Jokes We Don't Get

[eddie]

From IMDb:

This celebrated star of the French stage had a sporadic love-hate affair with early cinema. After her film debut in Duel d'Hamlet, Le (1900) she declared she detested the medium; yet she consented to appear in another film, Tosca, La (1909). Upon seeing the results, she reportedly recoiled in horror, demanding that the negative be destroyed. Her next film appearance, in the Film d'Art production of Dame aux camélias, La (1910), was a critical and popular success, helping give cinema artistic dignity. The following year she made Amours de la reine Élisabeth, Les (1912) in Britain. The receipts from this film's distribution in the US provided Adolph Zukor with the funds to found Paramount. Bernhardt, at 69, was offered a fortune to make films with other companies, but stayed with Film d'Art, appearing in 1913 in Adrienne Lecouvreur (1913). She appeared in two more pictures after losing a leg in 1915, Jeanne Dore (1915) and Mères françaises (1917), both produced as WWI morale boosters. In 1923, when she was 79, her hotel room was turned into a studio so that she could appear in the film Voyante, La (1923). But her failing health halted production and she died before the film was completed. She was portrayed on the screen by Glenda Jackson in Incredible Sarah, The (1976).

[Roger Myers III]

BTW, its actually Sarah "Bernhardt", w/ a silent "t", I believe.

[pat]

Does anyone know the name of the song that is played at the end of "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday," where Homer is sitting in the tire place? I belive Homer was singing along to this same song in "The Otto Show."

[Roger Myers III]

If it is, its "The Little Spanish Flea," an instrumental by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass.

[Miss Springfield]

Ya know the one where the kids have a curfew? When the kids on the jungle gym say, look at those adults... Smoking their cigarettes, drinking their coffee... Skinner says Your metabolism will change one day too and backs away strangely what does it mean?

[mathias1979]

Well that's not the exact quote. From SNPP the lines are:

Bart: Yeah, just look at them over there.
Milhouse: [mockingly] Smoking their cigarettes.
Lisa: [mockingly] Drinking their coffee.
Bart: [mockingly] Scratching their big butts.
[Skinner, talking nearby with Mrs. Krabapple and Ms.
Hoover, stops scratching for a moment]
Skinner: Your metabolism will change someday too, young man.
[walks off backwards, looking around uneasily]

So with the big butt comment, that should explain it. Bart is saying Skinner has a big butt, and Skinner defends himself by saying that their metabolism will change someday, therefore they will get fatter and thus have bigger butts and have little control over it. Then he walks backwards because now he is self-conscious about his big butt.

[George Cauldron]

In Two Bad Neighbors, Homer recalls that he voted for Prell to go back to a glass bottle, after which, he became deeply cynical. Can anyone explain the joke behind this?

[MaxpowerAK79]

Prell was (or is, I'm not sure) a type of shampoo. I remember it from growing up. But I remember it was always in a plastic bottle...>Maybe there was a time when Prell was in a glass bottle but then changed to be in a plastic one.

Doesn't it seems godawfully dangerous to have shampoo in a glass bottle? Glass around all that nudity?

[I'm David Croket!]

What's the point about Abe being the Lindbergh baby in "Mother Simpson"?.
It's funny but, why the Lindbergh baby? Senility?

[MaxpowerAK79]

Charles Lindberg's (the famous aviator) baby was kidnapped and was either A) Never found or B) killed. I think Abe's senility is causing him to confess that he was the very baby that was kidnapped so long ago, but he's all grown up now.

[I'm David Croket!]

Thanks a lot.
Btw I need confirmation on this: I read time ago that Elvis shot at the TV when he didn't like a program. In "The Front" a cartoon Elvis shot at the TV after the Itchy and Scratchy episode. Is this real?
Do you guys know something about this?
It's a famous urban leyend?

[Andy]

Found this on this website: http://www.mrjumbo.com/contents/delt...d/gr1house.htm

We all made jokes along the way about Elvis shooting his TV, but it didn't get mentioned anywhere in the house. The Graceland people do know the story, though, and when we got across the street and toured the museum, there was a note in one display explaining that only one TV was made famous in a TV movie incident, but really the King made targets of many other household appliances as well, including several TVs, a refrigerator, and goodness knows what else.

So according to Elvis Presley Enterprises, it's happened several times, and not just with the TV.

[Urath28]

in the Stone cutter episode, during the meetings, Dr. Hebert wears a strange hat, It looks greek or Roman, but does it mean anything?

[eddie]

Originally posted by Urath28
in the Stone cutter episode, during the meetings, Dr. Hebert wears a strange hat, It looks greek or Roman, but does it mean anything?

No, it was probably just a way to make the Stonecutters seem even more mysterious and unnatural from Homer's point of view at that time. (Maybe it had something to do with his social status within the club?)

[Tibor]

Originally posted by I'm David Croket!
Thanks a lot.
Btw I need confirmation on this: I read time ago that Elvis shot at the TV when he didn't like a program. In "The Front" a cartoon Elvis shot at the TV after the Itchy and Scratchy episode. Is this real?
Do you guys know something about this?
It's a famous urban leyend?

one story is that the King had a disagreement with Robert Goulet over a woman, and Goulet was on a program.

[Miss Springfield]

Rudy the obnoxious pipsqueak in the superbowl episode, whats up with that? Is it supposed to be a take on a football player? He was wearing one of those jackets. (I am Aussie) Vincent Price as well, whats the deal with him having a weird mental voice all the time. Vincent Price's egg magic?

[Moose of Doom!]

Rudy was based on a character in a football movie some years backed named "Rudy"> One of your typical "Do what you want, follow your dreams" movies.

Yes, Vincent Price always used to talk like that and the egg magic bit is a reference to his appearences on the old '60s Batman show as Eggman (or something along those lines), a villian obessed with eggs.

[Roger Myers III]

Prell introduced a clear squeeze-tube package for its shampoo, w. a plastic hook on the clasped end to hang in the showers, around 1983 or 4. It was poplar (hard to believe that glass was ever the norm!), and, as a good pulicity campaign, they had a coupon/promotional wf whether it should choose one or the other. Honestlt, I don't remember which one they chose. Fortunately, the plastics industry very quickly developed a clear plastic stiff enough to retain a bottle-shape and ship without breaking, and that rendered the whole debate moot.

2)Bruno Hauptmann was convicted of kidnapping & killing the Lindberg Baby, and it was then-considered the "Trial of the Century" (Seems we've had qite a few of those since) and it was in the headlines & hyped every day. There are still many people (those that care) that say he was set up & framed.

3) Hibbert's hat. I need to see a FG or watch it again, but I seem to remember it being evocative of a Freemason's (another longtime Secret Society) hat, the type that the Master of (their) Ceremonies wears.

4)I hadn't thought about The Batman connection! Later in his career, well, during the early '80's, Vincent Price did qite a few commercials for little-kid arts & crafts kits. I wish I could remember the brand, or individual kit names, but I can't - nor if there were egg-painting kits in the line, either - but they "took place" in a spooky-laboratory setting, w/ Vincent playing the mad scientist, plugging the kits. The ones I remember were plastic molds, into which you poured a mix ("just add water"), refrigerate, and you soon made a rubbery, colored monster or worm or serpent or whatever. There were monster make-p kits in the line as well.

[Tibor]

regarding number 4...



http://www.x-entertainment.com/messages/monsters/1.html

[Roger Myers III]

ROTFL!!

Tibor, I can't thank you enough --- that takes me way back!
I can't make out the brand-name on the box -- can you tell me what it is??

[Tibor]

I believe it's Milton Bradley.

[I'm David Croket!]

One more:
Was the final scene of "Marge in Chains" a parody of something?

[Roger Myers III]

The Carter/Marge statue used as a tetherball pole?
No.

[I'm David Croket!]

Mmm, I think it's a very odd scene: Bart and Lisa playing with the ball at sunset, the ball hitting at Carter's face and the background music.
It looks like something more than simply final gag. ¿?

[Wezzo]

I think it just is a final gag.

[Tibor]

The background music is a Hail to the Chief sting, iirc. It's just a gag, the focus being that the shot and music is obviously shedding reverence and respect on an absolutely ridiculous subject- Jimmy Carter with a bouffant.

[eddie]

"Homer's Phobia" question:

John: "You should see the crossword puzzle. She thought that Mindy lived with Mark."
Homer: "Give her a break! Her husband was killed!"
John: "Oh, I know, wasn't that just awful?"

This is supposed to be a joke of some sort, right? I understand the "Mindy and Mork" reference, but not the husband thing.

One more:

Moe: "Time was, you send a boy off to war. Shootin' a man would fix 'im right up. But there's not even any wars no more, than you very much Warren Christopher!"

Who was Warren Christopher?

[Roger Myers III]

The TV Guide was owned by Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Her husband, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Presumedly, John, as well as everyone else, would know this. It may, may not, or shouldn't have any bearing on her knowledge of TV trivia from 15 years later on, but the entire TV Guide, and the collector's market for it, is based on a kitschy, pop culture aesthetic. Not really so explainable, but nor is it a very strong joke.

Warren Christopher had/has a long, long, career in government service & international diplomacy, but Moe's comment is mostly concerned with his tenure as Clinton's Secretary of State, from (ottomh - you can check the specifics) 1993-1997. Obviously, times change.

[kuje]

In Barting Over, the solicitors' name: Hackey Joke & Dunnit

I dont get it, although its probably something really obvious

[Roger Myers III]

Funny, I just brought this very joke up in the "Short Questions" thread

'Hackey Joke & Dunnit' is the bottom of three (and final one revealed) listings for the law firms ('solicitors,' over the pond) in the building. The other 2 are joke names too. (Louvem & Burnham, and Dewey, Cheatham & Howe (iirc)) The joke is that "law-firm name puns" are among the most hackey("cliched", "overused", "hackneyed", "tired", 'Family Guy' level) jokes a sketch writer can come up with, but that the OFF writers decided they'd "dunnit" already anyway - previously in the show, and then right then in the 2 previous names.