miscellaneous
Double meanings through ambiguous syntax
Wreck-It Ralph: King Candy tries to escape Ralph's wrath with the very old-fashioned gag, "You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?" Sure enough, Ralph does just that: grabs the glasses off Candy's face and whacks him with them. (Edited for clarity)
Looney Tunes: In 'Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century", Daffy attempts to zap Marvin the Martian with his ACME-branded disintegrating pistol. He pulls the trigger, and: "Huh, well whadda ya know? It... disintegrated."
K-Pop Demon Hunters: Though never explicitly addressed, the film's title can be interpreted three different ways. HUNTR/X are K-pop stars who hunt demons; their nemeses are a boy band comprised of demons, making HUNTR/X hunters of K-pop demons; and Rumi herself is a half-demon, making her a K-pop demon who hunts.
Arcane: Jinx exploits the trope for a wicked bit of black comedy. She taunts her estranged sister Vi by saying that she paid Vi's crush, Caitlyn', a visit and "made her a snack". She then brings out a cloche that could just about fit a human head on a platter beneath... and opens it to reveal nothing more than a cupcake. "Sheesh, I'm not that crazy~"
I was so curious that I looked up the Latin American Spanish dub, and Patrick tells SpongeBob that he has a "nota" (which works, because nota, just like English note, means both a musical note and a written note) and then to turn it over because there's a "letra" there (which doesn't work, because letra only means the written characters not a written message). So, a literal translation that half works.
I guess there's only so much they can do without changing the animation, which is probably more effort than most dubbing studios are willing to out in.
First time I wore fake lashes it was such a weird feeling. My eyelids had all this extra weight they weren’t used to. Eventually you get used to it though
When I was a kid, I thought this meant that I was supposed to pluck my eyelashes to make sure I had less than 40. I think I only plucked one before deciding it was painful and stupid but I don't remember for sure
An older example, but this is basically the entire plot twist in the Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man", which hinges on the double meaning of "to serve" (as in "serving a master" vs "serving dinner").
Basically aliens come to Earth and they promise to fix all of humanity's problems. Many people don't really trust them at first, but the aliens have amazing technology and are genuinely doing good things. They're fertilizing deserts to create farmland, they're creating force fields to stop wars, etc. A bunch of scientists get hold of a book that belongs to the aliens and secretly start translating it to find out more about them. They eventually manage to translate the title, which is "To Serve Man". They interpret it as being a handbook for how to help humanity, and take it as a sign that the aliens are genuinely just here to support us. The head scientist even has such faith in the aliens that he decides to join them and move to the alien homeworld.
However, another scientist continues translating the book and finds out (far too late) that "To Serve Man" is actually a cookbook and the aliens are only helping us because they want their food to be healthy, happy, and tasty.
If you haven't seen The Twilight Zone you really should. It's probably one of the most influential TV series ever made. It's so important the the whole series won a Hugo award, who no other series has managed.
Jesus Christ and this is how we all find out... That poor man... Just 34, from suicide... As someone who's failed my attempts this is heartbreaking, he didn't deserve that...
I can never hear the term “criminal lawyer” normally now. It’s not like it comes up much but whenever it does I always add the emphasis. “You want a criminal… lawyer.”
This is a major part of the twist of the book The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie with the revelation that the killer is Dr Sheppard, the person "helping" Poirot on his case as well as the novel's narrator. He never lies about any clue or piece of vital information necessary for actually solving the case... he just omits the fact he's the murderer.
That would have made it the "Suicide of Roger Ackroyd". Although killing yourself to frame another person and get them hanged for your murder is a plot twist Christie has used.
I think they mean it would be revealed that the title was misleading in that roger ackroyd was not the victim but the one who murdered someone else, thus roger ackroyd's murder as in the one he commited
Honestly, if you're willing to give in to that level of spite, maybe the victim deserves it...
Makes me think of Farslayer from the Book of Swords. It can magically kill anyone from any distance... but doesn't return to the wielder. So a nearby relative/ loved one can just send it to kill whoever last used it.
This is deconstructed in the Agatha Christie story "Wasps' Nest" already. The "killer" was lashing out and was planning to kill himself and frame his best friend because not only was the suicidal man terminally ill anyway, said best friend was in love with the suicidal man's fiancée and she left him when his doctor broke confidentiality and told her about his illness.
Luckily, Poirot figured out what was happening and stopped it. Realising he got the friend to buy cyanide crystals under the pretext of using them to kill a nest of wasps, Poirot swapped the crystals for soap crystals and let the killer poison himself with something that would make him sick but not kill him. The suicidal man thanked Poirot immensely for stopping him from doing something stupid.
It's also a major plot point in Series 3 of Downton Abbey when Bates' ex-wife Vera's plans to force Bates to marry her again fall through. She had already ruined his life before by stealing silver from a previous job and got him sent to prison for it but he refuses to give into her demands and blackmail so she kills herself with a pie baked with arsenic to make it look like he doctored the ingredients during a final confrontation with poison he had bought. Most of Season 3 is with Bates in prison and his new wife Anna trying to prove his innocence which she does when she proves a witness lied on the stand.
I know almost nobody will believe me when I say this, but there used to be a time when I bought mystery books (usually Agatha Christie's) more or less once every 2-3 months and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was the first one I actually solved, using just the fact that I knew there would be some kind of plot twist (because basically all of her books like that) and then elaborating through what would make the most sense narratively.
The narrator uses double meanings to hide their guilt from the audience. He'll lie to the other characters but since the in-universe explanation of the book is that it's the killer's diary and the last pages are his suicide note after he's been caught by Poirot, it's more like he's letting his guard down but not completely in the earlier chapters.
He wasn't being deliberately vague, he was dying and it's a different language. You might mess up too if you had to remember your Spanish lessons whilst suffocating.
It didn't help that since he couldn't think of it, J was just throwing out words that began with B and the alien settled on belt and then almost immediately dies after confirming it
Ah, slight correction! Not being native to English, he searches for the word starting with "Be-". Agent J offers "Belt", and the alien seems to nod before expiring. Ultimately, it was a language barrier that sent them on the wrong trail.
He's actively dying, and has to ask what the word is. Probably was thinking "What's that thing you put around someone? Like a belt? Sure, let's go with that, I have like 20 seconds here."
"The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde is pretty much just this from beginning to end.
The title itself sounds like it means "The importance of being sincere." But the play is about a series of people pretending to be someone named Earnest, and the wacky hijinks that abound from that. So the title itself is a joke about how important is to be dishonest.
I remember my friend complaining about how they're useless since you can't see anything, which confused me since I was still able to see a bit. Turns out because I played a Breton, the race's inherent magicka resistance blocked part of the blinding effect, so I could still see.
The Duck Dodgers short also has a joke where Daffy gloats that Marvin's disintegration pistol won't work on him because he's wearing a disintegration ray-proof vest.
The vest does indeed not disintegrate, but Daffy is still turned into a pile of dust
Did you know that development on that movie started IN THE 1980s? It was originally called "High Score" and then in the 90s it was redeveloped under the name "Joe Jump", and by the 2000s it was redone under the fitting name "Reboot Ralph" before it was changed to "Wreck-It Ralph"
I liked him in Dirk Gently and recently I found out he was the boat in 'The Tick' but must admit i stopped watching the resident alien after the 1st season
It's not really a joke, but just the line "milk my duds" as an exclamation is one of the funniest things I've ever heard in a kids movie.
It's also a great bit of foreshadowing because it shows us that King Candy actually knows who Ralph is when no one else from Sugar Rush does because he's actually old enough to know him.
Wreck-It Ralph: Turbo? No, I'm not going Turbo! Come on guys! Is it "Turbo" to want a friend? Or a medal? Or a piece of pie every once and awhile? Is it "Turbo" to want more out of life?
I also liked the Disintegration-proof vest, which does not protect against disintegration, it just won't disintegrate when hit, leaving it the one item left unscathed.
This one applies to the title of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, I think. It can mean both the return of the Jedi, plural, as in the Jedi Order, or singular, as in the return of Anakin Skywalker.
That's the kind of word play I expected when I watched The Last Jedi. As things were going, it seemed Kilo and Rey would join forces and put an end to the "dark" and "light" sides of the force and form a singular "gray" order, making Rey the "last" Jedi because that term would become deprecate. But alas I was expecting too much
OPs first and second worked in german as the same joke (translated completely).
Third wasn’t translated at all (as title), but could technically still work.
Haven’t seen the fourth yet, but would probably work too
A commenter mentioned spongebobs jokes, and those rarely work. Either bad puns or no real translation at all. Of course, this doesn’t mean all jokes are bad in german. A few are even considered better, because of the bad transfer
I remember sorting through a fan made GURPS supplement with all sorts of custom spells, and I can't tell you how many "Lightening" bolts I found in that spell list. I was so tempted to have them reduce the weight of any target they hit.
The one in arcane really got me. Id have sworn they put like a frame of Caitlyns head presented in there, but recently rewatched and found nope, the whole setup just got my stupid brain to imagine it vividly as i flinched to look away from it.
It's REALLY well composed imo, because they DO include a frame or two of Caitlyn as Vi jerks her head away, but it's a flashback from when the two of them were in bed.
yeah but my hyperphantasia just edited that into oblivion until it was the actual expected gorey image against my will. That image is still seared into my head.
Benedict Cumberbatch’s first episode as Sherlock has a sinister and mysterious stranger intone the sort of things that Moriarty would: introducing himself to Watson as someone who’s not Sherlock’s friend, but let us say that he’s an interested party: someone who’s admittedly concerned about the crusading detective, and thinks the petty feud between them is childish, because, after all, we have more in common than you’d like to believe…
…and the punchline is, Watson eventually realizes it’s Sherlock’s civic-minded brother. “So, when you say you're concerned about him, you actually are concerned? I mean, it actually is a childish feud?”
also the line "so join the animatronic family" which can mean either joining the franchise family and eating there, or being turned into an animatronic and being oart of their family
Also one of the lines being "you might look at me and think youre going crazy; ive lost it long ago youre not alone, baby" and it's funny cuz that's circus baby's name but also baby is something that singers randomly add into their songs lol
Fry wants to learn to play a very difficult instrument to impress Leela, but he has stupid hands so he makes a deal with the Robot Devil and gets new hands, which are the Robot Devil’s. RD spends the rest of the episode trying to get his hands back, and making deals with Fry’s friends as part of a plan to get them back, that results in Leela being deaf for Fry’s big opera. So she makes a deal with RD for new in ears, in exchange for her hand. The twist is RB meant her hand in marriage.
There's a Peter Pan film where Hook makes a promise that he "won't harm a single hair on Peter Pan's head". After he captures Pan, he plucks out a hair and says "that's the single hair I won't harm".
The IT Crowd episode where Moss responds to an ad that says "I want to cook with you" because he thinks it's a cooking class, but it turns out to be a German cannibal with a poor grasp of English who's looking for a consenting person to cook and eat.
The season 3 of The Flash, the villain Savitar teases "I am the future, Flash" implying that he is speaking to the Flash and saying that he (Savitar) is the future. It's eventually revealed that he also means "I am the future Flash" as in he is the Flash, but from the future.
The show wandavision is about
Wanda altering reality to what she wants, so its wandas vision,
Where she makes everything like television tropes, giving us a portmanteau between the words wanda and television,
Where the two protagonists are wanda and vision
Thats a triple meaning from such a simple title
Rush's 1981 album Moving Pictures has a jacket cover picture of men moving paintings up stairs. They're moving pictures. There are people nearby looking at the pictures and finding the pictures to be emotionally moving. They're moving pictures.
The reverse of the album jacket show that it's all a scene from a movie set. A movie is moving pictures.
You missed one. The band revealed later that the cover art wasn't a picture after all--they hired a film crew to film the scene and used one frame of the moving picture as the cover art.
Making supernatural deals 101 is always take everything to be as literal as possible unless stated otherwise. Alastor even calls Vox out for not seeing that coming. also Alastor's deal with Rosie was that in return for being 'the strongest sinner' she owned his soul. when Charlie publicly announces Vox as 'the strongest sinner' he technically holds the title, making Rosie's deal voided.
Well, almost. Charlie just saying that he was the strongest sinner would have done nothing in any other circumstance. However, Vox gains power by the approval of his followers because he is a cult leader and a TV. Charlie saying that he was the strongest was brodcast to all of hell, meaning his approval went to 100%, which in turn made him the strongest in that moment.
I wonder...did alastor intend for the deal to work that way or do demonic deals just naturally work like that unless the user is very VERY careful with their wording?
The titular shop got its name when Lady commented that even devils may cry when they've lost someone close to them. It also translates well to the fact Dante's business model consists of beating the shit out of other devils, which would indeed make them cry.
During an intimate scene with Carter and Genevieve in Rush Hour 3, she tries to warn him about the trouble that would follow her by saying “I’m a bad woman”, to which he, thinking she’s being sexual, says “oh hallelujah!”
I never watched this movie, but the title confuses me. I'm assuming they are killers of lesbian vampires, but there could be lesbians who kill vampires in the movie.
Edit: Or possibly Lesbian Vampires that kill people, forgot that one.
Anyone know how the Arcane dubs in languages that use different pronouns for direct and indirect objects made that tension work? I know it can’t work in Spanish as is—you need a more creative language team than I.
Wesley Wyndam-Price, in the TV series Angel, was a member of an ancient conspiracy dedicated to fighting supernatural monsters by managing superpowered child soldiers. He is also exceedingly posh.
After a falling out with the Watcher's Council, the conspiracy he was a part of, he decides to go it alone, and starts introducing himself as a "Rogue Demon Hunter." The general reaction is people asking him what the difference is between a rogue demon and a normal one.
Dragon Quest VIII has the subtitle Journey of the Cursed King. On the surface, it alludes to King Trode and the curse placed upon him and his daughter Medea. But later in the game, it's revealed that the hero's immunity to curses is because he was already cursed to forget his childhood. In addition, he's the son of the crown prince of Argonia, making him descended from royalty. So, the title applies to him just as much as it does Trode.
The way it's typically understood is that it's a low move to hit a person who's wearing glasses. Ralph seizes King Candy's glasses and whacks him over the head with them - that is to say, hitting him with glasses.
This goddamn Simpsons joke. Does Ralph mean he has dreams where he is a Viking? Or, is he saying he’s a Viking at sleeping, as in, he’s a conqueror of sleep?
I mean, it’s the first one. But I’ve seen it get talked about over and over
I've never understood why people think that joke is ambiguous in any way. Like, no one's ever heard anyone use "a Viking" to mean "being good at something."
"Oh, I refinish classic cars. I'm an absolute Viking at it."
Worse: "I refinish classic cars. That's where I'm a Viking." Normal language, even if it did make sense, would be "That's what I'm a Viking at."
I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the world. And, I'm not mad, I'm just confused. Like how are people... gah!
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u/SkylandersKirby 10h ago