The "You know what?" thread

[minor muppetz]

In the Zero Mostel episode of The Muppet Show, Kermit says that the amount Kermit needs for the payroll was 26 dollars and something. And yet the previous season, when Scooter was hired Kermit decided to pay him 30 dollars. And when Kermit tells Scooter how much he needs, Scooter doesn't seem to be upset that it's less than his pay. So did Scooter take a pay cut, or was he assuming Kermit had money but not enough to pay everyone (which obviously wasn't the case, considering there was no money in the cash register)?

And when Kermit told Scooter how much he needed, Scooter commented that that's "high finance". Was that true back then? 26 dollars doesn't really seem like that much, and seems like having to only pay that much when you have a large number of employees (even if you take into consideration he only had to pay whoever was working that night). Was everybody paid in pennies or something? Or was the line about it being high finance more like sarcasm (like Kermit's line about pay day becoming a habit because it was payday last year, or his line about a moth being more than they usually have)?

And yes, there's also the possibility that not every Muppet gets paid. It was once mentioned that Fozzie gets paid nothing to perform, so it's probably true for the other characters. But then who all gets paid? In that episode it's clear that The Electric Mayhem gets paid, and I'm sure Rowlf, Nigel, Trumpet Girl, and any additional musicians do. Scooter obviously gets paid, and I'm sure that all the other backstage characters - Hilda, George, Gladys, Pops, and Beauregard - get paid as well (and yes, I know most of those characters were either no longer employed at the theater or weren't employed yet, as far as we know). Miss Piggy also gets paid - in one episode Kermit says he'll have to give her a pay cut.

 

[Eyeball]

Plastic Man is the only super hero to have authentic action figures.


(I'll let that one sink in)

Whoa! mind officialy blown.....

 

[minor muppetz]

Recently I've been thinking about the initial critical failure of The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, and I'm starting to wonder if those movies would have done better critically and box office-wise (well, The Dark Crystal did do well at the box office) if the movies came out in reverse order, or if The Dark Crystal was heavy on music and humor while Labyrinth was the more serious one.

From what I've read, it's pretty clear they made Labyrinth more musical and humorous and Muppet-like because people criticized TDC for not having those, but I wonder, if The Dark Crystal, the one that sold more tickets, was more like the Muppets, and as a result was better-liked, would more people have wanted to see Labyrinth, even if that one was more serious?

 

[snichols1973]

There's an old prank where somebody'll say "loser say what" a few times fast, so that the other person will say "what?" and then the one saying "loser say what" will shout "LOOSER!" But then the one saying "loser say what" is technically already saying what in order to trick the other into saying "what" and being a loser. So the one who says "loser say what" is the loser.

I hope I'm not suddenly a loser by typing this.

Annoying Orange had their own variant of this particular joke, which went something like this:

Orange: "Apple says what!"
The other character (not necessarily Apple) would say: "What?"
Orange: "You're an apple!"

 

[FraggleLover130]

Hershey Kisses are just large chocolate chips.

Thats scary. i never ever figured that out. wow

 

[minor muppetz]

It seems like Atari, Nintendo, and Sega have all included their company names in the titles of various systems, but Sony and Microsoft don't.

For years, I've only known the various Atari systems as "Atari", not "Atari 2600", "Atari 5200", and "Atari 7200" (or is that last one wrong?), though I don't ever remember actually playing any Atari systems. And growing up, me and everybody I knew called the Nintendo Entertainment System "Nintendo". NES is also a common shortening of the title, and it seems like it's sound weird to just call it the "Entertainment System". And the Sega title was prominently featured in system titles, though unlike Nintendo, it seems it was just as common for me and my friends to call the Sega Genesis a "Genesis" as it was to call it a "Sega" (I called it a "Genesis" more, though I remember one time, somebody asked me what game systems I had, and as I listed, I mentioned Sega, referring to Genesis, before mentioning Game Gear. I wonder if they knew what I meant or if they thought I left out the Genesis, though I would have mentioned the Sega CD).

And yet Sony doesn't call its systems "Sony Playstation" and Microsoft doesn't refer to its systems as "Microsoft XBOX". And yet all systems from those companies use the Playstation and XBOX names in their titles. Nintendo continues to put its name in system titles, even if it's more common to just refer to them as the Wii U and 3DS and so on.

 

[minor muppetz]

For years, I wondered why Saturday Night Live continued after season 5. Since Lorne Michaels, all of the cast, and most of the writers left, they should have just ended it. Season 6 was basically a new show, and should have just had a completely different title. But considering the sixth season was so horrible that it was almost canceled (and very few episodes have been rerun in America since 1981), NBC probably wouldn't have given the show another chance if it was an original series (even if it was an SNL clone) as opposed to SNL. Though immediately after writing this, I also think it's interesting that they did give the show another chance after the first season with a whole new cast proved to be a failure. After all, the show has succeeded and is still on the air, long after many new cast changes.

 

[Drtooth]

What I want to know is how come that cast was so horrible they had to get rid of them, yet the current SNL management thinks Kyle Mooney and Mike O'Brien have any discernible talent at all. I mean, they are the most untalented, unfunny cast members they ever had. Sure, it took me a while to appreciate Kristen Wiig and Andy Samburg (glad I did... I LOVE Brooklyn Nine Nine), but these guys are only amusing themselves.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I never understood why SNL survived the '90s. Though to be fair, Will Farrell and others can be funny with the right material.

 

[Drtooth]

If something's on long enough, it's an institution that can't be done away with without a HUGE uprising. SNL manages to pack people in on election years, so that may be a factor. And what is NBC going to replace it with? Another Biggest Loser? SNL may be unfunny depending on the cast members, but it's pretty harmless outside of that.

Now, I've complained about most of their stars only to turn around and actually like them with grown appreciation for what they do. You can blame them for forcing lame characters that weren't funny the first time. That seems to be a staple of sketch comedies anyway.

But these two new guys are just...just awful. They have these viral video type skits that look like bad student video projects (no...seriously... they had a skit about them interviewing bugs on the street that was as funny as you'd expect), and it looks like they're barely amusing themselves. And a good half of the time, they're trying to do something I can only describe as concepts that would be mediocre emotionally manipulative indie movies but with a concept that can't even be taken seriously enough, yet at the same time not funny enough for comedy. I feel like a complete putz for not appreciating Andy Samburg sooner. At least he had divine insanity and refuge in audacity and vulgarity on his side.

And I swear I saw this... but the season finale of SNL had Andy as a host, and at the goodbys ending, Andy and a bunch of recent former cast members were upfront, and you saw Kyle and Mike pushed far into the back with grumpy looks of jealousy. If that's not a profound statement that they weren't ready to be not ready for prime time, I don't know what is.