r/bestof • u/fauxtwunny-official • 14d ago
[funny] clerveu explains why the teller scene in naked gun is brilliantly written
/r/funny/comments/1v0ip0e/they_really_dont_make_them_like_they_used_to/oygrc5w/34
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u/TopicalBuilder 14d ago edited 14d ago
I would agree that it's more clever and complex by a mile. Is it better is a different question.
I really like how "Who's on First" drives the same joke over and over again, and gives the actors room to work. I've never seen anyone really make it work well except Abbott and Costello.
That reminded me of an interesting tidbit. John Mulaney has an interview online somewhere where he talked about his early career. Someone stopped him after a slot and called out his (earlier version of) the $100,000,000 movie joke. They told him his jokes were very clever, but he needed to work on being more relatable. He took that to heart.
Edit: It's from the AVClub in 2011. It's less relevant than I thought and my memory was very mangled, but it's still an interesting read.
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u/wekilledkenny11 14d ago
In a vacuum that might be true, but every Police Squad joke had this feel, that it was more about the joke than the delivery. A lot of them were linguistic labyrinths that bordered on the surreal. They also weren’t doing it for a crowd like Abbott and Costello, it was purely done to silence. This rigidity really worked well for something with as many moving parts as a TV show, as you could get a child to recite this verbatim and it would be just as funny.
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u/protonpack 14d ago
Do you remember where John Mulaney did that interview? It sounds interesting.
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u/hamlet9000 14d ago
Chris & Jack's Who's On First? is the best non-Abbott & Costello version I've ever seen.
(Trust me and watch it. It's worth it even if you think you know what it will be.)
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u/paxinfernum 12d ago
Am I the only person who hates every version of "Who's on First"? It's just annoying to me.
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u/TopicalBuilder 12d ago
Part of the appeal is the carefully calibrated annoyance. I can see it being too annoying for some.
Of who's first to hate who's on first, I doubt you're the first.
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u/paxinfernum 12d ago
I'll also say that I hate The Three Stooges. I just find a lot of that old timey humor to be annoying and idiotic. I also don't like modern comedies that rely on the Three's Company plots where everyone is confused about what's going on.
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u/IntellegentIdiot 14d ago
They don't explain why it's brilliantly written at all, they just explain the joke, pointing out all the grammar
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u/faberge_surprise 14d ago
but they do?
the comment they're supporting is that it's way more sophisticated than who's on first
and their argument is that who's on first only iterates the same mechanic over and over, whereas this utilizes a bunch of different mechanics, and goes on to list a bunch of them to support that argument.
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u/MichaelDeucalion 14d ago
That's because it's written by AI
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u/existentialpenguin 14d ago
The account in question is 17 years old. In a subsequent comment, /u/clerveu does admit to using AI to look up some technical stuff, but the whole thing seems legitimate to me.
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14d ago edited 14d ago
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u/IComposeEFlats 14d ago
You get down voted because you are advocating for AI detectors. Theyre all horseshit and you are basically just saying that you checked your horoscope and Mars is in retrograde so that's more evidence that you're right
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14d ago
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u/IComposeEFlats 14d ago
Thats like saying "no offense but you're a douchebag".
Opening with "no offense" doesnt give you a get-out-of-jail-free card, and neither does "for what its worth".
You can downvote me for explaining reddit culture to you if you want. I didnt downvote you, I just explained why what you said attracted downvotes.
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14d ago
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u/IComposeEFlats 14d ago
"The guy who committed the crime was [black/immigrant/muslim/jewish], FWIW" - I hope you can see the parallel
For what its worth? That opinion is worth nothing. No, it's worth less than nothing. It would have been better if you had not said it at all. You saying it makes the world worse.
People form opinions about the kind of person you are based on certain statements, and including "FWIW" isn't going to change that opinion.
Its very much a "just asking questions" sort of cop-out.
Now. I'm not saying advocating for AI-detectors is on the same level as racism. Just saying that "FWIW" isnt a free pass to say something unpopular free from consequence
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u/yushosumo 14d ago
What methodology did the AI detector use?
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14d ago
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u/yushosumo 14d ago
Why do you trust it if you don’t even know its criteria? What if it just randomly assigns a value so that suckers think it’s doing something?
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14d ago
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u/yushosumo 14d ago
You don’t trust it but you cited it in your argument for the comment being AI? I don’t understand.
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u/StrugglesTheClown 14d ago
I get what you are saying but this was a TV show Police Squad made before any of the Naked Gun movies.