Honesty hour – have you ever laughed at something just because people around you were laughing? Or pretended to get the punchline of a joke at a comedy club when it made no sense in your head? No?
Well, even if you won’t admit it, I know I’m not the only one having missed the point of the joke; maybe even more than once. A bunch of people have, too, and they confessed to it in a thread on the ‘Movies’ subreddit. That’s where the user ‘ferrous_second_vowel’ asked netizens about movie jokes they didn’t get until years later, and many came forward with their stories. Scroll down to find them on the list below!
Below you will also find We’s interviews with two people who are well-familiar with jokes and humor: the CEO of Humor That Works, author, and speaker, Andrew Tarvin, and comedian, television writer, and radio/podcast host, Chris Duffy, who were kind enough to answer a few of our questions.
#1
There’s a scene in Star Trek: Generations in which Data laughs at a joke that was told to him by Geordi LaForge in the first episode seven years earlier. When this is pointed out, Data says, “I know! I just got it! Very funny!”
Flash back to 1987 and the first time watching Spaceballs. Colonels Sandurz says, “Prepare ship for metamorphosis! Ready, Kafka?” I had no idea what that line meant, but the delivery made me laugh.
Flash forward to 1997. I’m working in a bookstore, restocking the paperback classics when I pull out a small stack of, you guessed it, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. I burst out laughing.
Then I almost immediately thought of Data’s line and started laughing even harder.
It was a good day.
Addams Family Values. When Wednesday’s sort-of-boyfriend is showing her his collection of serial k*ller baseball cards, he says “I’ve got ’em all. I’m only missing Jack the Ripper and that Zodiac guy.”
Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac were two serial k*llers who were never caught.
#3
“I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith.”
“What’s the other one named?”
I watched Mary Poppins when I was four, and didn’t get that joke until I was 30.
“At the most basic level, a good joke follows the setup / punchline structure, where the setup creates an expectation in the audience and the punchline delivers against that expectation in a surprising way,” Andrew Tarvin, the CEO of Humor That Works—a leadership development company that teaches professionals how to use humor to achieve better business results—told We, discussing what makes a good joke.
“To me, what makes a good joke is when you have to work ever so slightly to get it,” he added. “If it’s too obvious, it’s not funny. If it’s too complicated, it goes over your head. But if you have to ‘figure out’ the joke, the reward is even greater when you finally do get it.” (Even if it takes years or decades, as it did for some of the people on this list.)
#4
Toy Story.
Buzz: “I think the word you’re searching for is space ranger.”
Woody: “The word I’m searching for I can’t say because there are preschool toys present.”
#5
It took me 30 years watching Wayne’s World to realize why Noah’s Arcade promotes they have two of every game. Yknow. Like Noah’s Arc.
Another expert in humor, comedian, television writer, and radio/podcast host Chris Duffy—who is currently hosting How to Be a Better Human—noted that a good joke is funny (adding a much-needed “duh”), but also clever and without cruelty. “You can make people laugh by saying something shocking or by being mean, but I don’t think that’s a good joke,” he said.
“I’ve talked with some scientists who study humor and one way that the science of jokes was explained to me that lines up with my experiences as a comedian is that a good joke is like a secret code where the person hearing it has the key and all of a sudden it clicks and makes them laugh. Also good jokes should be short, unlike my answer to ‘what makes a good joke?’”
#6
In “Cars” Lightning tells Mater that Doc won the Piston Cup 3 times!
Mater responds with, “He did what in his cup?!”.
#7
“I’m sure your job gets pretty dangerous”
“That’s why I carry a big gun.”
“Aren’t you afraid it might go off accidentally?”
“I used to have that problem”
“What did you do about it?”
“I just think about baseball”.
– The Naked Gun: Files From Police Squad!
#8
In Disney’s Hercules, a little snippet of the Zero to Hero song goes:
>From appearance fees and royalties
>Our Herc had cash to burn
>Now nouveau riche and famous
>He could tell you “What’s a Grecian urn?”
This is a reference to an absolutely ancient Vaudeville joke that flew miles above every kid’s head in the 90s. The joke goes something like,
“My wife brought home a Grecian urn last night.”
“What’s a Grecian urn?”
“About $25 a week, unless he owns the restaurant.”
Andrew Tarvin seconded the idea that jokes shouldn’t be too lengthy. “You can be clever, just don’t be longwinded or boring in the process. As Kevin from The Office said, ‘Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?’”
Delving deeper into the structure of jokes, the expert noted that one way to understand the setup and punchline structure is to think back to your days of learning propositional logic: “If A -> B, and B -> C, then A->C. A good joke has a setup (A) and a punchline (C). If the audience can infer what’s supposed to be funny (B), they’ll laugh.
“So in order to be clever, but not complicated, you have to give just enough information in the setup (A) to help the audience get B, but not so much that it’s confusing or takes too long to understand,” Tarvin explained.
#9
When the hunter buys the gun in Jumanji and the salesman says “you’re not a postal worker, are you?”. I think I thought he was just making fun of his clothes, I had no idea what “going postal” was.
#10
It seems every time I watch Hot Fuzz I find something knew I missed like them cocking the guns everytime they run at the end. But the biggest one for me is:
‘Do you know why they’re called the Andys?’
“Because they’re both called andrew?”
“And talking to them is a bit of an uphill struggle’
Took me waaaay too many watches to catch the Andes/Andy’s difficulty hike but. I blame the immediate trash can to the face as a distraction.
#11
In Monty Python and the Holy Grail when the taunting Frenchman calls the knights “keniggets” I thought it was just some obscure British insult I wasn’t getting. It took me years to figure out he was pronouncing “knights” phonetically.
Duffy suggested that the balance between a joke being clever and too complicated depends on who you’re trying to make laugh. “It’s going to be a very different balance if you’re trying to make a classroom full of 5-year-olds laugh (you can’t go wrong with a silly face) and if you’re trying to make a conference of philosophy professors laugh (probably some joke about what it even means to have a face at all). There’s no universal rule when it comes to comedy, it’s all specific and context dependent,” he told We, adding that knowing your audience is hugely important when it comes to humor.
“My friend, the very funny comedian Myq Kaplan, has a great joke about how comedy is one of the only art forms where the audience gets to decide what the art is. His joke is ‘If you laugh at what I say, it’s a joke. If you don’t laugh, it’s a poem! You decide.’”
#12
Mrs. Doubtfire, when Daniel (as Doubtfire) is talking to Stuart about Miranda, “She has a power tool in the bedroom. It’s her own personal jackhammer; she can break sidewalk with it! I’m amazed she hasn’t chipped her teeth!”
I saw this movie in the theater when it came out, and I was 8 years old, so I didn’t know about vibrators at the time and didn’t ask. My best guess at the time was that he was trying to scare Stuart by saying she has some kind of weapon, like keeping a gun or baseball bat next to the bed.
#13
In Ghostbusters, Louis Tully, the Keymaster, kept locking himself out of his apartment.
GeoffreySpaulding:
39 f**king years and I just got that.
Carteeg_Struve:
Took me forever growing to realize the Gatekeeper and Keymaster titles were literally talking about privates.
#14
I was watching the original Men in Black just cuz, and it got to the part where Agent J (Will Smith) catches up to a fleeing criminal. He waves his badge in the guy’s face and says “See this? NYPD! Means I will knock yo’ punk *ss down!”
I’ve watched this movie multiple times, but for whatever reason it was only on this viewing, 25 years after its theatrical release, that I realized he’s make a joke: “NYPD means I will kNock Yo’ Punka*s Down.”
Tarvin, too, believes that knowing your audience is incredibly important when it comes to jokes and, according to him, there are two main reasons for that. “First, humor is predicated on an audience being able to ‘get’ the joke. If you reference something they don’t understand, such as a pop culture reference or Gen Z slang, there’s no chance for them to get the joke. Second, comedy often comes from breaking expectations in a surprising way. How can you break expectations if you’re not even sure what they are to begin with?
“One caveat to keep in mind is that you are also part of your intended audience. Sometimes writers will put in jokes that are primarily for themselves, and if you as an audience member enjoy it as well, that’s a bonus,” the expert added.
#15
“You ever been on a shrimp boat?”
… “no, I been on a real big boat”
This one probably took me 20 years and 60 watches lmao.
JackRagz:
Bubba asks Forrest if he’s ever been on “a real shrimp boat”, but Forrest thinks he’s asking if he’s ever been on a really small boat.
#16
In shawshank redemption when Red is being asked whys he called Red he quips its probably because he’s Irish. In the Stephen King book Red isn’t a black man but rather an Irish man w red hair so it makes sense.
#17
Rango, when the villagers are trying to lure out the molerats/groundhogs by putting on a theatrical play.
*”What is that?”*
*”I think they’re thespians.”*
*”Thespians? That’s illegal in seven states!”*
The joke being he misheard thespians as lesbians.
When it comes to humor on the big screen, Chris Duffy believes that jokes make the characters relatable and likable. “But I think they also serve to release the tension, which is a huge and important tool when you’re writing scripts in any genre,” he added.
According to Andrew Tarvin, there are countless uses for jokes in movies. “It could be used to release tension, break the ice, make a character likable and charismatic or cruel and vindictive,” he said, adding that humor is a universally human trait, so it can be used in nearly any manner.
“However, one of the most important things it can do is just keep the movie engaging. When a character uses a joke, not only does that develop their persona more, it also makes the movie more entertaining. And as soon as that first joke hits, you’re now on the lookout for the rest of the movie for the next big laugh, making you even more engaged in the material.”
#18
The Goonies
[Chunk knocks over a miniature statue of Michaelangelo’s David, breaking off the penis]
Mikey: Oh my God! That’s my mom’s most favourite piece!
Mouth: You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.
#19
The title of South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.
It hit suddenly about a decade after the movie came out.
#20
In Austin Powers 2, when describing Austin’s Mojo Dr. Evil has a line like – “what the French would call: I don’t know what.”
Always thought the joke was that Dr. Evil was just being stupid – didn’t learn until much later in life this is the literal definition of ‘je ne sais quoi’
Upon a recent rewatch that was probably my favorite joke in the entire franchise.
“While all of these things apply to characters in movies, it also applies to you in real life,” Tarvin continued. “How and when you use jokes has a massive impact on how you’re perceived by others, which is why there are over 30 benefits to learning how to effectively use humor as well.
“Also, you don’t need a whole team of scriptwriters to be funny. Anyone can learn the skill of humor, and watching movies and analyzing why the jokes worked (or didn’t) can be a great place to start.”
#21
In the first Shrek movie when Shrek and Donkey first get to the giant castle and Shrek says “you think he’s compensating for something?”.
#22
In the Faculty, a teacher is begging the principal for dunding for sets for the drama club. The principal responds “Can’t they just reuse the set from Our Town?”
Our Town is a play typically stage without a set, which I only learned many years later.
#23
First Avengers film.
On the Helicarrier for the first time, and Captain America gives Nick Fury $10 – The way the latter takes the money, I thought it was the former giving him a tip, as some odd 1940s reason.
I watched it the other day, and FINALLY realized it’s a follow up to the exchange in the Gym – where Captain America says that nothing could surprise him anymore, Fury replies saying $10 says you’re wrong.
#24
The scene in Grease where Kenickie refers to a condom as a “25 cent insurance policy”.
#25
The Dude listening to Creedence’s “My Back Door” after getting a physical.
ImNotThaaatDrunk:
I was today years old when I made that connection.
#26
Toy Story 2: Near the end, after Jessie impresses him by opening the door by leaping from the Hot Wheels loop, Buzz pops out his wings.
It’s a visual boner allusion.
#27
In Forrest Gump, Lt. Dan told everyone to take care of their feet. Then he lost his.
#28
Rick Moranis in _GhostBusters 2_ tells the baby the story of Snow White to get him to sleep. But as an accountant, he explains that the dwarfs’ trading Snow’s housekeeping work for room & board while not paying payroll taxes was a good deal for them, though technically illegal.
#29
“I got you flours”
-Will Ferrell, Stranger Than Fiction
He’s trying to woo a baker; he gives her various bags of flours. I always thought they were bags of flower seeds.
Me = moron.
#30
Not quite a joke, but I had probaby watched Shawshank Redemption a dozen times before I realized the significance of the Warden saying “salvation lies within” when he handed the Bible with the rock hammer hidden in it back to Andy.
#31
In The Great Muppet Caper after the swimming musical number, Miss Piggy says to the Charles Grodin’s character “you can’t even sing! Your voice was dubbed!”
I watched it 100 times when I was a kid and thought she said dumb which as a kid I thought was really funny. But now that I know the actual line and that he was in fact dubbed, it’s f*****g hilarious.
#32
Blazing Saddles had a lot of non-obvious jokes:
“They told us you was hung!”
“And they was right!”
“You’d do it for Randolph Scott!” – He was an old actor in Westerns
Governor “LePetomane” – Le Pétomane was a performer whose act was farting on stage
Younger folks might not get the Howard Johnson, Hedy Lamarr, or Marlene Dietrich references.
#33
In The Mask, just before he pulls out a balloon to blow up and turn into a tommy gun, to fight off the goons, he pulls out a condom and says, “Oops, wrong pocket!” When I was a kid, I thought it was a popped balloon and laughed regardless, lol.
#34
In Face/Off Nicolas Cage famously says that he can “eat a peach for hours.”
Yes I genuinely thought fruit at one point.
#35
I had no idea Airplane! is in parts a shot for shot spoof of the movie Zero Hour. I think growing up I knew it had elements of disaster tropes, but seeing some of the scenes and plot points side by side makes it even better.
#36
Half Baked. The joke comes in a scene where the protagonists are talking about money.
*”You said that you gave Mary Jane a pearl necklace! How much did that cost?”*
*”Obviously you missed the point of that story, Brian.”*
I too missed the point of that story. I didn’t even realize it was a joke until several years later.
#37
In cars 1 when lightning is showing off in the beginning and a few female cars go up to him and “flash” him…really Pixar or Disney.
#38
Huge Indiana Jones fan as a kid and didn’t rewatch the series again until I was in my late 20s. Watches the Last Crusade:
“You’re old enough to be her father.”
“I’m as human as the next man.”
“I WAS the next man.”
Oh god, Indiana Jones and his dad are Eskimo brothers…
#39
Child me was completely oblivious to this joke from the 1990 live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.
They return to their sewer hideout, bringing their ally Casey Jones for the first time. Casey gets increasingly agitated when they decide to sleep there. Donatello has a realization…
Donatello: “You’re a claustrophobic!”
Casey (getting angry): “You want a fist in the mouth? I’ve never even looked at another man before!”.
#40
Non-Native English speaker here.
Austin Powers 1 – the “Who does Number 2 work for?” scene. I was always like “The Irish guy has his head in the toilet. Haha! Funny.”
Until years later, as a final year medical student, I spent a surgical elective in South Africa. During ward round the registrar (resident) asked the post-surgery patient how it was going with the Number 2. And it clicked…
I had to leave the room otherwise my evaluation would have suffered….
#41
Ace Ventura, When Nature Calls. He wasn’t meditating.
JackRagz:
“If I don’t finish my meditation, I tend to get a little… Cranky…”
#42
Hercules, when Hades is tricking Hercules to go fight the Hydra. Pain and Panic are disguised as kids looking for help, and one of them yells out “call I X I I”
It’s 911 in Roman numerals. I didn’t get it as a kid, and never thought about it when I watched when I was older.
#43
For some reason as a kid I repeatedly watched Don’t Tell Mom, the Babysitter’s Dead. There’s a line in it where the main character’s boss tells her to do a face pack and have a bath etc with cucumber on her eyes. The character says she’s out of cucumber, and the boss replies something like “No woman over 25 should ever be without a cucumber in the house”.
I hadn’t thought about it for years and then one day it came into my mind at random and I went THAT WAS A WANKING JOKE.
#44
The joke in Guardians of the Galaxy where Quill said if you put a black light in his ship it’d look like a Jackson Polluck painting. ew lol.
#45
TMNT II
Donatello:
These nets are very effective and very well constructed.
Michaelangelo:
Yeah, remind me to drop a line to Ralph Nader!
DependentAd235:
Nadar was famous for being a consumer advocate.
This was definitely a joke for the parents.
#46
*The Parent Trap* (Lindsay Lohan version). When Nick tells Annie (pretending to be Hallie) that he wants to make Meredith “part of the family”, she plays it like she thinks he’s going to adopt her as a big sister. Years later I remembered that when she first meets Meredith, she asks her age, and I copped that Annie knew perfectly well that Nick was talking about marrying her and was trying to low key call him on the age difference.
And in *Mean Girls*, when Regina’s mother thinks Cady is asking for alcohol and whispers “if you’re gonna drink I’d rather you do it in the house”. I didn’t get until years later how that was meant to show the mother as irresponsible, because in Ireland the drinking age is 18 rather than 21 and it’s completely socially acceptable for 16-year-olds to drink, with a lot of parents allowing their teens to have little amounts in a controlled environment so as to stop them going too mad when they inevitably try it on their own. Then eventually I found out how conservative Americans tend to be about underage drinking.
#47
I am utterly ashamed to this day how many years it took me to get the “drinking problem” joke in “Airplane”. Loved the movie and got everything else but when the main charcater would say he has a drinking problem and throw a glass of whatever on his face and everyone would bust out laughing, I just didn’t get it. Finally was watching it for the 100th time and it clicked. I was too ashamed to admit it at first.
#48
The Tab and Pepsi Free joke from Back to the Future.
#49
Supertroopers. I was like 10 when I saw it there’s a scene where Ramathorn and Rodney team up and Rodney nicknames their team “Ramrod” I didn’t figure out until my late 20’s that this was a crude name for p*nis. I’d use Ramrod for so many team names in school and cringe when I think about it.
#50
The first Austin Powers movie. Austin has just come out of the freezing process. Austin is talking to Basil Exposition and a member from Russian intelligence. Austin says to Basil “are you mad, Russian intelligence.” Basil replies back that the Cold War is over. Then Austin replies back “finally those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, ehh comrades ehh? ” It wasn’t until I read a book about MI6 that I learned that a number of MI6 agents during the Cold War were actually double agents, providing intel to the KGB.
#51
I saw Ferris Bueller at age 10, when the nurse says “I came to help restore your pluck, cause I’m the nurse who likes to-“
Not until I was an adult did I realize what the last word of that sentence was supposed to be.
#52
It’s a visual gag I didn’t notice until the this past year on my like 20th viewing of Airplane!
In the scene at Kramer’s house, he steps THROUGH the mirror when he goes to leave the house 😂.
#53
“SUPPLIES!!!”
I don’t know how many times I’d seen UHF before I was watching it and went “Oh for f***s sake.”.
#54
Wayne’s World during the scene when Noah Vanderhoff’s wife says, “she just opened her mouth and out it came” when telling everyone she came up with the name for Noah’s Arcade. When Wayne’s crew member says, “wow, your husband must be one lucky man”. I didn’t get this joke until later in my teens. Hahaha.
#55
From Ace Ventura:
“You really love animals, don’t you?”
“…If it gets cold enough.”
#56
MST3K, Loves Of Hercules. In the opening it shows Mickey Hargitay’s name and they say something about his original name being Mortimer. I just thought “that’s weird” the first couple dozen times before I realized it was a Mickey Mouse joke.
#57
In George of the Jungle he says something like “Rubber tree, very good for clothesline” after he clotheslines someone.
I’d never watched wrestling, being Australian, and genuinely thought he was just giving laundry tips to Ursula. It only dawned on me last year at 2-f*****g-9 when we rewatched it.
#58
Most jokes in Scary Movie. Especially the when Doofy don’t want to be disturbed when he’s cleaning his room with a vacuum cleaner.
#59
Hot Shots
“What do you do with an elephant with 3 balls? You walk him and pitch to the rhino.”
I’ve been a huge baseball fan my whole life but never got that joke until someone on reddit pointed it out a few years ago.
#60
When I was a kid and watched Dumb & Dumber I never understood why people were laughing at “Samsonite! I was way off” and years later while in a store I noticed samsonite was a brand of luggage and immediately got the joke.
#61
The “You can kiss me on the veranda” joke from the 3 amigos.
#62
*Caddyshack* when Danny shows up at the yacht club in his “D**k Cavett” attire, Spaulding says, “Ahoy, Polloi!”
Brilliant line, and it flew straight over my head for years.
#63
Shrek Forever After has a line after Donkey falls into a trap where he says, “And then my donkey fell into your waffle hole”.
#64
Star Wars – At the start when C3PO is moaning about having walked so far his joints are almost frozen – You can see the escape pod in the background and he’s only gone around 200 metres. This took legit 40 years to get.
#65
That one joke from Madagascar 1. “And look! Free mints!”
Really thought for YEARS that was an actual mint Melman had on his tongue.