Jokes We Don't Get

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mr. broom

comes from circumstances
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Post here to ask questions about jokes on the show that you don't understand or want some clarification on.
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For reference, the last Jokes We Don't Get thread can be found here.
 
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It's about time I asked something in this thing:

In "Radioactive Man," what's with the bit where the film's director spots Martin and declares that he'd be perfect to play Fallout Boy, but then disappointedly gives up on him when he realizes Martin didn't fill out the proper form?

I've always assumed it was a crack at the fact that in real life, a film director probably wouldn't give a damn about some stupid form, but I want to make sure I'm not missing the point or something; that scene has always seemed odd to me.
 
I just assumed it was just a joke that, dispite him being 'perfect', he was skipped because he didn't do something as simple as filling out a form. I mean, if he truely was perfect for the part, they would have at least asked him if he wanted to be in the movie.

Same thing with Bart, who was also 'perfect' if he wasn't an inch too short, which also could have been fixed. At least thats how I always saw it.
 
Whats the call me stupid ishmael shit when Bart reads Moby Dick for dummies and the other Ishmael shit in other episodes. Call me back Ishmael.
 
"Call Me Ishmael" is the famous first line of Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Ishmael is the narrator of the story and the only survivor from the Pequod.

"Call me back Ishmael" is just the Sea Captain's variation on the phrase. With Moby Dick being about whaling and the sea, it seems rather appropriate that he'd say that.
 
Well the "Call me Ishmael dummy" was a kind of joke about how iit was in Moby Dick for dummies.
 
Here's a question: In the Springfield Files (the X files Ep) Burns says that the years of radiation have left him as "impotent as a Nevada boxing commissioner". Zuh??
 
A. The Fallout Boy audition jokes are both plays on old Hollywood cliches & conventions. The first stems from the long-traded stories of folks being discovered by casting agents & producers as the "perfect" new star/performer for a role, despite the fact that weren't trying out for it themselves, but just accompanying or driving the actor trying out for it to the audition. (Usually the story happens to a sibling or best friend.) The twists are that any producer, in this situation, can forge ahead and overcome any difficulties (reluctance, non-union status, the 'wrong form', etc.) in getting his desired performer signed up, even if its a surprise 'discovery', and, if they were to decide that they'd dicovered the perfect star, they would absolutely not bother to care about "fairness" to the other auditioners at all. (No producers do.) The inherent joke about Bart is that its widely known that male stars tend to be short guys - and that height (especially a few inches) would be absolutely no impediment to hiring him for the role. There are many camera tricks and ways to overcome it, none as blatant as Bart later attempts.

B. Prolonged exposure to radioactivity can cause impotence (of the "can't have kids" type.) Burns would better remember a time when all 'legal', regulated boxing took place in Las Vegas (in the state of Nevada,) and were still very much fixed by organized crime (a stigma and reputation that it still carries for many folks). Official Nevada boxing commisioners would be on the take as well, or, even if not, they were still impotent (in the "powerless to do anything" sense) to stop the crime.

C. Personally, I like the headline of Homer's restaurant review of McCallister's: "Call Me Delish-mael!"
 
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This isn't exactly pertinent to the Jokes We Don't Get thread, so it can be deleted by whoever wants it gone, but I think Homer's restaurant review was "Thar She Blows." "Call Me Delish-Mael" was a great gag, but wasn't it the name of the taffy shop in Homer Simpson In Kidney Trouble?
 
Homer: What should I do with all this dirty, ill-gotten money?
I'd better throw it in the garbage.
Lisa: Well, there's lots of needy kids out there.
Homer: I see what you're saying. I need to buy a gun!


From "Homer vs Dignity". I don't really get it.
 
its just about how lisa is suggesting homer should give the money to the kids, but homer misinterprets it and thinks he should be rid of them by shooting them.

i think
 
Homer misinterprets it by thinking that he needs to buy a gun to protect his money from the needy kids out there.
 
Why exactly does Tony Blair fly away on a jet pack after talking to the Simpsons?
 
I think if anything aside from plain silliness, it's a slight James Bond parody. James Bond uses a jetpack in 1965's Thunderball. There's a stereotype of British people being charming, well-spoken people, a sort of Bond-like image.
 
Of course The reality couldn't be further from the truth.
anyway to stay on topic I'll post a joke I don't get, From Lisa the Iconoclast.


Lisa: Hi, Apu. Can I put these posters up in your window?
Apu: Well, of course you can, you little pixy. You are just as sweet
as the stix which bear your name.
[Apu sees the poster]
No, no, no. Take that down. As a semi-legal immigrant, your
poster could land me in a predicament as red-hot as the candies
which bear that name.

There's quite a lot to this the bits I don't understand are the 'sweet as the stix, and red-hot as the candies which bear that name.
 
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they are 2 types of candies in the US. the Pixie Stick is pretty much sugar in a tube, which is what Apu means by being as sweet as the stix that bear the name. and Red Hots are another type of candy, a hot candy in fact, like the predicament Apu would be in
 
Something I dont get.

In the PTA disbands, I think season six. Marge stands by the window of her bedroom and looks out at Bart and says something to the effect about him flying a kite at night. What movie is that taken from, flying a kite at night? I don't get it. LOL

Thanks
 
From the previous thread:

"No specific reference to a movie or film afaik, but there is a classic Chas Addams New Yorker cartoon featuring the Family kiting at night - at least Wednesday, Pugsley & Fester.

"Flying a kite at night" has a long history of being "symptomatic" of strangeness, whether the explanation is that its "bad luck" or "courting misfortune" (no light to enjoy it bay or keep an eye on the strings, lightning flashes, etc.), or that its an expression of discognitive, anti-social, abberrant, insomniac, or just plain "weird" behavior.

All in all, its probably all just a baseless old prejudice. If you enjoy kiting, on a clear, starry night, with a field all to yourself... why the hell not?"

[His "yes, Mother, dear." has overtones of "Psycho."]
 
Cool, Thanks. That has been bothering me for a bit now. :-&

Oh for the next question, what about lisa's peach tree. "I'm playing with my peach tree." ????? The only thing that I can think of is quite sexual!
 
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About the peach tree, it's not sexual, lisa had used up her birthday and Cristmas presents on it, and Marge complained that she never played with it (obviously a peach tree is not something you play with, butMarge can't understand why a little girl would sk for something if she didn't want it to "play with".) Lisa wanting to show Marge that she appreciated the gift (so she would take her to clean the oil off of the animals) shows Marge that she is indeed "playing" with the tree.
 
Question:
In "Marge Simpsons in: "Screaming Yellow Honkers", Homer and the kids are trapped on the car roof at the zoo, circled by rhinos. Homer starts throwing some popcorn on them. Then it shows one rhino on the ground(asleep? dead?) and Homer says, 'Oh no! I'm all out of popcorn!' or something like that. So what's with the Rhino? Is this just Simpsons craziness, pretending popcorn is a potent weapon against rhinos, or is there something I'm missing? Thanks in advance.
 
I have always wondered where do the gag of the small subtitles in the Simpsons come from. You know, for example: Monstromart - Where shopping is a baffling ordeal".
I remember seeing that kind of jokes in "A Silent Movie" (1976) by Mel Brooks. Is that the origin?
 
From the Branson musical number in The Old Man in The Key, who was the woman with the barracas? I swear I'd seen her on something.
 
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