Remembering A Chicken & A Baby Differently

Like most good nerds, I enjoy ridiculous amounts of meta jokes.

I’m also a big fan of anything layered joke-wise. It’s hard to craft a joke that is funny on multiple levels. Though easy to design a joke that has multiple levels, it’s not as common that they’re all actually funny. (With puns, this rule tends not to apply.)

I’ve been thinking far too much lately about two of my favorite examples of the above:

1. From “Thirty Minutes over Toyko“, the season finale of The Simpsons 10th season, 
   

   Marge: “You liked Rashomon.”
   Homer: “That’s not how I remember it.”

2. From “Kidney Now!”, the season finale of 30 Rock‘s 3rd season, 
   

   Milton Greene: “A guy crying about a chicken and a baby? I thought this was a comedy show.”

I love the first one because it’s a joke utterly in-keeping with Homer’s character. He says nonsensical and utterly random things, so his saying “That’s not how I remember it” doesn’t have to mean anything more than Homer being Homer. Its meta reference and next level of joke are ramped up by understanding that Rashomon is a story about differing perceptions and accounts of the same events.  In the film version, all three characters remember the same day and same events differently. Homer, thus stating he doesn’t remember the movie the same way Marge does is an homage to the Rashomon Effect itself.  I believe it was (but can’t quite remember, as I’ve read at least three books about The Simpsons) Planet Simpson that cited this sort of joke as being the cornerstone of the Simpson universe. They’re jokes that work as one-offs but to the person examining them at a meta level they work amazing wonders.

And the second one. Man. The first time I watched that episode I almost didn’t catch it. The show had moved on about three minutes before it sunk in.  See, it’s important to note that Alan Alda played Milton Greene.  And it’s important to have an understanding of how M*A*S*H ended via “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen.”   And if you’re upset that I’m about to spoil the finale of a show that ended thirty years ago, I hate you. (Not really, but you may be a little too concerned with spoilers.)  Hawkeye finally cracks up because he has seen a woman kill a chicken with her bare hands in order to achieve the quiet that Hawkeye himself demands from a bus full of people who wish to avoid capture or worse. It’s only later, as he is forced to recall the event further that he remembers it was the woman’s very human baby that she killed by smothering it. He sobs significantly. It’s actually one of those supremely emotional and affecting moments that later seasons of M*A*S*H was so well known to throw at the audience. (Yep, I’ve seen every single episode.) In the context of 30 Rock, the joke is funny just because Tracey is crying over a somewhat elongated setup about a chicken and a baby. New guy Milton wanders by and appears confused at the lack of comedy. But the extremely explicit M*A*S*H reference takes it over the top.  A wonderful fellow WordPress user, @(Peel Slowly) wrote about this joke in detail. (BTW: I was in my twenties when that 30 Rock episode aired and I feel kinda proud at having caught the joke so quickly. But then again, I absolutely love M*A*S*H.)

So, anyway. There are many, many, many, infinite numbers of this type of joke already out there, and this is usually the type of humor I most enjoy. (That and making awful puns.) These two jokes just happened to be very strongly in mind this week and I wanted to share.

A Community of Emeralds

I really ought to be used to funny television shows trolling me with feelings-oriented episodes by now. Scrubs did it so many times. MASH did it. Futurama continues to do it. Hell, even Extras has done it. So why am I surprised when Community does it AGAIN? Why, I ask you, should I be taken off my ever watchful guardianship of feelings when a show that has already trolled me once again sends in the under-the-bridge crew to toy with my heart? Even if only slightly? Apparently other people didn’t much care for The “Cooperative Escapism in Familial Relations” episode but it hit on things I tend to try to avoid in my comedic television therapy and while I didn’t find it as funny I still thought the stories explored were valuable for the show, to kind of bundle up some things, ironically by unbundling some other things, such as Jeff’s backstory and unresolved father issues. I’ve been a fan of Community since the first Halloween episode (not that I disliked it before that point but that first Halloween show pushed me from casual viewer to hardcore fanatic pretty solidly) and I’ve found the characters’ development to be pretty steadily believable for the most part. Troy, quite honestly, has made the most progress as a human being, but since he’s never been portrayed as a frame character he doesn’t get the attention that Abed and Jeff do, so I can understand the need to focus in on Jeff’s story. (At least for the sake of consistency.) And I like Jeff. I just happen to like the characters as an ensemble more than I like them individually. But hooray, Community continues and I’m enjoying this season, even if people on the internet are frustrated by the fact that a show about community college has gone all Homer Simpson’s job at the nuclear plant (i.e. His job used to matter and then the show decided it didn’t. Much like the career chips on Futurama.)

I just watched Oz: The Great and Powerful with a friend. While certainly not the most amazing movie I’ve ever seen I’m happy to say that the reviews undersold it. It’s pretty good, and fine for the 2 hour runtime it has. I don’t feel that I wasted my $10.  There are many visual elements I felt were designed solely so advertising could be prepared on the basis: “This summer, opening at Disneyland, the Oz Ride.”  Sure, marketing tie-in. I get it. But it was fun, if not also simple in its development. James Franco plays a sly man a little too well. (And now I’m just thinking of him on 30 Rock.) I’ve only read two of the original book series (it’s not on the LIST) and I know Disney had to go out of their way in terms of copyright concerns to keep the story “clean” of references but it was still a nice setup. I’m pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed myself.

It’s Saturday Night. Where’s My Two-Liter Bottle of Shasta?*

So, I know this is old news and all but remind me again why the Dresden Files was cancelled. You know, the TV show, not the books.  (Also, if we can continue to ask for eleven years why Firefly was cancelled,  I think I can venture a question about a show that came five years later, right? Right?) Twelve episodes. I know he encounters the same kind of psychotic insane things over and over again, but isn’t that nearly every television show ever? Seriously, how many episodes of Home Improvement were there, with the exact same plot in each one? At least there are different encounters in Dresden Files. Geez.

Speaking of Jim Butcher, though, I started reading Codex Alera. I think, in the NPR 100 quest, that brings me up t0 45 or so, I think. I need to do a recount.

Lastly, I finished the Warehouse 13 webisodes today.  I’m always amused at the tricks used and lengths employed to get characters into non-realistic formats, e.g. the overlay of steampunk (sorta) and the comic book format employed in these. Can’t really say the stories are any better or worse than anything in the actual show, since the show isn’t really known for being all that amazing in its plots. (I still enjoy it, though.)

 

*The all-Rush mixtape is already safely in my arms.