It Wasn't Easy

So in the midst of hosting a beach party with all your friends, your consistently late friend Joey shows up all of a sudden with an entire buffet line of treats for the party guests. He shows off the seventeen pies he baked this morning, along with the twelve pizzas, several gallons of smoothies, almost a dozen different imported dishes from various parts of the world you've never heard of before, the lunch that the President was supposed to have today, and at least three different kinds of mints. You ask him how he got/made all this stuff in one day, and his response?

"Well, it wasn't easy, I'll tell you that much. I mean, it took me most of the morning to find someone who sells vanilla..."

A Stock Phrase, and a staple of surrealistic comedy, this trope effectively combines a Watsonian Hand Wave with a Noodle Incident to explain the presence of something bizarre or otherwise impossible for the given setting.

Examples of It Wasn't Easy include:

Film

• In Big Trouble in Little China, Egg Shen disappears after the fight in the assembly hall, then abruptly reappears to throw his friends an escape rope through a hole in the ceiling. When asked how the he got up there, Egg just says "It wasn't easy!"
• In Jaws the Revenge, Hoagie is asked how he managed to escape from the shark. His only answer was "It wasn't easy!".
• The Pink Panther (the first film) ends with Clouseau in police protection, chased by a mob of women convinced he is the sexiest jewel thief in the world. How did he end up in that situation? "Well, you know, it wasn't easy."

Literature

• From Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks:

"Unarmed, you killed an Idiran in full battle armour and toting a laser?" Horza said sceptically. Balveda shrugged again.
"Horza, I didn't say it was easy."

Live-Action TV

• Maxwell Smart of Get Smart uses a variation of this as one of his many catch phrases. When asked "How did you do X," or "How do you plan to do Y," he will invariably respond, "With great difficulty."

Video Game

• Garrus utters one in Mass Effect 2, when you find out that HE'S the one who's pissed off every major mercenary/criminal organization in the Terminus Systems to the point where they're all working together to bring him down. The line goes, in his usual sarcastic (albeit tired) tone:

It wasn't easy... I reaaaallly had to work at it.

Western Animation

• Phineas and Ferb:

Candace: How did you guys become pop stars!?
Phineas: Well, it wasn't easy. It took most of the morning and half a dozen phone calls. But, if you're willing to put in the work-'
[Candace stomps off]

• As part of one of Homer's Zany Schemes in The Simpsons episode 'Mom and Pop Art', he and Bart break into the zoo at night. Covered in cuts and bruises, Bart reports to Homer:

Bart: Okay, Homer, it wasn't easy, but I managed to snorkel the grizzlies.