Incredibly Lame Pun

"I have nothing to apologize for."

"That's a harp he's playing, Nobby," said one of them, after watching Imp for a while.
 "Lyre."

"No, it's the honest truth, I'm--" The fat Guard frowned and looked down. "You've just been waiting all your life to say that, ain't you Nobby," he said. "I bet you was born hoping that one day someone'd say 'That's a harp' so you could say 'lyre', on account of it being a pun or play on words. Well, har har."
—Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

A character (especially a Pungeon Master) makes a Pun, that is claimed to be so obvious or disgusting, that it makes listening characters wince, groan or even feel compelled to inflict violence on the punster — or, at least, bring a lawsuit against him for pun-itive damages. Rimshots are completely optional.

Since puns are considered one of the lowest forms of humor by default, this claim can be made even if the pun in question is actually really, really funny.

The chief purpose of this trope seems to be to allow a writer to deploy an awful groaner and still dodge the blame for it by pointing the karmic retribution at the character, or to use this acknowledgment as a piece of Self-Deprecation, turning this Lampshading into the joke's punchline, instead of just having the pun itself.

For other puns that may or may not be bad, see Hurricane of Puns and A Worldwide Punomenon. For a character that always makes these, see Pungeon Master. For an index of punny trope names, see Just for Pun.

Not to be confused with Stealth Pun, which refers to puns where the punchline is simply left to the readers or listeners as an exercise, and not to particularly groan-inducing and/or obvious puns.

This may also warrant a Collective Groan. See also Visual Pun and Humor Dissonance.

Examples of Incredibly Lame Pun include:

Anime and Manga

  • The English Dub of Pokémon loves this. It might as well be its own page. The crowner has to be Brock's use of an Improvised Umbrella in the Mewtwo Returns movie.

Brock: I'll use my trusty frying pan, as a drying pan!

  • Ninin ga Shinobuden has a truly horrible visual pun at the end of episode 9's first half. The ninja attempt to make a furo by rerouting a hot spring into their bath house, but it's not water that comes out of the pipe...

Ninja: Permed hair!?
Kaede: Afro?
Shinobu: I guess...
Onsokumaru: It's "a furo", therefore "afro".
Everybody: *groan*
Ninja: That was a lame joke.

  • In Azumanga Daioh (the anime), Tomo makes a pun, though what that pun is depends on whether it's the dub, the sub (both based on "freedom"), or the original (based on "yoyuu"). The other girls groan and Chiyo says it was bad, while Tomo is flabbergasted at their response.
  • Fuuka of Yotsuba&! makes the occasional pun, though only Asagi attacks her for it (Koiwai and Jumbo merely tell her off). Her father, on the other hand, appreciates the humor value.
  • Persona 4: The Animation has a couple. In episode 9, Yukiko calls Chie's Persona a "Chie pet." As if that single pun wasn't enough for her, she then proceeds to go off an a whole tangent about Chie pets, all the while laughing her head off.
    • Episode 15 has one that gets Lost in Translation. Teddie and Yukiko laugh at a pun on Kanji's name, "ii kanji," which means "good feeling/s." The subbers settle for using the pun that was used in the game, "Great Kanjecture." For bonus points, the latter isn't just lame—it doesn't make a lot of sense.
  • One of the main characters from Shaman King, Chocolove, is rather famous for his puns so horribly obvious that the others tend to freeze in awe for a few seconds before continuing the conversation, often turning completely white in the process (in the anime, at least). Other times he just gets attacked by someone, usually Ren.
  • Tamahome throws one out in Fushigi Yuugi. In an attempt to cheer Miaka up, he tells her that after causing some trouble, Tasuki will probably be taken to task (in the Japanese version, the word used for the pun is tasukete, or "help" in English). He acknowledges the lameness of his pun himself and blames his Money Fetish for it.
  • In Prince of Tennis, on the team of Rokkaku, Amane 'David' Hikaru is frequently kicked for making many lame puns. Many people know him as "that pun guy" instead of his real name.
  • Darker than Black: Kurosawa has spent two entire episodes littering his speech with very bad Gratuitous English on the mistaken impression that it'll help his client, a Scandinavian named Eelis Castinen, understand him. Then he crosses the Gratuitous English Event Horizon by making an Engrish pun on "Castinen" ("cast it in"), and his Hypercompetent Sidekick, who has been wincing behind his back the whole time, gets annoyed.

Kiko: I knew you were going to say that. It wasn't even funny.

  • In Kamichama Karin, Karin makes one of these ("Wait, a god (kami) just burned my hair (also kami)??") and then chastises herself for it.
  • In My Hime, Haruka attempts to make a pun which is immediately followed by dead silence and staring.

Haruka: What a hideous face. What is that?
Yukino: I believe it's a kelp grouper, Haruka.
Haruka: Really?
Yukino: Yeah. It's good to serve at parties in a hot pot or sashimi.
Haruka: No wonder it's called a grouper.

  • Kate in Sketchbook is a frequent offender of this trope.
  • Brook in One Piece makes these constantly in regards to his body. In just one scene, he does it three times with commentary for each. First two times? Franky starts to aim his Weapons Left and Robin tells him not to because he's already dead. The third one she just says 'go ahead and beat him up.' And he does.
  • Excel of Excel Saga draws a comparison between conquest (征 服, seifuku) and uniforms (制 服, also seifuku). Hyatt notes that this is just too obvious (and she usually plays Captain Obvious to explain the joke, so this is her way of calling it lame).
    • And Mahou Sensei Negima's Jack Rakan did it the same exact way. Whether it is a Shout-Out or not is unknown.
  • Judai in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is quite fond of this trope. Here's a good example as shown below when he duels with Wheeler, a monkey duelist, to rescue fellow Duel Academy student Jasmine in the episode "Monkey See, Monkey Duel":

Judai: You saw my moves, now do yours! Hah! Get it? Monkey see, monkey DO?
Jasmine: You make puns now, and not even good ones!

  • Howdy from Hamtaro just loves to tell really bad jokes that nobody in the show finds funny at all.
  • At the start of the Steel Ball Run in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, the race's benefactor, Stephen Steel, announces the trophy for the winner has been buried in a block of ice dug up from Antarctica which will melt by the time the race is over. When he say that his comments have hopefully "broken the ice", everyone is astounded he would make such a horrible joke, except Stephen's wife, who claps.
  • Kohtaro Taiga from GaoGaiGar Final in addition the being the Big Good Badass Normal uses his golf club the Taiga Wood to prove his point, by stabbing the control lock that kept 3G from doing what needed to be done, the club even goes so far as to have an eye-catch devoted to explaining its specs and being the Key to Victory item that the narrator informs us about at the end of the previous next episode preview.
  • In the manga Shugo Chara Chan, one comic has the Guardian Characters wondering what the prince of flowers (Hana in Japanese) looks like, and one of the princes is a nose (Also "hana" in Japanese). Ran says "That's not the right "hana" we're talking about!"
  • In the English dub of episode 7 of Magical Doremi, when Caitlyn (Poppu in Japanese) has to go to the bathroom, Dorie (Doremi) says "Oh no! Nature's calling, and I must answer." She said "No way! She has to go to the toilet? It's because of the ice cream!" in the Japanese version.


Comic Books

  • In the Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog Sonic is known for his many lame puns. Apart from the obvious Eggman jokes, he has also fought Knuckles when the latter was Enerjak, calling him Ener-Joke. This prompted Knuckles to yell, "Are you quite finished?!" Sonic, smug as ever, then said, "Actually... Jumping-jak. Ener-tube. Flap-jak. Ener-state. Ener-jak-in-the-box. And come to think of it... "Enerjak" sounds like some kind of sports drink. Now I'm finished." Knuckles threw him into a wall afterward.
  • In Squadron Supreme, toddler Hyperion is startled by his new pet dog and incinerates it with his heat vision. One of the two guards watching him over security camera remarks "I guess Spot was kind of the right name after all." His partner lays him out for that one, in a cross between this trope and Dude, Not Funny.
  • Batman's Robins have such a propensity to this, it's been suspected it's a tacit requirement to being Robin.

Batman: You still haven't gotten over the puns?
Nightwing: Oh shush. You love it.

  • In the Don Rosa story "Return to Plain Awful," Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck visit the Lost World of Plain Awful, a Utopia where square things are prized, round things are illegal, and the people live "on good cheer" with no financial interests. Eventually, Scrooge does manage to interest the people in his money—but only aesthetically, and as a finishing touch, they chop their new stack of bills into two square halves. The story ends with Donald noting that now, Self-Made Man Scrooge has something in common with the Awfultonians:

Donald: Well, they made their billion by being tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties! And you know what else?
Scrooge: Oh, no, nephew! Don't say it! ...Please!
Donald: That's right! They made it square!

Dracula: Psst .. Amelia .. look! (points to his sandwich) The Count's Monte Christo!
Frankenstein's Monster : RRR... PUN BAD!

Mega Man: Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Ha... that was lame.


Commercials

  • Another example from a Heinz ad for corn:

Ad: One of our corn farmers has a saying: "You won't believe my ears!" We never said it was a good saying.

  • An Australian beer ad featured some stereotypically blokey blokes out on a drinking-lots-of-beer-and-fishing holiday, cooking some fish in a wheelbarrow because they forgot the frying pan.

Bloke 1: What kind of fish is it anyway?
Bloke 2: It's, ah... barra.
Bloke 3: That's terrible.
Bloke 2: Yeh, it is.


Films -- Animated

  • The Land Before Time 2. When a pair of egg-stealing Struthiomimuses arrive at the Great Valley after a long trek, one of them says that he's just "egg-xausted". His partner kicks him in the face in response.
  • Yellow Submarine is liberally sprinkled with puns, but one in particular, when the submarine's motor dies, falls into this category:

George: Maybe we should call a road service?
Paul: Can't, no road!
Ringo: And we're not sub... scribers.
John/Paul/George: [groaning] Subscribers!

    • Or this, as Ringo and Old Fred walk through a hall of displays:

Old Fred: Say, what would your friends be doing here?
Ringo: Displayin'.
Old Fred: Displaying what?.
Ringo: Displayin' around.
rimshot

    • Or this, as Ringo tries to drive the submarine through the Sea of Monsters:

Old Fred: You've got to steer clear!
Ringo: Steer clear?
Old Fred: Yes, steer! Clear?
Ringo: Yes, dear.


Films -- Live-Action

  • Duck Soup: Chicolini's suggestion that Freedonia maintain a standing army, "because then we save money on chairs", provokes Firefly to give him the bum's rush from the room (and apparently worse, judging by the Offscreen Crash that follows). This is a pun so bad that Groucho, the man who once took pictures of the native girls and was waiting for them to develop, felt it necessary to chase Chico.
  • In What's Up, Tiger Lily?, hero Phil Moskowitz and his girl assistant, tied up, think they've been abducted by bad guy Shepard Wong, but it turns out to be a second bad guy, Wing Fat, who introduces himself: "I am Wong's competitor." Phil quips, "Well...two Wongs don't make a wight!" Wing Fat smiles and says, "For that joke you should only drop dead."


Literature

  • The Discworld series is extremely fond of these, and not one is ever considered funny by the people hearing them.
    • The New Discworld Companion tells the story of Monsieur Pune, creator of the Fool's Guild:

"Q. When is a door not a door? A. When it is ajar (a jar)" - one of his early puns for which he was tarred and feathered and left for dead.

    • A running joke in Witches Abroad is Granny Weatherwax's attempt to make a joke ending with "make me an alligator sandwich, and make it snappy". But because she doesn't remember it perfectly and has no idea what's supposed to be amusing about it, she keeps saying she wants it fast, or some other synonym that breaks the pun.
  • Dave Barry is not fond of puns, and rarely uses them without heavyweight Lampshade Hanging. Take, for example, this passage in Dave Barry Slept Here:

But now he could sit back and relax as the reaper roared through as many as ten acres per hour, reaping the living hell out of everything that stood in its path, occasionally spitting out bits of mule fur or farmhand clothing, which could easily be reassembled thanks to the sewing machine, invented by Elias Howe. "Don't ask me Howe it works!" he used to say, over and over, until finally somebody, we think his wife, shot him in the head with a revolver, invented by Samuel Colt.

    • Or this passage in Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You Will Ever Need:

The history of Ireland dates back a long time to the original inhabitants, the Picts, who were a fun-loving tribe known for their wit. "You sure Pict a winner that time!" is the kind of thing they were always saying, until finally a neighboring tribe called the Celtics got sick and tired of it and came in and, in 432 B.C. on October 8, defeated the Picts in the Battle of Defeating the Picts when John Havlicek sank two free throws in overtime.

  • In Piers Anthony's Xanth series, much of the wildlife and magic are literal puns, such as a mango being a human-shaped fruit that makes you urinate immediately upon eating it. Most of the characters dislike the puns, particularly a winged centaur whose name is a pun (Karia, who starts floating helplessly away whenever she hears her name.)
  • Inverted by the characters in Spider Robinson's Callahans Crosstime Saloon series, who are prolific with puns, to the point of competitions in which the worst/best pun of the evening gets his bar tab waived. They call it Punday Night. Normally, things are thrown at the offending punster, and fire extinguishers and seltzer bottles are also used for particularly outrageous puns. The bigger the response, the better they consider the pun.
    • The time traveler who tried to sell them 4 (fake) high tech gems on the 4th of July. Get it, 4th jewel lie. This was also incredibly cruel since one of the gems made a paralyzed man think he could walk.
  • The Marvelous Land of Oz, the second Oz book, sees H.M. Wogglebug T.E. make a joke about the Sawhorse, noting that if he rode him, it would be a "horse-and-buggie". Jack Pumpkinhead covers up his permanently-smiling mouth, and the Tin Woodsman threatens the Wogglebug with his axe.
  • In Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, after George loses one of his ears, and says he feels "saint-like":

George: You see... I'm holy. Holey. Fred, geddit?
Fred: Pathetic. Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related humour before you, you go for Holey?

    • And that's when everybody knows George is okay!
  • In Starfighters of Adumar, Rad Flat (Red Flight) meets regularly with a reporter who wears a recording unit on her shoulder that looks like the head of a protocol droid, making her appear to have two heads. Once, she complained that it was malfunctioning and she couldn't seem to fix the problem.

Janson grinned at her. "Some days make you just want to beat your heads against a wall, don't they?"
Hobbie said, "Maybe not. The young lady might not have her heads on straight, after all."
Tycho said, "Still, I think she ought to get her heads examined."
Wedge looked at them, appalled.

"I'm Fitz. Just Fitz."
"And it fits you admirably," said Jamon de la Rocas,[1] "I have no doubt."
For a moment everybody gazed up in the air and whistled, avoiding each other’s eyes at what could not even be dignified as a pun.

The Other: Omega, despite his sacrifice, still had a hand in their affairs. It was a rather good joke he thought, but Rassilon didn't find it funny at all.

  • In For The Emperor, the local Sisters of Battle convent is located on Gavarrone, making them the Nuns of Gavarrone.
  • The most famous pun in The Bible is probably Jesus saying, "Upon this rock I shall build my church" of his disciple Peter. "Peter" means "rock".
  • In Jim C. Hines Princess Series novel The Snow Queen's Shadow Talia tells a story about the time, many years ago, when Snow made it rain urine in Prince Armand's room for more than an hour. When Queen Beatrice asked Snow why she did it, Snow said that "she wanted him to know what it felt like to be a peon". Talia said that she told Bea that whatever Snow's punishment was going to be, it ought to be doubled just for that pun.
  • One of the running jokes in Diary Of A Nobody is Charles Pooter's incredibly laboured puns and his family and friends reactions to them "I'm afraid these trousers are frayed"
  • In Les Misérables, Tholomyés makes a pun at the dinner table, and his friends are less than impressed, killing the conversation. He immediately launches into an elaborate speech in defense of puns, regaining his popularity.
  • An implicit, somewhat slyly-given example in Star Trek: Ex Machina. Two crewmen - an Eeiauoan and a Caitian - are mentioned to have started fighting. Given that both races are feline, we have a literal Cat Fight. They’re told to “groom and make up”.

Live Action TV

"Cryptkeeper" Oh hello kiddies, you're just in time for your driving lesson. Today we'll be learning about scare-lell parking.

Spencer: "Don't worry, Mr. Toasty, soon you'll be back and butter than ever."
(Spencer looks around the room)
Spencer: "Thank god no one heard that."

    • In iFind Lewbert's Lost Love, Spencer is annoyed because of the recent remote control thefts.

Spencer: "What kind of burglar will break into people's apartments just to steal TV remotes?"
Carly: (stifles laughter) "A remote control freak?"
(Spencer sprays whipped cream on Carly's nose bridge)

    • In iFix A Popstar, Wade Collins is brought up on the webshow.

Carly: "One might call him... hobnoxious." (laughs)
Sam: "Ohohoho, Carly..." (looks away in horror)

    • In iQuit iCarly, as they introduce Fleck and Dave.

Sam: "Their videos are hi-larious."
Carly: "Which is the opposite of low-larious." (chuckles)
Sam: "I begged her not to say that."
Carly: "I should have listened."

  • The Smoking Gun Presents: is replete with bad puns, often made by the celebrity panel. If one person makes a particularly egregious one other celebrities will have a Stunned Silence possibly accompanied by Chirping Crickets.
  • Tom Servo of Mystery Science Theater 3000 absolutely loves to bust puns out, usually attracting the ire of Crow and Joel/Mike.

Servo: Hey, that moss has taken a lichen to that tree.
Eddie (Mike's brother): Hey! What'd I say about puns?!
Servo: To jam them up my...
Eddie: That's right!

    • Later, in the same episode:

Lisa: Nick!
Crow: I shaved this morning and got a nick.
[Eddie punches Crow in the shoulder, knocking him out of his seat.]

Giles: I've never actually heard of anyone attacked by a lone baseball bat before.
Xander: Maybe it's a vampire bat.
Everyone: *stares*

  • On Mash, Hawkeye and B.J. were prone to these.

Hawkeye: In fact, you might say that all of us together made up Tuttle.
(Cut to eyeroll from Radar.)

    • That's amateur night compared to the one B.J. brought out while telling the story of Androcles and the Lion to a group of orphaned kids:

B.J.: ...Because he was not only very kind, he was also very Gentile.
(Hawkeye stares daggers through him.)

  • Johnny Carson's "Carnac the Magnificent" on The Tonight Show typically served up plenty of puns and if the audience groaned or booed loudly enough, Carnac would place a funny curse on them in retaliation.
  • Spaced: Mike is kicked out of the Rough Ramblers after a disastrous Eskimo roll. Tim says:

Tim: So it wasn't so much a Eskimo roll as a case of rolling right Inuit.
Mike: *stares*
Tim: Inuit's another word for Eskimo.

    • While paintballing, Tim gets into a Mexican Standoff with Duane, the man his girlfriend left him for. As they stand there, Duane's mobile phone rings:

Tim: Are you going to answer that?
Duane: I've got an answering service.
Tim: You've got an answer for everything.
Duane: I cannot believe you said that.

  • Frasier. In Look Before You Leap, Frasier is attempting an opera song, requiring him to hit an impossibly high note, while Niles is horny due to refusing Maris' rare sexual invite despite their marriage counselor's advice.

Niles: You know, as much as I admire your willingness to take a leap, I did warn you that you were getting into a dangerous aria. (pained laugh) Oh God, I'm using humor to mask sexual frustration. It's high school all over again.

    • From "Are You Being Served?":

Frasier: Well, that's our show today. But before we close, I'd like to invite you all to join us here at KACL in wishing a fond farewell to our happy chef, Leo Pascale, as he bubble-wraps his crepe pan and heads south towards sunny Santa Fe. Leo, you stirred us with your passion, melted us with your charm, added spice to our lives. Now, as you whisk youself away, let's not say goodbye, but rather, "tar-tar" for now. This is Dr. Frasier Crane, KACL 780.
Roz: (coming into the booth, still with a nauseated expression) Well, at least you stopped short of saying, "I'll be 'fricaseeing' you."

    • One of the best occurred when he was doing an advert for a Chinese Restaurant. He says something to the extent of "If you have a yen for good Chinese, check them out." When Roz walks in, he asks how she liked his little ad lib, he responds, "Nice, but yen is Japanese, not Chinese."
    • Frasier's family is prone to this. In one episode, Daphne is putting on weight and falls down, prompting Frasier, Niles and Martin to all help her up. Martin, laughing at his own wit, says, "Daphne, I just realized! It took three Cranes to lift you!" Daphne wasn't as amused as Martin was.
    • In Dark Victory Roz gets a package from her family from a dairy farm and talks about how they make cheese-related puns. Frasier invites her over to his father's birthday saying he doesn't like to see her upset, adding "I'm camembert it".
  • Full House had a LOT. From the episode "Smash Club: The Next Generation", when Jesse is trying to hide Joey (who has gotten everything below his head stuck in a hole in the bar) from a woman interviewing him:

Jesse: This is Joey...our ...head waiter.

  • Sabrina the Teenage Witch: In the 17th episode of season 3 (Sabrina The Teenage Writer) Sabrina writes a spy story on a magic typewriter and her characters, which mirror actual characters of the show, come to life. At one point the mirror character of Dr. Kraft (Dr. Bad) captures Harvey's character Derek (who has a habit of saying bad puns) and and ties him to a buzz saw in order to kill him, and then this dialogue happens:

Derek: There's always been an unpleasant edge to you, Dr. Bad.
Dr. Bad: (with his hands on his ears) I am killing you, just to stop the puns.

Two: You might almost say they’ve had a complete metal breakdown.
Jamie: (groans)
The Doctor: I'm so sorry, Jamie.

    • The Ninth makes an equally bad one in "The Unquiet Dead" while part of a seance:

Nine: Don't antagonise her. I love a happy medium.
Rose: I can't believe you just said that.

    • Harry, in Genesis of The Daleks:

Four: It's like finding a Stone Age man with a transistor radio.
Harry: Playing rock music?

    • And another from the Ninth Doctor;

Rose: I can see everything, all there is, all there was, everything that ever could be, but why does it hurt?
Nine: That's what i see all the time, and doesn't it drive you mad?
Rose: My head! its killing me!
Nine: I think you need a doctor.

Doctor: And the final score is no TARDIS, no screwdriver, two minutes to spare *outstretches arms* WHO DA MAN?

  • No-one laughs*

Doctor: Alright, I'm never saying that again. Fine!

  • This Jinnai Tomonori skit includes a Japanese Incredibly Lame Bilingual Stealth Pun (with helpful explanation provided in the subtitles) and the proper response (starts at 3:27).
  • The late publisher Bennett Cerf was well known for his love of puns both on and off of What's My Line, and since he was the one who would usually introduce What's My Line host John Daly he would often throw out a groaner that would have Mr Daly wincing upon entry.
  • The Muppet Show likes those.

Kermit: You like your drums more than food?
Animal: They are food! Eat drums, eat cymbals!
Kermit: How cymbalic.
Animal: Bad joke!!! Bad joke!!!

  • In the That '70s Show episode "Holy Crap!" when Kelso wants to grow a beard:

Fez: May I grow one too?
Kelso: I don't know Fez, the two of us growing beards together...isn't that kinda girly?
Fez: Well, I just figure, the more the hairier! (dead silence) Oh I'm surrounded by idiots!

    • In the episode "Ramble On" when Fez, having submitted an application for the DMV, is being interview for the position.

Fez: Okay, but one thing that my application doesn't say, is how well I could APPLY myself to the job here.
Interviewer: I'm going to have to ask you to stop making puns now.

  • In an episode of The Worst Witch Mildred and Enid accidentally cast a spell that causes written down numbers to multiply and spread around the entire school. Ms Hardbroom stops the spell and remarks "as for these girls, I think their number's up". She allows herself a giggle before realising that nobody else is laughing.
  • Sesame Street:

Elmo: Does a trash heap have a nose?
Oscar: No, but it smells...terrible.
Elmo: So does that joke, Oscar.

Arthur Name: What's brown and sounds like a bell? Dung!

Jeff: I have a date to catch, or, should I say, a catch to date.
Britta: Oof, I hope you just came up with that.
(later)
Dean Pelton: I expect to see you all at the puppy parade. Except you, Jeffrey - I know you've got a catch to date.

    • In Remedial Chaos Theory Shirley runs out of the room after her pies burn, and Jeff says she had a mental breakdown.

Pierce: More like a mental-
Jeff: Bakedown, I know, I didn't say it on purpose.

  • The science show The Known Universe describes a cryovolcano on Enceladus as "Cold Faithful In Space".
  • Young Blades: In "Enchanted," when D'Artagnan announces that Ramon's new love is a poetess, King Louis asks if she "has good lines," making an hourglass shape in the air. He continues to ask if everyone gets it as they all look awkward or roll their eyes.
  • In True Blood, Sookie is skeptical when Bill tells her that the vampire bar in Shreveport is called "Fangtasia". He tells her that most vampires are really old, and puns used to be the highest form of humor.
  • QI has a few, but the most memorable was when Stephen Fry ended up making a pun on Corsica.

Stephen Fry: Can you tell me what sort of person kisses five times? 'Course I can!
**Beat, audience groans**
Alan Davies: ...I think you have to leave now.

  • How I Met Your Mother has a Running Gag where Ted and Robin will salute after phrases including military ranks. Major Baggage. General Knowledge. Private Conversation. Major Inconvenience. Colonel Stuckinmyteeth.
  • Stargate SG-1 had a habit of making Who's on First? jokes using the System Lord Yu. When newcomer Dr. Elizabeth Weir first heard of Yu, she started to make one but Daniel Jackson cut her off, explaining that every possible variant had already been done and it wasn't funny anymore.


Music

  • Owl City's song, "Rugs From me to You" is full of puns. One of them he apologizes for in-song. He sings, "Excuse the pun, but it's hair today, gone tomorrow."
  • Kate Micucci's song "Dear Deer" has one of these. 'Some say Pennsylvania's sunny, but I prefer to say it's gunny.' Lampshaded immediately with 'Ok maybe that's not funny, but either way it's way too punny.'
  • From Justin Bieber's Never Say Never:

Jaden Smith: No pun intended, I was raised by the power of will.

  • Bert Bach, PDQ Bach's only known living direct descendant, and his musicians, don't appreciate how Professor Schickele has always "wanted to give Bert Bach a rock!"[2] Bacharach
  • "Cows With Guns" by Dana Lyons has a lampshaded one:

Cows gathered around 'cause the steaks were so high. *guitar strumming* Bad cow pun.

  • Young Money's Bedrock contains the lyrics "Call me Mr. Flintstone, I can make your bed rock."
  • Kip Addotta's "Wet Dream" has a fish-related pun in every line. For example:

Kip Addotta: I said, "Hi Gil!" You have to yell; he's hard of herring.


Newspaper Comics

Pig: So if at "Farce" you don't suck seed, try dry again?
Rat (to author): Have some pride.

Calvin: Hey Hobbes, want to see an antelope?
Hobbes: An antelope?
Calvin: Come on! (goes to an anthill) See, she's climbing down the ladder to her boyfriend's car. (beat) You're not laughing.
Hobbes: It's not funny.

Radio

  • We are talking here about one of the very basic concepts, one of the driving forces, of all British radio comedy since ITMA in the 1940's and possibly before.
  • I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again was a pun-storm all of its own. As Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie gleefully threw puns around for minutes at a time, John Cleese would stand back from the mike, fold his arms in disdain, refuse to join in and can be heard repeating "easy. Easy. Too easy" A classic ISIRTA build-up might describe an eccentric Northern English textile magnate who decides to turn over some of his business premises to breeding dachshunds, alsatians and Rottweilers. Deploring the noise of thousands of dogs, the cast would then break into song:

The Mills are alive, with the Hounds of Munich...

    • A similar set-up involved breeding rodents for their tusks:

Prime ivory mouse tusks!

  • An episode of the Goon Show, The African Incident, took the whole thirty minutes to set up one complex pun: this involves the hapless Prussian, Herr General von Gooturm.

"Hit him again!"
"Why?"
"Because von Gooturm deserves another!" (Orchestral sting).

Stand Up Comedy

  • This is practically Tim Vine's entire schtick.

Crime in multi-storey car parks? That's wrong on so many levels.

There's no fucking way, man! Not unless Oswald was hanging by his toes, upside-down from the ledge... surely someone would have seen this?!? Either that or some pigeons grabbed onto him, and flew him over the motorcade! You know, there were rumors of anti-Castro pigeons seen drinking in bars the night before the assassination. Someone overheard them saying "Coup, coup!"

Tabletop Games

  • Magic: The Gathering: The Revised Edition game manual included Richard Garfield's account of the creation of the game. He mentions that the pre-release version used placeholder art for the cards, including a few of these. For example, "Heal" was a photograph of someone's foot, while "Power Sink" showed Calvin sitting in a toilet, "because what is a toilet except a power sink?"


Theatre

Notary: When exigence of rhyme compels,
Orthography forgoes her spells,
And "ghost" is rhymed with "goest".
All: With what an emphasis he dwells
Upon "orthography" and "spells"!
That kind of fun's the lowest.

  • In Rent Roger and Mark are burning old concert posters and screenplays to keep warm and as they are burning them they sing:
    • Mark: The music ignites the night with passionate fire!
    • Roger: The narration crackles and pops with incendiary wit!
  • In The Complete History of America (abridged), private detective Spade Diamond is being grilled by two toughs on what Lucy Ricardo was doing on the day of JFK's assassination. (This Makes Just as Much Sense in Context.) His alibi: she was with him, but wasn't seen with him because she was disguised. One of the toughs snaps back, "So, Lucy was disguised with Diamond," and all three do an Aside Glance as the audience groans. ("I should've seen that coming," Spade confides to the fourth wall.)


Video Games

  • Animal Crossing will make your character crack a bad joke whenever he/she catches a fish or bug and this is occasionally lampshaded:

You: "I caught a sea bass! See? BASS! (Why do I keep saying things like that?)"

  • Sacrifice brings us this little gem, aimed at a servant of the god of earth who's made of living rock:

Zyzyx: Now Grakkus here is none too quick on his feet. It may be because he leads such a... Sedimentary lifestyle!
Eldred: ...Never Say That Again.

  • Railroad Tycoon has a newspaper headline that says "ECONOMY IS BACK ON TRACK."
  • Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal: Guybrush, on meeting treasure hunter Joaquin D'Oro, makes a pun so bad even his Evil Hand feels the need to upbraid him for it:

Guybrush: Can I call you "D'Oro the Explorer?" *Punches himself*

    • Amazingly, he manages to top himself in the very next episode, The Siege of Spinner Cay, after receiving a book of 101 Fish Jokes from the Vaycaylian Tetra (many of which also qualify):

Guybrush: I hope it doesn't keep me in stitches or I might need a ... Sturgeon!
Tetra: I hate you now.

  • Tenebrae from Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World absolutely loves groan-inducing puns. At one going, he made one that was so bad that Raine and Genis didn't groan, but instead unloaded on him with their ultimate unison attack from the previous game.
  • In Fallout 2, there's Frog Morton...

Chosen One: Why do they call him Frog Morton?
Sheriff Marion: His name's Morton, and they call him Frog 'cause he croaks people. Ready to go get 'im?
Chosen One: Ohhhh. Ouch. That's terrible. The pain, the pain!
Sheriff Marion: Hey, I didn't make that one up - he did. With puns that bad, I'd say that gives you just one more reason to kill 'im.

  • There is an optional scene in Persona 3 where Akihiko, trying to get over his shyness around girls, practices his pick-up lines in secret. Reading that a sense of humor is vital, he makes an utterly horrid pun ("Want to go to that Beef Bowl place?... I hope I 'meat' you there!"), then promptly chastises himself:

Akihiko: Who am I, the Chairman?!?

  • In Namco X Capcom, there's a stage where EVERYONE starts making these (Japanese-only). It even highlights in red what the pun is supposed to be. To the characters, it gets old really fast.
  • Kingdom of Loathing is chock full of references and puns, occasionally even the narrator recognizes how terrible some of them are. For example:

"This is a dairy goat. Insert a pun on "udderly" and "utterly", if you're the kind of guy who doesn't get punched in the face enough. "

Then, later in the fight:

"She swings her udder at you, but misses. She's an udder failure. Yeah, go ahead and punch me in the face."

  • In the Japanese version of Ar tonelico II, Infel has a penchant for these, with Croix reacting appropriately after every single one. This is completely lost in the English version of the game as it seems Infel's text was translated word-for-word, and Japanese puns normally don't work in other languages. Croix still reels after each joke, confusing many English-speaking players.
  • Here is a random conversation bit taken from an ERCS Guard in a bug-ridden research lab in Mass Effect:

Science pukes. Should just bug out and leave 'em to die. All their fault anyway.

  • Pause for half second, then...*

Heh. "Bug out." Heh. Heh.

  • Phoenix Wright: 'Why am I, Phoenix Wright, such a good lawyer? Because I'm "Wright" all the time!' It's actually a pretty good pun, Maya just doesn't think so.
    • She warms up to it eventually, as does Moe the Clown, master of the Incredibly Lame Pun (from Phoenix's point of view at least).
  • Icewind Dale II has an enemy boss utilizing trained war bears. Before fighting him, if asked how his own bears don't tear him to shreds, he points out the magical collars they 'bear'. The main character Deadpan Snarker is quick to point out the slip up, at which point the boss essentially disowns the pun with embarrassment claiming it unintentional.
  • Final Fantasy XIII: when the group is being chased through the air by a monster on Pulse:

Fang: He thinks we're lunch.
Sazh: Like a L'Cie food buffet.
Light: "Cie Food", cute...

  • The various Artix Entertainment games (Adventure Quest, Dragon Fable, Mechquest...) are crammed so full of puns that this sort of lampshading is inevitable on occasion. An example: at one point in the Archknight storyline of Dragon Fable, main character Ash Dragonblade is facing a necromancer who specializes in evil trees called Deadwoods. He makes so many terrible tree-related puns that the necromancer flips out and attacks him out of sheer annoyance.
  • One of the achievements in Legendary the Box is a pun called "Dou-Bull Trou-Bull", which you get for defeating 2 Minotaurs who are fighting you at the same time (what's even more annoying is that the achievement only gives you 1 Gamerscore point). Right after you get that achievement, though, you get another achievement (that gives the rest of the points you deserve) titled "I owe you an apology", where the lead designer apologizes for making such a lame pun.
  • Final Fantasy V has a few. Most notably, when the protagonists are hanging on a ship mast:

Xezat: I'm coming! Hang in there!
Galuf: That pun is so bad, I'm gonna fall on purpose...

  • Early in Banjo Tooie you must shoot down a few pesky flies that are eating through an anthropomorphic cow's crops. Upon completion of the task she exclaims, "A-maizing! I corn hardly believe it! You wheatly sorted those flies out!", to which Kazooie quips that she's had enough of the "crop jokes".
  • In the beginning of Mother 3 as you're moving toward the Magypsies with Flint, Alec gets pun-tastic as he leads you through this cave. Some of the lame puns he makes are along the lines "There's a vine around here, we have to 'vined' it." and "Vines go up because they're 'divine'". *insert rim-shot*
  • One early sidequest in Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir has the player find a parrot for Volothamp Geddarm. Turns out the parrot's prior owner taught it a wide variety of useful Dwarven expletives. Cue Volo making a "fowl language" pun, and the player characters calling him on it.
  • Kid Icarus: Uprising gives us this:

Palutena: That Great Reaper has quite the evil eye!
Pit: How could you be making puns at a time like this?!
Palutena: I guess I just don't SEE the problem with a little levity.
Pit: Agh! You're killing me here!

Pit: That's right, you tentafool!
Palutena: Tentafool? Uh, nice one, Pit.


Web Comics

Fighter: Wait, let me get this straight. So Thief is the elf formerly known as Prince?
Black Mage: Killing you is going to be the greatest moment of my life.

Cutter: Honking our horn ain't enough. I say we flash them our hi-beams.
Vanderbeam: How would we do that?
Cutter: Say hi, Beams.
Vanderbeam: Guh.

  • Mr. Mighty in Everyday Heroes will occasionally try to be a cut-up.
  • Casey and Andy features the (extremely lethal) Pun Police. In one strip a villain successfully kills Andy by inducing him to make a bad pun.
  • In this The Order of the Stick, Vaarsuvius has sworn not to interfere in the battle except in self-defense... or if Elan's puns drive him/her crazy.

Elan: "C'mon, Nale, don't be a sword loser!"
Nale: "Ugh, that was horrible! I swear, I'm going to kill you, then pay a cleric to raise you, and kill you again, just to make you pay for the puns!"

  • In the web comic Jailhouse Blues the character of Bean Man has puns so bad, or at least so undignified, that his creator forbids him from using them. He does anyway and earns himself a rather painful death in the process.
  • Schlock Mercenary has a lot, mainly from Ennesby, an AI who once worked in entertainment. For example, this groaner.
  • Sluggy Freelance: Torg and Riff tend to encourage each other into a Hurricane of Puns. None of the other characters are amused, and some are even injured by them.
    • On the other hand, Torg hates it when somebody else is doing it.
    • All of the Stick Figure Theater interludes are full of them, with some storylines written specifically for the punchline.
  • Irregular Webcomic!, full stop. No, please, stop.
    • To date,[when?] there have been twenty puns on the word 'hobbit' alone.
    • We've been told many times that German sausages are the wurst.
    • Strip #1000 is "full of humour".
  • In this comic of Our Little Adventure, the male Wight makes a pun when talking to Julie about what kind of undead they are. This earns him a smack upside the head from the female Wight he's with.
  • The comic Freaking Awful Puns was built around this trope.
  • Bob and George: Mega Man managed to make a broom to wince in pain with his explanation of the Rule of Funny, and Bright Man (who has a lightbulb for a head) having an idea prompted Kalinka Cossack to collapse to the ground, protesting to her father that "I thought you loved me!"
  • In these Mortal Kombat webcomics, every time Reptile turns up, you'll see one.
  • In The Dreadful, Kit likes to trade them with Boozloaf, much to Liz's annoyance.
  • In Rusty and Co., the team meets a ghostly knight in the woods.

Mimic: Yoiks! Who're you?! We don' wanna hurt youse!
Ghost knight: I... was once... the White Knight. (beat) But now, I am... the Night Wight.
Mimic: A'ight, well, now we wanna hurt youse.

  • Bobwhite. Marlene's Jewish bluegrass band is trying to come up with a new name for the band. Something that will get people to take them seriously.

Fiddle player: Sheriff Yeehaw's Mazel Tov Jewboree!
Marlene: You're out of the band.

Web Original

  • Whateley Universe: Chaka's lame pun at the end of "Ayla and the Networks" gets her severely pummeled by pillows, beanbag chairs, etc.
  • The web fiction serial Dimension Heroes is notorious for bad puns, which usually lead to whoever says them getting smacked.
  • Dragonball Z Abridged Parody includes this little gem:

Krillin and Piccolo: Multiform technique! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!
Nappa: Vegeta! I can't ... Believe it!
Beat
Vegeta: *angrished groan*

  • Eddsworld often features puns, mainly from the title character, but from other sources, too.

Tom: Hey. What did our neigh...BOORS want?
Edd: You and the water are very similar, Matt. You're both SHALLOW!

  • In Spoony's Let's Play of Phantasmagoria 2, he made more than a few horrible puns and then smacks himself for doing so.

"Look, a 'bicurious' jacket. Get it? Its a straitjacket and he's bicurious."
(After a letter vaporizes into a bunch of sparks) "Hey look; electronic mail... I'm sorry, I'll do it again." *slap* "I'm a bad boy..."

"Isn't prostitution the worlds oldest profession?"
"That, and farming! And they both use hoes. Hehe, get it? Funny! Huh?"

  • Andy Zaltzman's terrible puns in The Bugle frequently lead to John Oliver begging for mercy. On at least one occasion, the show's producer has resigned (and then been re-hired to find out some obscure piece of trivia).
  • Several appear throughout Loading Ready Run's Phailhaüs series, one of which resulted in Matt being banned from Phailhaüs for a year.
    • In addition, any Crap Shot entitled "The Punishment" is essentially Alex making an incredibly lame pun, followed by Graham dishing out Cool and Unusual Punishment for it.
  • It happens constantly in The Annoying Orange.
  • Self-inflicted one in Freeman's Mind, in which Gordon comments about the ceiling, with "What's up with the ceiling?" after which he realizes that he just made a pun and groans.
  • OH! Shit it's your birthday, isn't it.
  • The SCP Foundation features among a variety of bizarre things, a kind of tomato who reacts violently to lame puns, sometimes resulting in death.
  • Red vs. Blue: The Reds try to make themself pass as Freelancers by adapting their Location Theme Naming.

Simmons: And I'll be Agent Denial. Yehehit's, because a state of denial, like the saying? You know, it's like a, I was, you know, the whole State/state thing? You know it's a, joke.
Grif: No dude, jokes are funny.

  • The Freelance Astronauts can fall into this, depending on the game. Usually whoever makes the lamest puns gets punched for his troubles.
  • In The Nostalgia Chick's Pocahontas review, putting words in John Smith's mouth:

Chick: ...and by that I mean I'd like to poke-your-hontas, heh. [Cringes from rightful booing and catcalls.]

  • Zero Punctuation: In the review of Mass Effect. "You only get to see like one second of bare ass anyways, so it will hardly make your Mass Erect!" Later, in the end credits he admits that "Yeah this whole review was leading up to that horrible pun at the end"
    • And in the review of Red Faction Guerrilla. "Guerrilla could've worked if it had actually been about sneaky, subtle guerrilla warfare rather than driving a monster truck into someone's front room and shooting them in the face. Which is less guerrilla and more chimpanzee." And the obligatory credits acknowledgement "Spent decades working on that last pun."
  • Film Brain likes to make puns, but it's only a problem for Linkara when he joins FB to review The Spirit:

Linkara: Holy crap, Frank Miller makes worse puns than you, Film Brain!
Film Brain: I never thought such a thing could be accomplished.

    • Not that's he's blameless either:

Film Brain: Did he just break the fourth wall?
Linkara: Don't worry - we're atop it!
Audience: [[[Collective Groan]]]
Caption: Channel Awesome would like to apologise for that pun. The writer has been flogged for his sins.

  • Coach Z from Homestar Runner, who commonly dresses up in Hip-Hop costumes for Halloween, once dressed up as a sheet of paper in 2010. When prompted, he stated he was (w)rapping paper. Que Collective Groan from the rest of the cast.
  • From The Irate Gamer's review of Aladdin on the SNES: "Someone call 911, because I was R.O.B.bed!" R.O.B. had nothing to do with the review at all, which makes this even more painful.
  • Deja View: In which foreign remakes of popular USA films are reviewed by Ed Glaser.
  • Stuart Ashen once reviewed a POP Station that "looks like a fat batarang: a fatarang!" He apologizes quickly after.
  • The Angry Video Game Nerd's Street Fighter 2010 review.

Nerd: Sonic Boom to the moon and Hadouken up Uranus.

NTom: What's a moray?
FTA: When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that's a moray.
NTom: *clapping* Well done. That is actually well deserved.


Western Animation

  • In Batman Beyond "Dead Man's Hand," Bruce explains to Terry how the Royal Flush Gang are old-school gimmick villains, only committing robberies for items related to playing card suits (such as diamonds). Why their heist on a yacht for miscellaneous non-diamond jewelry, then? "It was in a yacht club." They're both disgusted by the pun.
  • Carlos, on The Magic School Bus, frequently inflicts these on his classmates, resulting in a Collective Groan of his name.
  • Looney Tunes' Foghorn Leghorn often came up with these, prompting sighs and eyeball-rolling from Henry Hawk, Barnyard Dawg, or whoever else he was talking to. ("You gotta keep your eye on the ball. Eye! Ball! Eyeball! I almost had a gag, son! Joke, that is!")
  • Many MGM Cartoons live on this in a Hurricane of Puns; however, in "Car of Tomorrow" a pun involving "Seal beam headlights" was so bad even the narrator groaned and "X"ed it out.
  • There was a literal Card-Carrying Villain on Jackie Chan Adventures, complete with puns like, "We have the upper hand." He keeps it up after even his boss tells him to "quit with the card puns."
  • In "Osama Bin Laden has Farty Pants", the first episode of South Park to air after 9/11, Towelie makes a cameo appearance. Discovering the kids don't want him around, he asks, "Am I to understand there's been a... Towelie ban?" Everyone else groans, once they figure it out.
  • At least half of the things Numbuh Two says in Codename: Kids Next Door. It really bothered Numbuh Five. (When the kids go to a Negative World, Negative Numbah 2 makes everyone laugh their ass off.)
  • Pick any episode in Kung Fu Dino Posse and you will hear at least one of these. Or several.
  • Beast Boy from Teen Titans frequently makes jokes which his teammates hate. There are too many to list here, but here are a few:
    • He throws the Brain into a freezing machine saying something like "Dudes check it out! BRAIN FREEZE". The entire hero cast (plus some extras) groans in dismay.
    • Or:

Blackfire: Hey, Beast Boy, what's up?
Beast Boy: Nothing but the ceiling! (Blackfire laughs) See, Raven, she thinks I'm funny.
Raven: Statistically, I suppose somebody has to.

    • In a moment of Poetic Irony, we later learned when Beast Boy and Cyborg got sucked into Raven's mind that Raven herself has always thought he was funny.
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender, about every other thing Sokka says. Especially in Omashu:

Aang: How am I supposed to know his name?
Katara: Think about the challenges. Maybe it's some kind of riddle?
Sokka: I got it!
Aang: Yeah?
Sokka: He's an earthbender, right? Rocky! *pause* You know, because of all the rocks?
Katara: We're gonna keep trying, but that is a good backup.

  • Danny Phantom
    • In Shades of Gray, the ghost dog burst into the school and Danny responds with "Who let the dogs in?". Right afterwards, Danny had to explain the joke and decided to save some face to get the dog out. Sam responds with, "Bring better jokes!"
    • When Spectra turns into a snot monster (It Makes Sense in Context):

Danny: There's a "you blew it" pun here somewhere, but... I'd rather not.
...
Spectra: Let's boogie!
Danny: Ya' see, that was the kind of pun I was trying to avoid with the whole "you blew it" comment.

  • SpongeBob SquarePants:
    • In "Wet Painters", Spongebob and Patrick have to disguise the fact that they got a spot on Mr. Krabs' first dollar. They hang several paintings in front of it, which Mr. Krabs take off one-by-one. Eventually, Spongebob himself is hanging on the wall.

Mr. Krabs: Spongebob, what are you doing?
Spongebob: Oh, you know ... just hanging around!
Patrick: BOOOOOOOO

    • The infamous "Rock-A-Bye-Bivalve" even had a lame pun. When Spongebob gives his pants to the scallop for it to sleep there, he finds the time to crack a joke.

Spongebob: There you go. (points to his backside) It's the best seat in the house.
(pan to Gary doing a rimshot)

    • In 'No Weenies Allowed':

SpongeBob: HI-YAH!... Sandy?
Sandy: Oh, I'm Sandy all right. I'm very Sandy. HI-YAH!
SpongeBob: [as he flies through the air] Oh, I get it. She's Sandy. That's her name, and she's also covered in, yes...

    • From 'Shell Shocked':

SpongeBob: I guess all's shell that ends shell!
Gary: <locks SpongeBob out of the house>

    • In Pre-Hibernation Week:

Sandy:(Tosses a fishing pole to Spongebob.) Come on Spongebob, (pan to a plane) We're going flyfishing!
(Cue cut to a live-action guy doing a rimshot)

    • In "Pranks a Lot", a barrage of them between SpongeBob and Patrick eventually end with the narrator saying "Several bad puns later."
  • The Simpsons episode involving Homer, a prison warden, and a painting of a unicorn in outer space.

Warden: I mean, look at this! It's a unicorn in outer space! I mean, what's it breathin'?
Homer: Air?
Warden: Ain't no air 'n space!
Homer: There's an Air 'n' Space Museum. *grins like an idiot, and then is thrown out of the prison*

    • Also, there was one emitted by Homer when commencing a roast against Mr. Burns for his birthday (and in case you're wondering why it fits, its because shortly afterwards, he drops his pants and proceeds to moon Mr. Burns and the audience, a characature of Burns' face is on his butt, and he tries to quote Mr. Burns).

Homer: Now here's an impression of Mr. Burns that is incredibly... cheeky.

Most of the Episode titles are Puns on a movei TV Show or saying

  • Mr. Peabody from Rocky and Bullwinkle would end every segment of his show with a pun pertaining to the era they had visited, to the chagrin of Sherman. In one episode, Sherman pays Mr. Peabody back.
    • In another episode, Bullwinkle discovers a toy boat covered in rubies, with the name "Omar Kayam" inscribed on the side. When Rocky asks, "Do you know what this is?" Bullwinkle waits a beat before answering, "If you're waiting for me to provide the answer, you're in for a long wait!" Rocky shrugs and gamely announces (much to Bullwinkle's chagrin) that they now have the Ruby Yacht of Omar Kayam.
  • In The Powerpuff Girls episode "Meet the Beat-Alls", Mojo justifies stealing eggs and other white items because "it's all right as they're all white!". The terrible pun prompts Princess to drop the eggs and groan in disgust.
    • Which is very far from the worst joke in that episode. "Sunday monkey won't play piano song. Play piano song."
  • One of the The Fairly OddParents episodes had a monkey gain access to Timmy's wishing power, and turns everything in the world to monkey versions - including the town name, which goes from "Dimsdale" to "Chimpsdale". When Timmy notices this he mutters, "When this is all over, I'm wishing for a world without puns..."
    • During a history lession, mention is made of the "Declar-Ape-tion of Independence". AJ comments along the lines of "If that wasn't historically accurate, I would say it was the most horrific pun ever."
  • Kim Possible fought the Mathter, a Riddler Expy who specialized in math-themed crimes, with the appropriate math-themed puns, like "Time to subtract you from the equation!", or "Let me throw some numbers at you,"(as he tossed digit-shaped grenades), or "I've left your boyfriend with a new problem to solve." Finally, an irate Kim shouted, "Okay, one more lame-o math reference, and I am going to LOSE IT!"
    • Another Kim Possible example; as Kim and Ron raided the headquarters of international thief Falsetto Jones, she noticed a huge pool on the villain's property:

Kim: Let me guess, Wade. Crocs? Sharks?
Wade: No, electric eels.
Kim: And the villain puns just write themselves. "Shocking, isn't it?"

    • This one is thought of as god-awful in universe, spotting Duff's hideout Ron comments...

"There it is. Killigan's island."

  • In Drawn Together, during the episode "The One Wherein There Is A Big Twist, Part II", Xandir tells Strawberry Sweetcake (an obvious parody of Strawberry Shortcake) "You're gonna be spending a CHOCO-LOTTA time locked up behind CANDY bars!". There is a long silence after which Princess Clara whispers to Xandir "God dammit, I hate you!".
  • On Jimmy Two-Shoes, while playing a carnival game that involves rabbits, Jimmy remarks "Well then, I'll hop right to it", eliciting a groan from the booth attendant.
  • Jonny Quest TOS episode "Monster in the Monastery".

Hadji: Yeti...are invisible.
Jonny: Well, if they're invisible, how can anybody see a yeti?
Hadji: No one has...yeti.
Jonny: Oh, come on!

  • Family Guy:
    • Stewie tries to make a few in the episode "Thin White Line". After Brian has an emotional breakdown because of his drug habit, Stewie makes an attempt of humor, calling Brian first a "melan-collie" and then a "chi-wah wah!". He is infuriated to find that nobody else finds this funny.
    • In "Amish Guy":

Lois: I can't belive we're stuck in Amish Country!
Stewie: I thought something was Amish [pronounced 'a-mish' (amiss)]. (gets smacked by Brian)

El Seed: Soldiers of corn! Lend me your ears!
Tick: Ooh, that's bad.

  • Banana Man had at least one cringeworthy pun per episode. And, they only lasted about five minutes!
  • Duckman: In the episode "Ebony, Baby" (a full-on Blaxploitation mock), we have this exchange:

Tawnze: Enough shop talk. What do you need?
Ebony: Information. One of my clients was murdered; Victor Demann.
Tawnze: ...I shoulda known you was workin' for Demann.

  • Danger Mouse: In "All Fall Down," this takes place as he and Penfold serach for the villainous serpent Mac The Fork:

DM: (to Colonel K) Don't worry, sir, we'll soon weed out that snake in the grass.
Penfold: Yes, then he'll be all for-lawn. Hee hee!
Colonel K: Wha? What's that, Penfold?
DM: Forget it, sir. he's just having one of his turns. Over and out.

  • The Critic: From the episode "From Chunk to Hunk":

Penny: (Giving Marty a sheet of paper) Goodbye Marty. I wrote you a letter.
(Marty sees only the letter P written)
Penny: You can read it on the bus.

    • From "A Song For Margo":

Hard Copy reporter: Tonight on Hard Copy, O.J. refuses to speak. (Shows a clip of a pitcher of orange juice on the witness stand.) Part 2 tomorrow.

Bullock: I thought we could be secret Asians.
Stan: A sixteen-hour flight for a bad pun? ...yes. Yes.

  • While the entirety of the Animaniacs episode "This Pun For Hire" is a Hurricane of Puns, a couple are singled out as particularly bad by Dot:

Hello, Nurse!: Why do I always get the booby prize?
Dot: I'm not touching that one.

    • Later:

Hello, Nurse!: Stay back! I'm packing a heater!

Dot: Can't argue with that one. It's too stupid.

  • In the Timon and Pumbaa episode "Brazil Nuts", a rather fattened Timon says "Sheesh! How long could it possibly take to gather a bunch of measly ANTS?? Must be gettin' the uncles, too! Ha!" Timon notices no one heard the pun.
    • Later, when Timon and Pumbaa advertise an imaginary fast food chain to Eddie and Ralph (the two snakes who tried to eat them), Timon said, "That's two cans for you and me!" when toucans were shown.
  • Done by Billy in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy after he splits his nose in half to share with a nasal-mancer, or nose wizard, who was using an enchanted scent to lure all the noses of the city to the shopping mall he inhabited to find a replacement nose after he lost his, which was later found by Mandy but blown up during a inflated nose-balloon chase (It Makes Sense in Context

Billy: Snot a problem!
(Billy's half of his nose comes alive and smacks him with a steak in annoyance)

  • In A DuckTales (1987) Valentine, Huey, Dewey and Louie find a chest in a sunken Greek temple. When they wonder what the inscription on the lid is supposed to mean, Launchpad quips "It's Greek to me!" There's an awkward pause, after which Launchpad says defensively "Well, somebody had to say it."

Other

  • The myriad of Firesign Theatre albums are just chock-full of them.
    • From Nick Danger, Third Eye

Announcer: ...he crosses Macarthur Park and walks into a great sandstone building!
Nick Danger: [thump] Oh, my nose!


Real Life

  • The iCup urinary drug test.
  • When British Major-General Napier conquered Sindh in 1847, he sent a telegram with just one word: "Peccavi". Bilingual Bonus: This is Latin for "I have sinned" - "I have Sindh".
    • This may be a Beam Me Up, Scotty, as the first written record of it is in the diary of an Edwardian schoolgirl who'd recently learnt that bit of colonial history.
  • Paul Merton and Ian Hislop, the team captains on Have I Got News for You, both adore puns, and will throw out dozens of them at the slightest opportunity. The studio audience often can't decide whether to roar laughing or groan.
  • A great deal of commentary on the professional basketball player Jeremy Lin involves Lincredibly Lame Puns.
  1. ↑ he's one to talk; for whatever reason, his name means "ham of the rocks"
  2. ↑ Burt
This article is issued from Allthetropes. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.