "Blue Note Bar" sequence, with a blues singer (Colleen Fitzpatrick) (in homage to Annie Hall (1977)) crooning I Guess I'm Just Screwed, where the walls were decorated with images of famous historical disasters (the San Francisco Earthquake, the Hindenburg Crash, the Titanic Sinking, the 1938 appeasement of Hitler in The Munich Agreement by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, a grinning picture of losing 1988 Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, a Ford Edsel and the Hubble Telescope), and a cigarette girl was cruising around with a tray of pills for purchase; when Drebin ordered a "Black Russian" - the waiter did a double-take toward the camera; and then Frank met up with Jane (in a re-enactment of Casablanca (1943)) when pianist Sam was asked to play their "song just one more time" - and he began a rendition of Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead!; as they broke up another time, he spitefully shouted after her: "I'm single. I love being single. I haven't had this much sex since I was a Boy Scout leader. I mean, the time I was dating alot"









The Naked Truth (1957, UK) (aka Your Past is Showing)

  • director/producer Mario Zampi's very British, satirical, post-war black comedy ("Terrific... Shocking... Scandalous...") - about The Naked Truth gossip-publisher Nigel Dennis (Dennis Price) who threatened to blackmail a number of celebrity-individuals (over their scandalous pasts, including promiscuous cheating, plagiarism, and corruption as a slumlord) through his tabloid publication unless they paid him £10,000: ("Pay in a fortnight or I publish in a month")
  • Peter Sellers (in his first leading film role) starred as nasty television variety show host Wee Sonny MacGregor, who vengefully conspired with others to murder Dennis, although they confounded each other's plans
  • the other characters included cowardly upper-class philanderer and insurance salesman Lord Henry Mayley (Terry-Thomas), his wife Lady Lucy (Georgina Cookson), "Agatha Christie"-like mystery novelist Flora Ransom (Peggy Mount), Flora's nervous and hysterical daughter Ethel (Joan Sims), and model Melissa Right (Shirley Eaton)
  • the sequence of Flora running through town in search of a "Mickey Finn" to poison Dennis, politely confronting druggists, supposed criminals, and the police
  • the many disguises, personas and facial expressions that Sonny assumed; in one case, he made an attempt at a pub in Ireland to surreptitiously hire two anarchists (terrorist IRA members) and nitro explosives - using a perfect Irish-Welsh accent (while sporting a large shamrock on his lapel); he also flustered a gunsmith shop owner by appearing as an Edwardian style country squire ordering a suspicious amount of ammunition (1,000 rounds) for a one day hunt: ("I'm having a day's rough shooting and want some bullets... as long as they've got gunpowder in them...I think you'd better make it a thousand")
  • in the conclusion, hostage Dennis accidentally fell into the ocean from a blimp (when he took a step out for fresh air), killing himself; in celebration, Sonny stupidly fired a pistol shot that pierced the zeppelin, causing it to spiral away as it deflated

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

  • the character of overbiting, afro-haired, geeky and unpopular, black-spectacled Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder), on stage and on the spur-of-the-moment, choreographed dancing to the tune of Jamiroquai's Canned Heat; he was supporting his buddy Pedro (Efren Ramirez) running for his HS student body class president in Preston, Idaho (ND was wearing a "Vote For Pedro" T-shirt); he wowed the audience and received a delayed standing ovation
  • the dance began with Napoleon's hands in his pockets, then various jumps with hand gestures, some shuffling, a pelvic thrust, a fake basketball shot, arms over his head and bird-flapping with his arms, a squat and hip swivel, various poses, clapping, pointing, swatting, and an actual somersault

(National Lampoon's) Animal House (1978)

  • the character of Faber College's animalistic, misfit, beer-bellied, Delta fraternity member John "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi) - with numerous gross-out belches and slobbish behavior (such as crushing beer cans on his head)
  • the scene of Bluto in the cafeteria lunch line - first munching on a hard-boiled egg with the shell (from the discarded food area), and his progress along the counter piling up and overloading food on his tray (and taking bites of a few items and putting the half-eaten remains back), stuffing his pockets, sucking (or slurping) down a plate of bright green Jell-O in one gulp, and filling his mouth with an entire hamburger
  • at the cafeteria table, Bluto was asked by frat boy Greg Marmalard (James Daughton): "Don't you have any respect for yourself?" and one of the preppy sorority girls Babs Jansen (Martha Smith) was also disgusted by him: "It is absolutely gross. That boy is a P-I-G, pig", he followed up with a guess-what-I-am-impersonation: ("See if you can guess what I am now"), then punched his cheeks with his fists to send a cream puff in all directions: ("I'm a zit. Geddit?")
  • the cafeteria's food fight scene and Bluto's instigating battle cry ("Food fight!")
  • the wild "Toga, Toga" party scene in Delta House at Faber College (chanted by Bluto and others), after Dean Wormer (John Vernon) told the frat that they were on "double secret probation"
  • during the Toga Party, Bluto's smashing of the guitar of a folk singer (Stephen Bishop) on the stairway
  • Bluto's famous challenge to his fellow frat brothers to join him to seek revenge on Dean Wormer and the clean-cut Omegas, although he was historically inaccurate: ("Did you say over? Nothing is over until we decide it is. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!...It ain't over now. Cause when the goin' gets tough, the tough get goin'. Who's with me? Let's go. Come on!")
  • the voyeuristic and winking Peeping Tom scene of Bluto on a ladder outside the window of a sorority house, watching the half-dressed frat girls having a pillow fight, and then being amazed to see self-pleasuring, half-naked Mandy Pepperidge (Mary Louise Weller) by herself - causing his ladder to fall backwards
  • the scene of a Playboy-reading young kid thanking God for a cheerleader from a homecoming parade float catapulted into his room during the sabotaged and ruinous parade










(National Lampoon's) Christmas Vacation (1989)

  • the trek to the country to find the most perfect X-mas tree, the Griswold Family Christmas Tree: ("We're kicking off our fun old fashion family Christmas by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh to embrace the frosty majesty of the winter landscape and select that most important of Christmas symbols"), to cut down an oversized Christmas tree in knee-deep snow: ("Thith tree is a thymbol of the thpirit of the Griswold family Chrithmath")
  • family head Clark Griswold's (Chevy Chase) determination to have a good old-fashioned Christmas celebration: "Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no! We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny f--king Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse"
  • the invitation to many in-laws to join them (Ellen's parents, Clark's own parents and his aunt and uncle), including crazy Kansas redneck Cousin Eddie Johnson (Randy Quaid)
  • sex-crazed Clark's visit to the mall, where he nervously became tongue-tied as he ogled busty lingerie clerk Mary (Nicolette Scorsese) at the display counter, who asked: "Can I show you something?" - with his reply about how cold it was: "Yes, yes it is, it's a bit nipply out. I mean nippy out, ha, ha, ha. What did I say, nipple? Huh, there is a nip in the air, though"
  • the scene in which Clark had waxed his round silver sled with a revolutionary grease, although Eddie had encouraged him not to: ("Don't go puttin' none of that stuff on my sled, Clark. You know that metal plate in my head?... I had to have it replaced, because every time Catherine revved up the microwave, I'd piss my pants and forget who I was for a half hour or so. So over at the VA, they had to replace it with plastic one. It ain't as strong so, I don't know if I oughta go sailin' down no hill with nothin' between the ground and my brain but a piece of government plastic") - and Clark's unexpected streak of fire in the snow after announcing: "Nothin' to worry about, Eddie. Going for a new amateur recreational saucer sled land speed record. Clark W. Griswold, Jr. Remember, don't try this at home, kids. I am a professional"
  • the traditional turkey meal dinner preceded by 80 year-old Aunt Bethany's (Mae Questel) "Grace" (actually, the Pledge of Allegiance) and the cutting into the bone-dry bird: (Clark: "If this turkey tastes half as good as it looks, I think we're all in for a very big treat!" Eddie: "Save the neck for me, Clark")
  • Clark's angry rant about his Scrooge-like boss, Mr. Shirley (Brian Doyle-Murray): ("I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-assed, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey s--t he is! Hallelujah! Holy S--t! Where's the Tylenol?")
  • the kidnapping of Mr. Shirley - (Clark had suggested it as a "last-minute gift-idea" and Eddie took him seriously); he was tied up with a big red bow on his chest; it was retaliation for Clark not receiving a cash bonus, but a one year membership in the Jelly-of-the-Month Club ("the gift that keeps on giving the whole year")
  • the over-the-top Christmas lights display on the exterior of the house ("250 strands of lights, 100 individual bulbs per strand, for a grand total of 25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights") - and the moment the lights were finally turned on, requiring auxiliary power from the utility company, and the electrocution of the cat
  • a terrifying squirrel incident when the wild animal was set loose in the Griswold house, and destructive havoc ensued in an attempt to get rid of it
  • the final disaster when Uncle Lewis (William Hickey) threw his lit cigar down a storm drain, and the entire sewage system destructively exploded (Eddie had dumped raw sewage down the drain); the blast sent a flaming Santa-sleigh and reindeer decoration across the sky in front of a full moon










(National Lampoon's) Vacation (1983) (aka Vacation)

  • as the title suggested, director Harold Ramis' road trip comedy told about the crazy cross-country adventures and mishaps of a family on their way from Chicago, IL to an amusement park in SoCal; the post-card opening sequence was accompanied by the song: "Holiday Road" sung by Lindsay Buckingham
  • clueless family head Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) was expecting to pick up a new "Antarctic Blue Super Sports Wagon with CB and optional family fun pack," but due to a car-dealership mix-up, the slick car salesman Ed (Eugene Levy) had Clark agree to accept and drive a gigantic pea-green "Wagon Queen Family Truckster" station wagon with a broken-down engine, for his reluctant family's cross-country trek to Walley World in Southern California with wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), son Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall), and daughter Audrey (Dana Barron); he insisted that the family join together in sing-alongs to combat boredom
  • there were numerous arduous misadventures on the way to Walley World, including getting lost in a ghetto area of East St. Louis, MO where the clueless, out-of-place Clark asked for directions from a black pimp: "Pardon me, I wonder if you could tell me how to get back on the expressway?" (who responded: "F--k yo Mama!") - and as they drove off, their hubcaps were stolen by vandals; Rusty also asked: "Wonder if these guys know the Commodores?"
  • during an overnight motel stop where Clark was preparing to romance Ellen with wine, the film included a parody of the motel shower scene in Psycho (1960) when Clark pretended to attack his long-suffering wife Ellen - using a stabbing motion with a banana; she rejected his offers to "do" her back and front: ("Go do your own front!"); and afterwards, they had to abort love-making when their vibrating massager bed malfunctioned and they were forced to move to the floor, where they were embarrassingly discovered by their two kids
  • at a stop in Dodge City, KS at a Wild West-themed tourist attraction, Clark entered into an altercation with a bartender in a tavern- "saloon" - and was "shot" with blanks as part of the simulated experience
  • during the trip, Clark had his first sexy encounter with a flirtatious and tempting vixen (supermodel Christie Brinkley) in a passing red 1983 Ferrari 308 - with CA license plates: "LUV ME"
  • the family visited with Ellen's cousin Catherine (Miriam Flynn) and her beer-swilling, hayseed husband Eddie (Randy Quaid) at their farm in Coolidge, KS, who ate Hamburger Helper without the meat: ("I don't know why they call this stuff Hamburger Helper. It does just fine by itself, huh? I like it better than Tuna Helper myself, don't you, Clark?")
  • there were many funny lines of dialogue: Eddie: "How do you like yours, Clark?" Clark: "Oh, medium rare, a little pink inside." Eddie: "No, I mean your bun"; Eddie described his disability: "I got laid off when they closed that asbestos factory, and now, wouldn't you know it, the Army cuts my disability pension because they said that the plate in my head wasn't big enough" - and then he asked Clark for a loan of $52,000 dollars

Ellen's Cousin-in-Law Eddie with Clark

Eddie: "How do you like yours, Clark?"

Vicki: "Daddy says I'm the best at it"

A Box of Home-grown Weed: "How cool is this?"

Dale to Rusty: "I've got a stack of nudie books this high!"

Vicki Stirring Kool-Aid with Her Hand
  • Eddie's young daughter Vicki (Jane Krakowski) bragged about French kissing: "I'm goin' steady, and I French kiss...Yeah, but Daddy says I'm the best at it" and also showing off a shoebox full of home-grown weed to Audrey: ("How cool is this?"), while Eddie's son Dale (John Nevin) bragged to Rusty: "I've got a stack of nudie books this high"; Vicki also stirred a jar of red Kool-Aid by sticking her hand inside and swishing it around (Clark asked: "Vicki, can I help you with that Kool-Aid, please?")
  • as they left, the Griswolds were forced to agree to take along foul-tempered Aunt Edna (Imogene Coca) and her viciously-mean dog Dinky, to later be dropped her off at her son Norman's home in Phoenix, AZ
  • at a lunch-break picnic rest stop during the road trip, to the sound of June Pointer's "Little Boy Sweet", Clark attempted to impress the sexy blonde vixen nearby (next to her red Ferrari), by flirting back while performing an awkward dance and opening his sandwich to show it off, as she drank from a soda bottle; all of a sudden, Ellen cried out: "They're all wet. Oh God! The dog wet on the picnic basket!" - and Clark began unglamorously spitting out his mouthful, although Aunt Edna shrugged her shoulders and took another bite
  • after an overnight tent-campground stop at a rundown Kamp Komfort facility in South Fork, CO, Clark was stopped by a forgiving and grief-stricken motorcycle cop after Clark had accidentally dragged Dinky tied by a dog leash to the bumper: "Explain this, you son-of-a-bitch...Do you know what the penalty for animal cruelty is in this state?...Well, it's probably pretty stiff...Poor little guy. Probably kept up with you for a mile or so. Tough little mutt. Yeah....Here's the leash, sir. I'm going back to get the rest of the carcass off the road...."
  • as they left Colorado, Ellen's vanity in her suitcase with her credit cards fell off the roof of the car; then a car crash in the Arizona desert followed an intense argument with his wife, and Clark experienced man-to-man talks in the desert with his son Rusty, including sharing a beer with him
  • upon their arrival at a Grand Canyon Village motel, Clark discovered that they had no credit cards or cash, and the clerk refused to cash a check, even after a bribery attempt; fortuitously, Clark was able to 'borrow' money from the open cash register (and left a $1,000 check in exchange) before briefly viewing the scenic Grand Canyon
  • following the death of Aunt Edna in her sleep, she was wrapped in a tarp and tied to the top of the station wagon: (Clark: "You want me to strap her to the hood? She'll be fine. It's not as if it's going to rain or something"); in Phoenix, AZ during a downpour, they left Aunt Edna's wrapped rigor mortis body on a backyard porch lawn chair at Cousin Normie’s house; Clark (during the thunder and rain storm) half-heartedly attempted to offer a prayer to God on her behalf: "Oh, God. Ease our suffering in this, our moment of great despair! Yeah! Admit this good and decent woman into Thine arms and the flock in Thine heavenly area up there. And Moab, he laideth down behind the land of the Canaanites. And, yeah, though the Hindus speak of karma...I implore you, give her a break....Honey, I'm not an ordained minister! I'm doing my best, okay?"
  • the always-clumsy and dim-brained, half-crazed Clark Griswold gave a deranged, foul-mouthed, colorfully R-rated exhortation and rant to his beleaguered family to press on, on their journey from Chicago westward: "I think you're all f--ked in the head. We're ten hours from the f--kin' fun park and you want to bail out! Well, I'll tell you somethin'. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna have fun. We're all gonna have so much f--kin' fun we'll need plastic surgery to remove our god-damn smiles. You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of your assholes! Ha, ha, ha. I gotta be crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Holy S--t!"
  • at the next motel stop, Clark encountered the same blonde vixen at the bar, who temptingly flirted with him, after he vowed he was single and owned the entire chain: (Vixen: "It's too bad you're married. I'm in the mood for some fun" Clark: "Married? Oh, you mean those people I'm with? That's my brother's family. My brother's ring. You know, I usually borrow them on these little inspection tours of mine. It sorta helps to complete the disguise. It's fun for them...In order to be convincing, you have to look and act like an ordinary jerk. You know, stop at all the stupid sites and, uh, look like a fool")
  • later as they walked to the swimming pool, Clark kept rambling: "My credo is, if you have to have a credo, you know, 'Go for it,' pretty much. You only go around this crazy merry-go-round once! You know?...Yeah. (she began stripping down to go skinny-dipping, and tossing her underwear at him) That's my credo! You don't have to have a credo, but 'If the shoe fits, wear it.' 'A penny saved... ' 'Pennies from heaven...' My favorite credo, you know, uhm, 'A penny saved, and... '"; when she dove in completely naked, she urged him to join her ("Are you gonna go for it?"); after he jumped in naked, he screamed about the water temperature and alerted many other guests to his embarrassing situation, including Ellen, who afterwards was easily convinced to go skinny-dipping ("I know how to have fun and I'm gonna prove it...I want us to have some fun together") - with Clark only

Walley World - An Empty Parking Lot

Slo-Mo Run Toward Walley World Entrance

Holding Walley World Guard Hostage
  • after their eventual arrival at Walley World in Los Angeles, Clark spoke: "First ones here!"; they ran in slow-motion (to the sounds of Chariots of Fire's theme) to the entrance, but to their dismay, it was closed for two weeks for maintenance; at the front gate, they were notified by a happy, animatronic moose holding a sign - with a recording: "Sorry Folks! We're closed for two weeks - to clean and repair 'America's Favorite' Family Fun Park"; completely disheartened, Clark punched the moose in the nose
  • Clark held the overweight Walley World security guard Russ Lasky (John Candy) hostage at gunpoint (with a realistic looking BB-gun he had just bought at a sporting goods store): "Now you listen to me, fat ass. You do what I say and there won't be any problem, okay? OK. We just drove 2,460 miles, just for a little Roy Walley entertainment. The Moose says you're closed. I say you're open"
  • although a SWAT team arrived and they were handcuffed, the family was able to experience some of the rides in the park when charges were dropped by Walley World's owner Roy (Eddie Bracken), including the roller-coaster
  • in the end credits, it was revealed that rather than driving back, the Griswolds opted for a plane trip to return to Chicago

Mix-up at the Car Dealership



The Family Sing-Alongs With Clark Leading


East St. Louis Pimp to Clark: "F--k yo Mama!"


Psycho Shower Parody


Vixen Passing in a Red 1983 Ferrari


Clark Dancing With His Urine-Soaked Sandwich


Clark with Motorcycle Cop After an Accident With Dog Dinky


Clark Sharing Beer with Son Rusty


Clark's Rant: "This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun"




Clark With the Flirtatious Blonde (Christie Brinkley) at the Motel

(National Lampoon's) Van Wilder (2002)

  • a contrived, un-PC, gross-out sex-and-school romp about a seventh year undergraduate student (Ryan Reynolds) at Michigan's Coolidge College who, among other things, hired busty young women and strippers to be "topless tutors", such as Desiree (Jesse Capelli), with the help of Indian personal assistant Taj (Kal Penn)
  • the scene of Van Wilder's advice to Taj on his "foolproof plan" of sexual technique: "All you need are the three fundamentals: scented candles, massage oil, and Barry White. Write that down. Hey! No cock pump"
  • the sequence of Taj's disastrous "hot" date with pretty blonde Naomi (Ivana Bozilovic) ("That's 'I moan' backwards"); calling her "my little Jasmine flower," Taj tripped on the floor, and when he liberally applied oil to her back and she begged: "Take me, I want you now," he jumped onto her, but slid across her back onto the floor and started a fire; she asked: "Don't tease me..." and added: "I'm about to culminate, now get over here!"; they both felt "on fire" and were "burning up" - because Taj's back was literally up in flames
  • the detestable, hard-to-watch scene of Van Wilder's collection of cream for the fillings of pastry treats to be consumed by a rival group of frat boys - taken from canine ejaculate from his English Bulldog (named Colossus, or "C-Los" for short), with an enlarged scrotum - a prosthetic; as they bit into the eclairs, the insides spilled out and ran down their mouths: "Dig in, guys. Oh, they're so warm"; but then they saw a polaroid photograph of the semen-extraction process - and proceeded to puke (there was one huge projectile of throw-up)




The Naughty Nineties (1945)

The Navigator (1924)

In Buster Keaton's classic comedy, reportedly Keaton's favorite film - a fish-out-of-water tale with many inventive sight gags:

  • the introduction provided by prologue title cards: "Our story deals with one of those queer tricks that Fate sometimes plays. Nobody would believe, for instance, that the entire lives of a peaceful American boy and girl could be changed by a funny little war between two small countries far across the sea. And yet it came to pass. The spies of the two little nations were at a Pacific seaport, each trying to prevent the other getting ships and supplies."
  • the story of well-to-do Rollo Treadway (Buster Keaton) and equally-naive flapper girlfriend and across-the-street neighbor Betsy O'Brien (Kathryn McGuire), who had rejected his simple proposal to get married ("Will you marry me?") with her simple response ("Certainly not"); he was forced to rip up a ticket he had purchased for her to join him as his bride on a Honolulu honeymoon cruise
  • due to rival factions of international spies from two small nations at war, the sale of a cruise ship (Betsy's father John O'Brien (Frederick Vroom) had sold the steamship the S.S. Navigator to one of the small countries at war, after which spies from the opposing country set it loose), and a mixup of pier numbers (12 vs. 2), Rollo and Betsy mistakenly found themselves deserted and adrift on a foggy night on the S.S. Navigator - Rollo thought he had boarded an ocean cruise to Honolulu, while she boarded the same ship to look for her father
  • sailing aimlessly on the Pacific Ocean on their first morning, Rollo and Betsy did not know of each other's presence as they roamed the deck - often just missing each other, until they accidentally bumped into each other
  • the numerous and elaborate sight gags first involved the two spoiled rich kids' inept efforts to make breakfast: to brew a few coffee beans in a pot using sea water, to open a can by whacking it with a machete, to boil eggs in a large pot and remove them, to open a can of tinned milk with a drill, and to use oversized cooking implements as personal utensils
  • the failed efforts of Rollo and Betsy to signal a naval rescue ship (their hoisted yellow flag was interpreted as "quarantined"), and to fearlessly drop a small rowboat from the deck into the water in order to absurdly pursue the naval ship by pulling The Navigator (before sinking the rowboat)
Dropping a Rowboat Into the Water to Tug The Navigator
  • the classic sequence of Rollo attempting to set up an uncooperative folding deck chair and put Betsy in it
  • the first evening, the gag of a swinging-portrait on a nail, seen through Rollo's porthole next to his bed, and thinking it was a ghost
  • in the dark, Rollo's mistaking a large box of "GIANT FIRECRACKERS" and "ROMAN CANDLES" for regular candles
  • Rollo's failed efforts to shuffle a wet deck of playing cards
  • still drifting after weeks at sea, Rollo's many Rube Goldberg-like inventions to make life easier in the kitchen
  • their sighting of cannibals - and to avoid drifting ashore and being captured, the scene of Rollo's underwater deep sea diving (in an elaborate diving outfit with helmet) to patch a leak in the ship, including his duel with a swordfish (by using another swordfish!) and an encounter with an octopus, while a tribe of island cannibals in an outrigger canoe kidnapped Betsy from the deck

Heavy Deep Sea Diving Outfit

Patching a Leaky Hole Underwater

Fighting a Swordfish
  • the scene of Rollo's routing of the natives by scaring them when he emerged on shore in his deep-sea diving outfit; after returning to the Navigator, they circumvented the cannibals' entry onto the ship by cutting away the gang-plank, throwing water down on them, and exploding firecrackers at them
Betsy's Rescue From Cannibals
  • the classic scene of Rollo's encounter with a toy cannon that was accidentally tied to his leg (he stepped into a rope loop) that was continually aimed at him, while he was trying to point it at the attacking cannibals
The Toy Cannon
  • as the Navigator's decks were completely overrun by cannibals, Rollo and Betsy escaped to the outrigger canoe vacated by the natives; but then they were again pursued and appeared about to meet their demise via drowning, when they were miraculously rescued by an emerging naval submarine underneath them; they entered the hatch, closed it, and escaped as the submarine descended
A Kiss - and Tossed Around Inside Rescue Submarine
  • inside the submarine, Rollo was kissed by a grateful Betsy, but then accidentally fell backwards onto an orientational lever control, sending the galley's interior cabin slowly rotating 360 degrees around and tossing them about like they were within a dryer, as the film ended

One Country's Plot to Set The Navigator Steamship Adrift

Betsy Rejecting Neighbor Rollo's Marriage Proposal



Searching For Each Other On The Navigator and Eventually Bumping Into Each Other

Failing to Set Up a Folding Deck Chair

"Ghost" Seen Through Rollo's Bunk Porthole

Firecrackers, Not Candles

Shuffling Wet Playing Cards


Sighting Cannibals on a Nearby Island

Betsy's Kidnapping



Doomed to Drown, But Saved By a Submarine Emerging Underneath

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941)

  • the Great Man's (W. C. Fields) two very funny restaurant ordering scenes in the Cozy Corner Cafe - a greasy-spoon restaurant with a tough, obnoxious, fat waitress named Tiny (Jody Gilbert); he asked: "Is there any goulash on this menu?"; she wiped a spot off the menu and replied: "It's roast beef gravy"; then, he asked about the steak: "Is that steak New York cut?"; she crossed if off the menu because it was unavailable. Pouring him a glass of ice water, she became distracted and he ended up with the overflow on his lap. He joked: "No extra charge for the cold shower, I hope"; struggling to order something, he asked: "Do you think it's too hot for pork chops?" That also was crossed off the menu, along with a number of other items. He wondered: "That, uh, practically, uh, eliminates everything but ham and eggs...No ham." He was forced to order two four-minute eggs in a cup, white bread, and milk, causing him to mutter: " I don't know why I ever come in here - the flies get the best of everything."
  • during his second visit to the restaurant with the fleshy waitress, he told her: "I didn't squawk about the steak, dear. I merely said I didn't see that old horse that used to be tethered outside here" - and then insultingly commented on her big behind: "There's something awfully big about you too"; when he paid his tab, she advised: "And another thing, don't be so free with your hands" - to which he replied: "Listen honey. I was only trying to guess your weight. You take things too seriously"
  • the scene of his diving to retrieve his precious bottle of booze which he had accidentally knocked over the side while gesturing; he made a drunken free-fall dive from out of the airplane, now flying over Mexico; catching up with the bottle as he fell thousands of feet to the ground, he landed on a giant mattress in a strange mountain cliff-top country (Ruritania), bouncing about a dozen times until he came to rest, and then asked himself: "Why didn't I think of that parachute? What a bump!"
  • the scene of the Great Man falling in a large basket off the cliff of the mountain top retreat of wealthy matron Mrs. Hemogloben (Margaret Dumont) and her lovely daughter Ouliotta Delight Hemogloben (Susan Miller), to avoid marriage, and his remark as he looked down: "Don't start worrying until we get down to one-thousand, nine-hundred, and ninety-nine. It's the last foot that's dangerous"
  • the final ten minutes - the Great Man's mad drive through downtown LA to take an oversized woman (he presumed she was pregnant) to the maternity hospital (borrowed for Abbott and Costello's In Society (1944)), with a police escort from cops on motorcycles, sirens blaring; after many near-misses and collisions, his car's roof was tangled up with the hook and ladder of a fire-engine, and his car was hoisted high into the air and then dumped back onto the highway; he narrowly missed pedestrians and other cars in the frantic ride to the hospital; his wrecked and disintegrating car finally came to a halt next to the "Maternity Hospital Quiet!" sign, where he was left holding only the steering wheel in his hands. Hospital orderlies rushed out with a stretcher and wheeled the unconscious passenger into the delivery room - she recovered consciousness just in time to berate the hospital staff. The Great Man staggered at the crash site, musing: "Lucky I didn't have an accident...I would have never gotten here"






A Night at the Opera (1935)

  • regarded by some as the funniest sequence ever filmed -- the famous "stateroom" scene (preceded by the 'food-ordering' scene) in which a small cruise ship room was crowded with all four Marx Brothers, chambermaids, an engineer, a manicurist, the engineer's assistant, a passenger looking for her Aunt Minnie, and staff stewards - and opera matron Mrs. Claypool's (Margaret Dumont) opening of the door that spilled all the occupants out onto the floor
  • the preceding egg-ordering scene
  • the classic 'contract-tearing' parody scene of contract negotiations between shady shyster manager Otis P. Driftwood (Groucho Marx) and Fiorello (Chico Marx): "The party of the first part...", ending with Fiorello's concluding that "You can't fool me - There ain't no Sanity Clause"
  • the scene at City Hall in which the stowaways posed as bearded air heroes and Fiorello's speech when he described the aviators' difficult trip to America
  • the hilarious, rearranged furniture and bed-switching sequence in Driftwood's apartment to elude and confuse private Detective Henderson
  • Driftwood's complaint/suggestion: "You're willing to pay him a thousand dollars a night just for singing? Why, you can get a phonograph record of Minnie the Moocher for 75 cents. And for a buck and a quarter, you can get Minnie"
  • and the operatic opening night finale (a lavish production number) of Il Trovatore with madcap havoc: wild backdrops, backstage and onstage chaos, Harpo swinging Tarzan ape-like on stage fly-ropes in tune to Verdi's music, and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"





9 to 5 (1980) (aka Nine to Five)

Director Colin Higgins' feminist-leaning workplace farcical comedy was so successful that it was the basis for a short-lived ABC-TV sitcom and a 2009 Broadway show of the same name.

The catchy Oscar-nominated title song sung and lyrics waswritten by Dolly Parton during the opening title credits montage of hustle-bustle scenes (of getting to work by 9 am) - filmed and located in downtown San Francisco:

"Tumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen Pour myself a cup of ambition And yawn and stretch and try to come to life. Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumpin' Out on the street the traffic starts jumpin' With folks like me on the job from nine to five. Workin' nine to five what a way to make livin' Barely gettin' by, it's all takin' and no givin'. They just use your mind and they never give you credit. It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it..."

Opening Title Credits Montage

The main characters were: three secretaries who were harrassed by their sexist corporate boss Franklin Hart, Jr. (Dabney Coleman) during their 9 to 5 job at Consolidated Companies, Inc.:

  • Doralee Rhodes (singer/songwriter Dolly Parton in her film debut), the well-endowed secretary of Hart, tired of being sexually-harrassed and hearing rumors about her affair with her boss
  • Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda), a new secretary, mousy, compelled to work after divorce proceedings against her cheating husband Dick (Lawrence Pressman); she was nervous, agitated in the new job by all her duties, and unable to manage the xerox machine
  • Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin), senior office manager, a long-time worker, and a widow with four children

Judy Bernly
(Jane Fonda)

Violet Newstead
(Lily Tomlin)

Doralee Rhodes
(Dolly Parton)

Male-dominated, married personal secretary Doralee Rhodes delivered a threatening tirade to get her gun and fire at lecherous, chauvinistic and harrassing corporate boss Franklin Hart after being ogled one too many times, her compromised reputation and his bragging about their having an affair:

"Well, that explains it. That's why these people treat me like some dime store floozy...They think I'm screwin' the boss...And you just love it, don't ya? It gives you some sort of cheap thrill like knockin' over pencils and pickin' up papers...Get your scummy hands off of me. Look, I've been straight with you from the first day I got here. And I put up with all your pinchin' and starin' and chasin' me around the desk 'cause I need this job, but this is the last straw...Look, I got a gun out there in my purse, and up until now, I've been forgivin' and forgettin' because of the way I was brought up. But I'll tell you one thing: if you ever say another word about me or make another indecent proposal, I'm gonna get that gun of mine and I'm gonna change you from a rooster to a hen with one shot! Don't think I can't do it!"

His one word response after she left his office was "s--t!"

The three commiserated at a bar about their jobs and detestable boss (Judy: "We've got to do something. He can’t treat people like that"). Violet pulled out a "gift" from her son - a "marijuana cigarette" and challenged them to smoke it: "Would you two show a little spunk? I mean, what are you, a man or a mouse? I mean, a woman or a "wouse"?" They decided to retreat to Doralee's house for what Violet termed "an old fashioned ladies' pot party."

Each of them went through elaborate revenge fantasies (while giggling and stoned with very strong "Maui Wowie") about killing their boss in various ways, while labeling him as "a lying, sexist, egotistical, hypocritical bigot":

  • Judy hunted him down in his office and threatened him with a rifle ("You're foul, Hart - a wart on the nose of humanity, and I'm going to blast it off...Goodbye, boss man. It's quittin' time") - she counted to ten and then began firing as he fled; she pursued him into the women's room where he was hiding in a toilet stall - he became a plaque on the wall
  • Doralee fantasized riding up in a Western scenario ("I think I'd like to ride up one day and give him a taste of his own medicine"); she arrived on a horse (to the tune of the "Lone Ranger" theme song); she pretended that she was his boss and shamed him by objectifying his body and sexually-harrassing him (as he often did to her) ("You're my boy from 9 to 5...You need to be a little more cooperative if you want to keep this job...One little kiss? What's that gonna hurt? Who's gonna know?"); then when he resisted, she roped and hog-tied him and put him on a BBQ spit
  • Violet portrayed Disney's fanciful Snow White ("For me, it would have to be like a fairy tale. You know, something gruesome and horrible and real gory. But kinda cute...) - with plans to poison Hart through his coffee; after he drank the coffee, he admitted that he deserved it, and was ejected from his desk chair out the skyscraper window
Judy - Hunting Him Down With a Rifle in the Office
Doralee - Abusing, Roping and Spit-Roasting Him
Violet - As Snow White, Poisoning Him With Coffee

Back in reality, Violet wrongly thought she had actually poisoned Hart's coffee with Rid-O-Rat powdered poison rather than sweetener, when he fell from his chair, knocked himself out and was quickly whisked off to the hospital. When Hart recovered and left the hospital without the threesome's knowledge, the threesome was in the middle of endeavoring to cover up Violet's possible crime of murder (and prevent an autopsy) by getting rid of the body. Violet mistakenly stole the corpse of a police witness from the hospital, stashed it in her trunk, and drove off. When they realized their mistake, they had to re-smuggle the body back into the hospital (and avoid a suspicious motorcycle cop who stopped them for a defective tail-light).

Hart was kidnapped and held captive by the trio in a bizarre suspension and chain system in his own bedroom, while the ladies sought evidence to charge him with embezzlement. During Hart's absence, improvements in office procedures ("changes that really count") instituted by the ladies led to increased productivity and positive morale, such as job-sharing, a day-care center, a rehabilitation program for recovering alcoholics, and more.

In the triumphant finale after Hart escaped and was about to send the threesome to jail, the company's impressed, white-haired chairman Russell Tinsworthy (Sterling Hayden) arrived for an unexpected visit to congratulate Hart for all of the improvements - except one ("that equal pay thing, though, that's got to go!"), and promoted him for a transfer to run Consolidated's Brazilian operation for the next two to three years. Hart reacted to the unwanted "chance of a lifetime" transfer: "Brazil, sir?"

In the last scene, the champagne drinking trio congratulated each other on getting rid of Hart:

- Judy: "We did it! We actually pulled it off, and we didn't panic."
- Doralee: "And Tinsworthy loved what we did."
- Violet: "Yeah, everything except that part about the money."
- Judy: "What are we gonna do about that?"
- Violet: "Hey, we've come this far, haven't we? This is just the beginning."
- Doralee: (toasting) "And here's to the beginning."
- Violet: "I'll drink to that."
- Judy: "The beginning!"
- Doralee: "Yeah!"
- "Monsieur Hart. Holy merde!" (the reaction of Hart's deferential and loyal assistant Roz Keith (Elizabeth Wilson), speaking French after returning from a French language seminar)

The film's final caption: "Franklin Hart was abducted by a tribe of Amazons in the Brazilian jungle and was never heard from again."


Franklin Hart, Jr.
(Dabney Coleman)


Hart Looking Down Buxom Doralee's Dress

Judy's Problems with the Xerox Machine

Doralee to Hart: "I'm gonna change you from a rooster to a hen with one shot!"



Plans to Seek Revenge: At a Bar and at Doralee's Home While Smoking Pot

Unrealistic Fairy-Tale Dreams


Hart Knocked Out, Not Poisoned!

Violet Stealing the Wrong Corpse From the Hospital



Hart Chained, Detained and Suspended From the Ceiling In His Own Home



Impressed Chairman Russell Tinsworthy - Hart Promoted to Brazil

Triumphant Threesome Drinking Champagne

Roz: "Holy merde!"

Franklin Hart Caption

Ninotchka (1939)

  • a sophisticated romantic comedy, advertised as the first in which "Garbo LAUGHS" - also a critique of Soviet society (under Stalin)
  • the scene of somber and dour Russian commissar Nina "Ninotchka" Ivanovna Yakushova's (Greta Garbo) arrival at the train station (after being dispatched from Moscow), where she was met by a trio of Russian delegates/comrades (Sig Rumann, Felix Bressart, and Alexander Granach), who apologized for not bringing flowers because they didn't know she was female - and she sternly and unsmilingly cautioned them to downplay her sexuality and not act gallantly: "Don't make an issue of my womanhood. We're here for work. All of us. Let's not waste any time. Shall we go?" - and she refused to have a porter carry her bags; as she walked off, she told them the news: "The last mass trials have been a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians"
  • the scene of her meeting with dashing Count Leon d'Algout (Melvyn Douglas), when all she wanted was assistance in holding her unfolded map of Paris to go to the Eiffel Tower to learn about it from a "technical standpoint"; point-blank, she told him: "I am interested only in the shortest distance between these two points. Must you flirt?...Suppress it!"
  • the first instance of Ninotchka saying her famous line after being introduced to Leon's elderly, dignified butler Gaston (Richard Carle): "The day will come when you'll be free. Go to bed, little father. We want to be alone"
  • her response to Leon's request for feedback when he asked: "Ninotchka, you like me just a little bit?" - and her reply: "Your general appearance is not distasteful...The whites of your eyes are clear. Your cornea is excellent"; and then her denial of his feelings of love: "Love is a romantic designation for a most ordinary biological - or, shall we say, chemical - process. A lot of nonsense is talked and written about it"
  • Leon's failed attempt to arouse emotion in Ninotchka: "Love isn't so simple, Ninotchka. Ninotchka, why do doves bill and coo? Why do snails, the coldest of all creatures, circle interminably around each other? Why do moths fly hundreds of miles to find their mates? Why do flowers slowly open their petals? Oh, Ninotchka, Ninotchka, surely you feel some slight symptom of the divine passion? A general warmth in the palms of your hands, a strange heaviness in your limbs, a burning of the lips that isn't thirst but something a thousand times more tantalizing, more exalting, than thirst" - and her cold reply: "You are very talkative"
  • the celebrated cafe scene of Count Leon attempting to melt her icy, stony-faced, humorless, impassive exterior and have her "laugh from the heart" by telling her dumb jokes and stories in a restaurant; when that utterly failed and she remained unamused and stone-faced without any reaction, he leaned backward on the shaky table behind him and accidentally toppled over in his chair, causing everything to crash to the floor. He finally succeeded in making her laugh uproariously and uncontrollably. She howled, threw her head back, and collapsed across the table, pounding it with her hand. Leon slowly got up from the floor, recomposed himself, and sat next to her. And then he recovered and broke down into howling laughter with her. He saw the humor of the situation and joined in everyone's laughter at his own expense





Nothing Sacred (1937)

Director William Wellman's great black comedy - a superb screwball comedy (the first filmed in Technicolor) from former newspaperman and scriptwriter Ben Hecht (who also wrote the play "The Front Page" - made into another famous screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940)) - satirized the world of tabloid reporting and its corruption and dishonesty; it was remade as Living It Up (1954) with Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, and Janet Leigh:

  • the humorous opening title screen: "THIS IS NEW YORK, Skyscraper Champion of the World...where the Slickers and Know-It-Alls peddle gold bricks to each other...And where Truth, crushed to earth, rises again more phony than a glass eye..."
  • the early scene of a gala banquet, where the New York Morning Star and its editor boss Oliver Stone (Walter Connolly) was hosting a penniless black Harlem shoeshiner (bootblack) (Troy Brown, Sr.), honoring him as the foreign potentate of the Orient - "Sultan of Marzipan" (who was donating $10 dollars for every $1 dollar, for the establishment of an art institute known as the Morning Star Temple ("twenty-seven halls of learning and culture, twenty-seven arenas of art")); he was exposed as a fraud by his wife who interrupted the proceedings
  • revelations were that hot-shot star newspaperman - dapper, cynical ambitious tabloid reporter Wallace "Wally" Cook (Fredric March), had printed exaggerated stories in the paper about the impersonating Harlem worker; Oliver Stone was so angered that he announced: "I am going to remove him from the land of the living!"; Cook was severely reprimanded and demoted to writing obituaries for the remainder of his five-year contract
  • Cook learned of a promising story to redeem himself - "Poor little working girl doomed to death from radium poisoning" - he begged for a chance to travel to Warsaw, Vermont (fictional) and interview the dying girl: "Listen, Oliver, there's a story in this kid that ought to tear your heart out...Oliver, so help me. I'll be in Vermont by morning. I'll dig you up a story that'll make this town swoon...If I don't come back with the biggest story you ever handled, you can put me back in short pants and make me marble editor"
  • arriving in Vermont, Cook was regarded skeptically by the small-town folk as a scandalmonger; in the office of incompetent and bumbling Dr. Enoch Downer (Charles Winninger), Cook's profession was criticized: "I'll tell you briefly what I think of newspapermen. The hand of God reaching down into the mire couldn't elevate one of them to the depths of degradation. Not by a million miles"; Cook's requests to see the terminally-ill Hazel Flagg, diagnosed by Dr. Downer as having only six weeks to live, were deflected
  • after the appearance of watch factory worker Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard), Dr. Downer informed her that she had been re-diagnosed as healthy: ("Well, you can stop giving yourself the airs of a dying swan. According to this last analysis I made, you ain't going to die....You're fitter than a fiddle!...That first diagnosis I made was a mistake"); but she was very disappointed that a trip with $200 to the big city of New York was no longer possible and that she had to stay in Warsaw ("You know, I don't know which I am, happy or miserable, I'm all mixed up")
  • outside the doctor's office as Hazel cried about her predicament, Cook offered to bring her to NY as a guest of the newspaper on an all-expenses-paid trip, as a symbol of courage and heroism: ("We'll show you the town. We'll take you everywhere. You'll have more fun than if you lived a hundred years in this moth-eaten yep-and-nope village...You'll be a sensation. The whole town will take you to its heart. You'll have everything you've ever dreamed of. You'll have it on a silver platter. You'll be like Aladdin with the magic lamp to rub"); as they flew to New York with Dr. Downer, Cook exclaimed as they approached NY: "Well, there she is, in all her beads and ribbons"; he promised: "New York is going to lay its heart at your feet while the whistles blow and the bands play and the cameras grind"; Hazel became a national hero (with a ticker-tape parade and presentation of the key to the city) so the small-town rube could enjoy a taste of life before succumbing; she was given gowns, banquets, theatre tickets, homage poems, and more

Hazel Invited to NY by Cook

Hazel's Welcome Sign in Technicolor NYC Aerial Shot

"Belle of New York"
  • at a nightclub, the floorshow "The Heroines of History" included women onstage on horseback (Lady Godiva, Pocahontas, etc.); the boozing Hazel was invited to the stage by the emcee to join them: ("That little soldier whose heroic smile in the face of death has wrung tears and cheers from the great stone heart of the city. I humbly invite her now to take her place beside all the great Heroines of History"); with the effects of excessive alcohol, she fainted on-stage - garnering even more sympathy
  • the next morning in bed, the hung-over Hazel began to feel anxious pangs of conscience about her phony and feigned illness; she worried about what would happen when she was found out: ("I've got a conscience...I'm ruining him"); and then she discovered that Cook was planning to make elaborate funeral arrangements for her death with NY's governor: ("There'll be about 30,000 automobiles and a considerable group on foot. About half a million, I think...I'm getting the governor to declare a public holiday for the, uh, occasion"); and then she also learned that Dr. Emil Egelhofer (Sig Rumann), a radium poisoning specialist, was going to examine her - she told Dr. Downer: "I've got to commit suicide in advance before that scientist gets to me. I-I've got to be drowned" - she planned on writing a suicide thank you note to the city and then disappearing and hiding out forever ("I'll change my name and hide away for the rest of my life and never, never see him again")
  • still in bed, Hazel listened to a 20-member elementary school glee club singing a dedicated song to her: "We're sorry you're dying, Hazel" - during the song, she was crawled over by a freckle-faced kid's pet squirrel
  • Hazel's suicide note was discovered by her empty bed: "Dear New York City, Goodbye. Remember me as someone you made very happy. I have enjoyed everything. There's only one thing left to enjoy. Your river - that smiled outside of my window. It is easy to die when the heart is full of gratitude. Hazel Flagg"; she was prevented from drowning herself at the pier by Cook (who was actually rescued by Hazel because he couldn't swim), who then proposed marriage to her
  • the arrival of Dr. Egelhofer and his three European colleagues to examine Hazel; after her X-rays proved that she was not ill, Morning Star editor Oliver Stone was notified of the new diagnosis: ("There is no vestige, no trace, no single symptom of radium poisoning in this young woman, Mr. Stone"); the doctors were paid to keep quiet, and then Stone chastised his star reporter Cook for promoting a hoax: "I am sitting here, Mr. Cook, toying with the idea of removing your heart - and stuffing it like an olive!...You ruined the Morning Star. You blackened forever the fair name of journalism. You and that foul botch of nature, Hazel Flagg!...The biggest fake of the century. A lying, faking witch with the soul of an eel and the brain of a tarantula!")
  • while Stone was worried about the revelation of the scandal, Cook was thankful about Hazel's newfound health and prospects of marriage: "I thank God on my knees that she's a fraud and a fake and isn't going to die" - he planned to tell the readership: "Wanna tell 'em we've been their benefactors. We gave 'em a chance to pretend that their phony hearts were dripping with the milk of human kindness," and he blamed Stone for the publicity stunt: "You used her like you've used every broken heart that's fallen into your knap-sack. To inflame the daffy public and help sell your papers"

Dr. Egelhofer and Colleagues

Stone to Cook: "You ruined the Morning Star!"

Cook: "You used her..."
  • in a comic lady-beating scene, Cook wanted Hazel to look properly bruised, sweaty, and sick - allegedly with pneumonia - before another diagnosis was made; Hazel was knocked out with a terrific punch; and then when she revived, she reciprocated and knocked Cook unconscious
  • exasperated by the whole situation of fakery, Hazel confessed to city officials, some citizens and the mayor outside her hotel room: "I'm a fake, I'm a phony, I'm not gonna die. I was never gonna die. I never had radium poisoning, I never had anything. I wanted a trip to New York, and I got it"; however, the group decided that the true news of her health would endanger her inspirational story for everyone ("This thing must not get out")
  • in the last analysis, Hazel declared: "Oh, let me alone. I wish I really could die. Go someplace by myself and, and die alone! Like an elephant!"; it was decided that Cook and Hazel would make their honeymoon disappearance-getaway as marrieds (incognito), sailing on a cruise ship to a tropical island, while it was rumored in the newspapers that she had committed 'suicide' based upon another suicide note left behind: "Dear New York - We've had a lot of good times together - you and I - but even the best of times must end, so I have gone to face the end alone - like an elephant. Sincerely, Hazel"

Ending: Solution -
"HAZEL VANISHES"

Disguised as Honeymooners
on Tropical Cruise

Opening Title

Editor Oliver Stone with Imposter "Sultan of Marzipan"

Hoax Revealed

Ace Reporter Cook Demoted But Allowed to Interview Dying Girl


Hazel Flagg
(Carole Lombard)


Fainting On-Stage as a "Heroine of History"

Cook's Plans for Her Funeral, and Examination by a Specialist

Squirrel

Hazel's Suicide Note

Hazel Kissing Cook After Rescue





Fighting Sequence - Knocking Each Other Out


Hazel Confessing to City Officials and Mayor

The Nutty Professor (1963)

  • in the film's opening scene, the introduction of the main Jekyll-Hyde character: eccentric, buck-toothed, whiny-voiced, nerdy and naive scientist Professor Julius F. Kelp, who was found in the smoky rubble of his chemistry lab (underneath a door) after a violent and destructive explosion; he meekly explained: "I used too much..."
  • the scene of Professor Kelp's reprimand for causing another explosion, scolded in the office of imposing superior Dr. Warfield (Del Moore), as Kelp sat in a sinking soft leather chair before the desk and shyly looked up; Kelp left a trail of dirty shoe prints on the carpet leading into the office; when asked "How long?!" he had been at the university, Kelp opened up his pocket watch that blared out the Marine Corps hymn: "Halls of Montezuma"; Kelp answered: "Two years and 22 minutes now"; Warfield chastised Kelp: "Kelp, it's human nature. Kelp, people just don't like teachers blowing up their kids!" and then he noted: "Try to understand that I understand, that scientists and creators have their little eccentricities. Einstein hated hair cuts, Da Vinci loved to paint, and Newton..." - Kelp interrupted: "He had something to do with figs, didn't he?"
  • the entrance of Kelp into a local Vic Tanny workout gym, where he was knocked to the ground by an exiting, muscle-bound beefcake male; later when asked if he was hurt when he again fell onto a bouncy trampoline, he explained: "Well, actually, if you would say that a man with an ulcer had a nail in his shoe and a splinter in his finger was then struck by lightning - if you could say that that man was not hurt, then yes you would say I'm not hurt"
  • the scenes of physical comedy - of Kelp using the gym's pulling weight machine (in split-screen, the unscrewed pulley station sent him flying), an almost-blind Kelp (without his glasses) bowling the wrong way at a bowling alley, and the sight-gag of the stretching of his arms when he dropped a heavy weight bar ("I suspect it was somewhat heavier than I...") - the punchline came later when he was seen in bed (with his hands next to his feet, facilitating the scratching of one foot)
  • the scene of Professor Kelp drinking a strange pink elixir and then his transformation into a hip, swaggering, greasy-haired and obnoxious ladies man alter-ego known as Buddy Love
  • Buddy Love's first public appearance in the hip Purple Pit hang-out (a dance nightclub), and the sequence of Buddy's detailed instructions to the bartender on how to prepare his favorite cocktail - an Alaskan Polar Bear Heater ("two shots of vodka...a little rum... some bitters... and a smidgen of vinegar...a shot of vermouth... a shot of gin... a little brandy...lemon peel...orange peel... sherry...some more scotch..."); the bartender sampled the drink, said: "Not bad" and then fell over
  • the scene of Buddy's vocal performance of "That Old Black Magic" at the piano under subdued lighting - bringing stunned reactions from onlookers, in a vain attempt to seduce pretty blonde student Stella Purdy (Stella Stevens) - she could see through his giant ego - Buddy: "Honey, I always say, if you're good and you know it, why waste time beating around the bush, true?" Stella: "And I always say that to love yourself is the beginning of a lifelong romance, and after watching you, I know you and you will be very happy together"
  • the scene in Dr. Warfield's office, when Buddy flattered the administrator to act out the famous scene from Shakespeare's Hamlet, and after just one recited line, concluded: "You choked me. It was gorgeous. The prettiest thing I've ever seen in my life"
  • the prom scene, when Buddy, serving as a chaperone, realized his formula was wearing off during his singing, and he was forced to admit to Stella and the rest of the participants that he was really just Professor Kelp; he apologized and confessed: "I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I didn't mean to do anything that wasn't of a kind nature. Learning a lesson in life is, uh, is never, is never really too late. And I think that the, uh, lesson that I learned came just in time. I don't want to, uh, want to be something that I'm not. I didn't like being someone else. At the same time, I'm very glad I was, 'cause I found out something that I never knew. You might as well like yourself. Just think about all the time you're gonna have to spend with you. Well, and if you don't think too much of yourself, how do you expect others to?"; Stella responded that she preferred his real self: "I'm only trying to say that I wouldn't ever want to spend the rest of my life with anyone like Buddy. Being the wife of a professor would be much more normal and much happier" - and she kissed him
  • with two swiped "Kelp's Kool Tonic" bottles from Kelp's father stuffed in the back of her jeans and with plans to marry Kelp (with a marriage license in hand), Stella convinced the two that they should elope together: ("We have our own lives to live. Come on, let's go"); he agreed to leave with her: ("Yes, actually, Stella, what's right is right, let's split")
  • during the final closing credits scene, each of the characters took a bow - Kelp clumsily tripped and stumbled into the camera (and caused the screen to go black)











The Nutty Professor (1996)

  • the opening credits scene of the release of hundreds of hamsters on the campus of Wellman College from the laboratory of overweight Professor Sherman Klump (Eddie Murphy), a biochemistry researcher
  • Klump's first meeting with pretty graduate student, Carla Purty (Jada Pinkett), and his bumbling first words to her about chemistry that she was going to be teaching: ("WeII, thank you very much. I'm fatter - uh, fIattered that you, you've been foIIowing my work the way you have. A chemistry teacher. Chemistry sure is important to have... chemistry... to have and use it. ChemicaIIy. Chemistry. WeII")
  • the Klump Family's dinner scene (five characters - including Professor Klump, his father Cletus, mother, brother and grandmother - all played by Eddie Murphy), when they first discussed obesity and ex-overweight black celebrities: ("What are ya talkin' about, where all the fat and calories is? You know where that come from? Watchin' that damn TV. Every time you turn it on, ya got somebody there talkin' about lose weight, get heaIthy, get in shape. Everybody lookin' all anorexic, talkin' about that's healthy. I know what healthy is. And I'll tell ya somethin' else. I don't know why everybody tryin' to lose weight in the first pIace! Ain't everybody supposed to be the same size. We're all different. Big, small, medium, midgets. You supposed to have all that. I don't know if I want to be the same size, like that Oprah Winfrey. She's gonna lose her weight. Wasn't nothin' wrong with her. She was fine. Oprah was a fox! She lose all that weight, her head Iook all big, skin hangin' all over. And Luther Vandross. Nigger used to be the black Pavarotti. Lost all that weight, lookin' all ashy. Oprah and Luther need to keep their ass one weight, 'cause I'm confused")
  • the continuation of the dinner scene when Sherman's ravenous father Cletus began to pass gas ("coIon cIeansin'") - and ended up soiling himself when he broke wind - and everyone began tooting: (Cletus: "Oops. Now see what you made me do? Goddamn it, I messed up my pants")
  • also the two scenes of Sherman's fantasy nightmares (spoofing well-known films From Here to Eternity (1953) and King Kong (1933)), kissing Carla on a beach (but with his tremendous weight buried her under the sand) and then terrorizing the city as a monstrous giant Fatzilla: ("It's Fat-ziIIa! Boy, you look Iike King Kong with titties"), and then a passerby cried out a warning: "Oh my God, he's gonna blow!" - and Sherman's gargantuan expelled fart caused massive destruction, although Cletus congratulated him: "Way to go, son! That's my boy!"; a bum lighting a match ignited an H-bomb-like explosion
  • and the attempts in a Rocky-styled montage by Klump to work out, including a failed acupuncture session with thousands of needles
  • after taking a massive dose of genetic weight loss formula, Klump's transformation when he stood in front of a mirror and saw himself: ("Oh! Oh! I'm thin! I'm thin! Look at my cheekbones! I have cheekbones! Yes! Look at my chest. Look at my breasts. I don't have breasts. I'm an 'A' cup. I don't need a bra anymore. Oh, God! I'm thin! I'm thin! I'm thin! Nothin' but air there. Nothin' but air there. My ass is gone now. I'm sIim, sIim, sIim. WeII, I'II be damned! I can see my dick! My dick! My dick, my dick, my dick!"); however, he was also transformed into an obnoxious, testosterone-driven alter-ego Buddy Love (Murphy again)
  • the scene of Buddy's apology to Carla for being late in front of The Scream nightclub: ("Let's just have a meaI together. Why you Ieavin'? Hey, what you want? You want me to beg you? I'II get down on my knees. I'II beg you in front of aII these peopIe. Think I care if these peopIe are watchin'? I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I want the worId to know that I was Iate! And I'm sorry! My car ran outta gas. I needed fresh drawers. My mother's sick. The car broke down on the street...I don't know why this is happenin' tonight. Of aII nights this has got to happen to me tonight.... Why!? Why!?...Why?")
  • Buddy's fat jokes, told in merciless revenge against stand-up comedian Reggie Warrington (Dave Chappelle), deriding his mother's weight and other insults: ("Ok, fat jokes! You wanna do fat jokes? Alright! Your mother's so fat, the bitch needs Thomas Guide to find her asshole! Alright! Wait, wait, wait, your mother's so fat, after sex I roll over twice, and I'm still on the bitch! Your mother is so fat, she fell in the Grand Canyon and got stuck! Reggie's mother's so fat, that the bitch gets her toenails painted at Earl Scheib!...Reggie's mama is so fat, her blood type is rocky road! Last one! Reggie's mother's so fat... HER BELT SIZE IS EQUATOR!")
  • the embarrassing conversation at the Klump dinner table when Sherman brought Carla there for dinner, and they made inappropriate comments about the two having sex and getting married: ("Sherman has never had reIations...I hope you got a strong back. When you get aII that man, and reIease aII that that's been buiIt up for 35 years. Just wantin' and wantin' and wantin'! Whoo! Might make your head bIow off...I got my own seIf hot teIIin' that story")
  • the scene of Buddy explaining in "rich-dummy" terms the secret of his weight loss plan to wealthy alumnus Harlan Hartley (James Coburn) at the hotel restaurant The Ritz: ("I'll break it down for all the rich dummies in the room, listen up! If you gonna eat nasty stuff like this. I know it looks good and some of you all like porkchop. But this greasy, nasty porkchop, do you realize that there's a gene in your DNA that routes this straight to your fat cells, and it causes all sorts of unsightly conditions. Case in point, this woman is sufferin' from what I like to call jello arms. You notice the arm has taken on a gelatin sort of vibe, and it's quite nasty. Now to my left, this gentleman has turkey neck, and to my immediate left, this woman is sufferin' from what we like to call saddlebag syndrome. And to my extreme left, this young lady is suffering from what I like to call tank ass... I'm your brother, I'm your brother. Like I was sayin' everybody, where there's a will, there's a way, and there is a way we can turn these genes off, and I'm not talkin' about usin' exercise or diet, I'm talkin' about by takin' a simple solution that helps reconstruct your metabolic cellular strands, thus giving you the appearance of, as they say in medical terms, gluteus minimus, or in layman's terms, an extremely tight, wonderful ass. Let's give a big round of applause for the woman with the nice ass, huh? It's so nice, don't you agree? She's worked so hard. Have a seat, have a seat. Oh, are these girls with you? Everyone has a nice ass at this table. Is this the nice ass section?")
  • and the final scene, when the two alter-egos: Buddy Love vs. Sherman "fought" against each other as he gave a demonstration on stage of the effects of the miracle serum











O

The Odd Couple (1968)

  • the continuing contrast of two opposing, incompatible, divorced/separated male roommates (both divorced from ex-wives Blanche and Frances) trapped together in a Manhattan apartment, who began to take on characteristics of a typical husband and wife
  • the compulsive, prissy, hypochondriacal, neurotically-neat, tidy, know-it-all photographer Felix Ungar (Jack Lemmon)
  • the ultra-slobbish, grumpy, unkempt sportswriter Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau)
  • during his weekly poker game, Oscar's offer to share food from his refrigerator now broken for two weeks - spoiled and rotten sandwiches: ("I got brown sandwiches and green sandwiches. Which one do you want?" Oscar was asked: "What's the green?" He replied: "It's either very new cheese or very old meat")
  • the restaurant scene where Felix demonstrated his loud honking technique to clear his sinuses: ("I'm trying to clear up my ears. You create a pressure inside your head. It opens up the eustachian tubes"), and then complained: "I think I strained my throat"
  • the scene at the ballpark when Oscar phoned Felix with an "emergency" suggestion for dinner that evening: "Oscar, just called to tell ya. Don't eat any frankfurters at the ballgame today. I've decided to make franks and beans for dinner tonight"; with his back turned, Felix was told he had missed a major triple play: "A triple play! The Mets did it! The greatest fielding play I ever saw, and you missed it, Oscar! You missed it!"
  • the double-date scene with two British female neighbors, the Pigeon sisters Cecily (Monica Evans) and Gwendolyn Pigeon (Carole Shelley), known as the "Coo-Coo" sisters because of their cooing sound when they laughed; the evening was essentially ruined when Felix reminisced about his wife Frances and children and caused them to sob uncontrollably with him; Oscar arrived and asked: "What the hell happened?...Nothing? I'm gone three minutes, and I walk into a funeral parlor. What did you say to them?"; he called his roommate "a walking soap opera!"; in the meantime, the meatloaf burned in the oven and Felix suggested: "We better get some corned beef sandwiches" because there was no way the charred meatloaf could be salvaged: "$4.80 worth of ashes? I'd throw it down the incinerator, but it won't burn twice"
  • their major battle of wills when Oscar threatened Felix: "If you want to live here, I don't want to see ya, I don't want to hear ya, I don't want to smell your cooking, right? Now, kindly remove that spaghetti from my poker table. What the hell is so funny?" Felix laughed: "It's not spaghetti, it's linguini." Oscar hurled the linguini at the wall and made a mess: "Now it's garbage!"
  • Oscar's laundry list of problems with Felix, and his interpretation of the note he found from Felix on his pillow: ("I can tell you exactly what it is. It's the cooking, the cleaning, the crying. It's the talking in your sleep. It's those moose calls that open your ears at 2:00 o'clock in the morning. I can't take it anymore, Felix. I'm crackin' up. Everything you do irritates me, and when you're not here, the things I know you're gonna do when you come in irritate me. You leave me little notes on my pillow. I've told you 158 times I cannot stand little notes on my pillow. 'We are all out of cornflakes. F.U.' Took me three hours to figure out that F.U. was Felix Ungar")









Office Space (1999)

  • the opening credits sequence that introduced the main characters (all stuck in commuter traffic), including white guy Michael Bolton (David Herman) singing along to his radio playing gangsta rap; when he glanced out his window and saw an African-American hawking bouquets of flowers nearby, he cautiously locked his doors, then continued singing after the curb-seller passed by
  • the condescending "Did you get the memo?" office scenes of computer programmer Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) being reprimanded for not following protocol by smarmy supervisor Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole), and then a second time by another superior Dom Portwood (Joe Bays): ("Ahh, we have sort of a problem here. Yeah. You apparently didn't put one of the new cover sheets on your T.P.S. reports...Mmm, yeah. You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all T.P.S. reports now before they go out. Did you see the memo about this?... If you could just go ahead and make sure you do that from now on, that would be great. And, uh, I'll go ahead and make sure you get another copy of that memo. OK!")
  • the character of cubicle office-mate Milton Waddams (Stephen Root), who tried to survive by defending his behavior in his cubicle (regarding his radio and stapler) argued to Peter that he was allowed to listen to his radio for two hours each morning: ("I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven... I told Bill that if Sandra is going to listen to her headphones while she's filing, then I should be able to listen to the radio while I'm collating so I don't see why I should have to turn down the radio because I enjoy listening at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven")
  • and Milton's feelings of being threatened when he was to be moved to a new location: ("And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...")
  • the rage expressed by Samir Nagheenanajar (Ajay Naidu) on Monday morning at the office printer-copier-fax machine: ("Why does it say paper jam when there is no paper jam? I swear to God, one of these days, I just kick this piece of s--t out the window...Piece of s--t!")
  • the scene of Peter candidly describing a typical workday to efficiency experts, mostly about his lack of motivation: ("Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late. Uh, I use the side door. That way Lumbergh can't see me. And, uh, after that, I just sort of space out for about an hour....Yeah. I just stare at my desk. But it looks like I'm working. I do that for, uh, probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week, I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual work....Let me tell you something about T.P.S. reports. Ahh... The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy. It's that I just don't care...It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now, if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime. So where's the motivation? And here's something else, Bob. I have eight different bosses right now....So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation, is not to be hassled. That and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that'll only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired")
  • the scene of the ultimate revenge against the office copier/fax/printer machine - its demise was delivered with crushing shoe heels and a baseball bat in the middle of a field, to the rap tune of the Geto Boys song "Still"
  • the scene in which chain-restaurant waitress Joanna (Jennifer Aniston) told her demanding boss (who said that she lacked "flair" - lingo for a requirement to wear buttons on her uniform's suspenders, and only did "the bare minimum") that she quit - and gave him the finger: ("Huh, what do I think? Um, you know what, Stan, if you want me to wear thirty-seven pieces of flair like your, uh, pretty boy over there, Brian, why don't you just make the minimum thirty-seven pieces of flair?...You know what? Yeah, I do. I do want to express myself. OK? And I don't need thirty-seven pieces of flair to do it. All right? There's my flair. OK? And this is me expressing myself. OK? There it is. I hate this job. I hate this goddamn job, and I don't need it")






Old School (2003)

  • the post-wedding reception scene of three 30-somethings, including attorney Mitch "The Godfather" Martin's (Luke Wilson) drunken and inappropriate toast to his buddy Frank "The Tank" Ricard (Will Ferrell) who had just been wed to Marissa Jones (Perrey Reeves): ("True love is hard to find. Sometimes you think you have true love, and then you catch the early flight home from San Diego, and a couple of nude people jump out of your bathroom blindfolded Iike a goddamn magic show, ready to double-team your girlfriend"); to save embarrassment, their other buddy Bernard "Beanie" Campbell (Vince Vaughn) grabbed the microphone and continued: ("And it stops right there and it continues right here, because I think what my friend Mitch is trying to say is that true love is blind. Let's raise our glasses, whatever we got in front of us. Salute. Health and happiness. Cheers, everybody")
  • the scene of Beanie complimenting Mitch on his new rented home near the campus in upstate New York where the three went to school years earlier; and Beanie's telling his son Max to cover his ears ("Earmuff it for me") so that he could use profanities, and encourage Mitch to hold a house-warming party - dubbed Mitch-A-Palooza: ("We're gonna get so much ass here, it's gonna be sick. I'm talking like crazy, like boy-band ass....What we need to do is to throw us like a big kick-off, like kick-ass party to start things off here...I don't think you realize what a huge opportunity this is for you. Girls love a guy who's in your particular situation....Mitch, you're on the rebound. You're like an injured young fawn who's been nursed back to health, who's finally gonna be re-released into the wilderness")
  • Frank's drunken urging of everyone to go streaking at the party, although he ultimately was the only one running through the streets and through the quad to the gymnasium ("We're streaking!"); a carload of female acquaintances came upon Frank and were disgusted, including Frank's wife Marissa: ("What the hell are you doing?"), although Frank insisted: "Everybody's doing it"; when he got in the car, one of the ladies noticed Frank's shrinkage: ("Looks like it's a little cold out there, huh?")
  • the scene of their school's College Dean Gordon Pritchard (Jeremy Piven), previously known as "Cheeese!" when they abused him in his younger days, telling Beanie and Mitch that the house must be vacated in a week: ("And as of this morning, this house has been rezoned. It is now exclusively for campus use only")
  • the marriage counseling scene in which the therapist (Gregory Alan Williams) encouraged Frank and his wife Marissa to "say anything...in the trust tree, in the nest" - and Frank talked about fantasizing the type of underpants worn by a waitress at the Olive Garden: ("I guess, deep down, I'm feeling a little confused. I mean, suddenly you get married and you're supposed to be this entirely different guy. I don't feel different. I mean, take yesterday, for example. We were out at the Olive Garden for dinner, which was lovely. And, uh, I happened to look over at a certain point during the meal and see a waitress taking an order, and I found myself wondering what color her underpants might be. Her panties. Uh, odds are they're probably basic white, cotton underpants. But I started thinking, 'Well, maybe they're silk panties.' 'Maybe it's a thong.' 'Maybe it's something really cool that I don't even know about.' You know? And, uh, I started feeling...I don't know where I was going with that. I-I guess what I'm trying to say is that now that I'm married, I'm definitely feeling a little freaked out about the fact that I'm gonna have sex with only one person for the rest of my life")
  • the fraternity hazing scene of the inaugural pledge class, involving a 30 pound cinder block that was tied with a long piece of string to the penis of each pledge before they dropped their block off a ledge onto the lawn below: ("This is your first test....Do you trust we've provided you with enough slack so your block will land safely on the lawn?...Pledges, prepare to release! One... two... three! Release!"); Weensie's (Jerod Mixon) block hit a sewage drain and he was pulled from the ledge onto the lawn ("Wasn't meant to happen like that, Weensie! Walk it off, big guy. We're coming down")
  • the petting zoo scene at a child's birthday party in which Frank shot himself accidentally with a horse-tranquilizer gun ("That's the most powerful tranq gun on the market, I got her in Mexico") - in the jugular ("They say it can puncture the skin of a rhino from..."); in reaction, mullet-haired stable boy Peppers (Seann William Scott), who was tending to the animals, exclaimed: "Yes, that's awesome!...You just took one in the jugular, man....Whoa! Yes!...You should pull that out. That s--t is not cool"; Frank responded: "You're craz, you're crazy, man. You're crazy. I like you, but you're crazy," as his voice began to slow down and he heard distorted voices
  • and during the charter review, the debate scene (over the government's role in supporting innovation in the field of biotechnology) between Mr. James Carville (Himself) - the co-host of CNN's Crossfire and famed political consultant, and Frank - who gave an astounding answer: ("Recent research has shown that empirical evidence for globalization of corporate innovation is very limited. And as a corollary, the market for technologies is shrinking. As a world leader, it is important for America to provide systematic research grants for our scientists. I believe strongly there will always be a need for us to have a well-articulated innovation policy with emphasis on human resource development. Thank you"); and Carville's response: ("We have no response. That was perfect"); Frank screamed out: "That's the way you do it! That's the way you debate"
  • after being burned and humiliated trying to jump through a ring of fire during a school spirit competition, Frank's locker-room scene, wearing only underpants, in which he exhorted his fraternity's team to be calm and win the upcoming gymnastics competition: ("We've made a great effort so far. Let's just keep it up! That's right! We can't have anyone freak out out there, okay? We've got to keep our composure! We've come too far. There's too much to lose! We've got to just keep our composure!"), when he picked up a chair and smashed it into the lockers









One, Two, Three (1961)

  • a satirical comedy with the blustery, fast-talking character - the head of Coca Cola's West Berlin operations - C. R. "Mac" MacNamara (an over-the-top performance by James Cagney), and his many commands to his loyal heel-clicking German assistant Schlemmer (Hanns Lothar): ("Schlemmer, you're back in the SS, small salary!"), and his funny pro-capitalist lines, such as: "'Any world that can produce the Taj Mahal, William Shakespeare, and Stripe toothpaste can't be all bad"
  • the main objective of Mac - to keep his conservative boss Wendell's (Howard St. John) impulsive, hot-blooded 17 year-old, southern-belle daughter Scarlett Hazeltine (Pamela Tiffin) from marrying a radical communist in order to save his job and be transferred out of post-war Berlin, although she confessed that she had been married for six weeks: "He's not a communist. He's a Republican. Comes from the Republic of East Germany" - Mac was flabbergasted: "Why you dumb, stupid little pot! Do you realize what you've done? You've ruined me, that's all!"
  • the East German arrest (by planting a copy of the Wall Street Journal) and torture of young, beatnik East German communist Otto Ludwig Piffl (Horst Buchholz), Scarlett's husband in a "happy socialist marriage" - forcing him to listen to Itsy-Bitsy Teeny-Weeny Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini over and over again on a phonograph - to try to turn him into an instant capitalist, and to get him to sign a confession that he was an American spy
  • Otto's disgust at the West: " "I spit on your money. I spit on Fort Knox. I spit on Wall Street", to which MacNamara responded: "Unsanitary little jerk, isn't he?"; Otto made other pronouncements: "Capitalism is like a dead herring in the moonlight. It shines but it stinks"
  • the Grand Hotel Potemkin scene of Mac's sexy and busty secretary Fraulein Ingeborg (Liselotte or Lilo Pulver) stripping off her polka-dot dress to ingratiate himself with German officials
  • and the final scene (and ending line) when MacNamara found he was drinking a Pepsi-Cola dispensed from a Coke machine, and he yelled out: "Schlemmer!"





The Other Guys (2010)

  • in this comedic buddy cop film, the "Tuna vs. Lion" sequence between two mis-matched partners: mild-mannered, exacting forensic accountant-desk clerk and detective Allen "Gator" Gamble (Will Ferrell) and tough, disgraced, quick-to-anger detective Terry "Yankee Clipper" Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg); while Hoitz was complaining about Allen's humming and weird smile while working at his desk, he decided to directly confront Allen to his face - and they began to compare themselves to a tuna fish and a lion battling it out --

    Terry Hoitz: "You know what I just did? I just walked out that door, saw a couple detectives, and was about to start bad-mouthing you behind your back. But I stopped myself, because my pops taught me that a man who talks behind somebody’s back is a coward.... I’m gonna tell you directly to your face.... I don't like you. I think you're a fake cop. The sound of your piss hitting the urinal, it sounds feminine. If you were in the wild, I would attack you, even if you weren't in my food chain. I would go out of my way to attack you. If I were a lion and you were a tuna, I would swim out in the middle of the ocean and freaking eat you, and then I'd bang your tuna girlfriend."

    Allen Gamble: "OK, first off: a lion, swimming in the ocean? Lions don't like water. If you placed it near a river or some sort of fresh water source, that makes sense. But you find yourself in the ocean, 20 foot wave, I'm assuming its off the coast of South Africa, coming up against a full grown 800 pound tuna with his 20 or 30 friends, you lose that battle. You lose that battle 9 times out of 10. And guess what, you've wandered into our school of tuna and we now have a taste of lion. We've talked to ourselves. We've communicated and said: 'You know what, lion tastes good, let's go get some more lion'. We've developed a system to establish a beach-head and aggressively hunt you and your family. And we will corner your pride, your children, your offspring...We will construct a series of breathing apparatus with kelp. We will be able to trap certain amounts of oxygen. It's not gonna be days at a time. An hour? Hour forty-five? No problem. That will give us enough time to figure out where you live, go back to the sea, get more oxygen, and then stalk you. You just lost at your own game. You're outgunned and out-manned. (pause) Did that go the way you thought it was gonna go? Nope."

    Feeling defeated, rebuffed and unable to compete verbally, Terry threw a cup of coffee onto the front of Allen's shirt.






Greatest Funniest Movie Moments and Scenes
(alphabetical order, by film title)
Intro | A1 | A2 | B1 | B2 | C1 | C2 | D1 | D2 | E | F | G | H-I | J-K-L
M1 | M2 | N-O | P1 | P2 | Q-R | S1 | S2 | T | U-V-W-X-Y-Z

Previous Page Next Page