Jokes that seem eerie in retrospect?

[Zorak Masaki]

I was watching some old eps of the critic recently and i saw some jokes that while funny at the time, seem eerie now. The first had doris, jays makeup lady, trying to blow smoke rings. Instead she blew a death's head who went "tick, tock, doris". Knowing how doris grau died, it seems a little creepy now. Another one had duke phillips talking about making a remake of the dirty dozen,,"You know how hard it was to get Saddam Hussein to play himself? I had to give him a whole mess of nuclear weapons!". Ever see jokes like that, that took on a whole new meaning years later?

[Classic Speedy]

I was watching some old eps of the critic recently and i saw some jokes that while funny at the time, seem eerie now. The first had doris, jays makeup lady, trying to blow smoke rings. Instead she blew a death's head who went "tick, tock, doris". Knowing how doris grau died, it seems a little creepy now. Another one had duke phillips talking about making a remake of the dirty dozen,,"You know how hard it was to get Saddam Hussein to play himself? I had to give him a whole mess of nuclear weapons!". Ever see jokes like that, that took on a whole new meaning years later? Or the Twin Towers in the first shot of every single episode? Not like they could've known they'd be gone seven years later, but still...

As for actual JOKES that seem eerie now, there's the pre-9/11 Bin Laden song & dance gag in the Family Guy episode "Road to Rhode Island".

[ClockStomper]

The JFK Junior airport line in Futurama was errie. Probably why they edited it.

[candy17]

Most of the eerie jokes I've seen are on live action comedy shows, like Saturday Night Live (there's a sketch called "The Relapse Guy" where Chris Farley plays a drug addict who keeps quitting and relapsing. Kinda strange that he would die that way).

But there is a strange joke in a classic LT cartoon, Turtoise Wins By A Hare where there's a newspaper reporting the race between Bugs and Cecil Turtle and one of the other news reports says that Hitler committed suicide.

The kicker: That cartoon was made in 1943, two years before that even happened.

Does comedy have some sort of clairvoyance or is it just a case of "Ha, ha, we're joking" and then when it happens, the joke feels like it's in bad taste?

[BrendaBat]

I recently bought an old Jem video with the "Riot's Hope" episode on it. That episode has an opening that really suprised me.
It opens with a retired soldier reading the newspaper and shouting "What a mess! We oughta send over the big guns and clean up that place once and for all!"
The headline?
"Middle East Heats Up."

Not only does that episode apply to current events; but it aired just two years before the Gulf War. :eek:

On a slightly unrelated note; could you imagine the uproar if the "send in the big guns" line was used in a kids cartoon today? :p

[nakak]

The "South Park" episode where they spoofed Terri Schiavo. The thing is, day after that episode aired, Terri died.

[Elven Moon]

When the Simpsons are in New York and Homer visits the Twin Towers. Not so much a joke, but it's kinda creepy to watch it now.

[Mynd Hed]

Back in Season 5 of the Simpsons, there was a cutaway gag involving a pair of very obvious Siegfried and Roy lookalikes getting mauled by one of their own tigers nearly a decade before the fact.
...Of course, that's not exactly a tough eventuality to call, and the whole point of the gag is that taking large predators out of the wild and forcing them to perform probably isn't the greatest idea ever, but still.

[Michael24]

Wasn't there a similar Siegfried and Roy gag in an episode of FAMILY GUY? I do remember a bit with them, but can't recall what exactly happened.

[90'sCartoonMan]

Back in Season 5 of the Simpsons, there was a cutaway gag involving a pair of very obvious Siegfried and Roy lookalikes getting mauled by one of their own tigers nearly a decade before the fact.
Plus in that same season they had a joke about which presidents had affairs and threw in Bill Clinton's name, and then...

Okay, not really a joke, but in the first few episodes of Gargoyles, when Goliath gets his first good look at Manhattan, he asks Elisa how they defend themselves from outside threats. Elisa said the real threats are from inside, but it's kind of weird watching it again, Goliath had a very good point.

[Dee]

In a Season 4 episode of Men In Black The Series, Drekk has Agent X on the top of the World Trade Center and at the end of the episode (which was a parody of COPS), Jay called X's rescue along the lines of 'Operation 911'.

It aired a year prior to 9/11/01, and I found that along with other elements of the episode to be a little freaky.

[langden alger]

in the boy band ep. of simpsons when the miltary commander fired a missle, destroying the mad magazine office building and you see all of the office workers sprawled out in the rubble...this was aired in syndication right off the heels of 9/11 when they were dissecting anything in tv/movies that even remote similarities to the tragedy...always surprised me it got by.

[Ben]

But there is a strange joke in a classic LT cartoon, Turtoise Wins By A Hare where there's a newspaper reporting the race between Bugs and Cecil Turtle and one of the other news reports says that Hitler committed suicide.

The kicker: That cartoon was made in 1943, two years before that even happened.

I dunno, I thought that made it even funnier. :p

[Patchwork]

When the Simpsons are in New York and Homer visits the Twin Towers. Not so much a joke, but it's kinda creepy to watch it now.They've cut out that scene when it's shown in reruns over here. It's not until now I've realised why.

[Bunai]

anytime some sort of Death created character tells another "just wait (insert number of years or month)" and they laugh and walk away.

the Ren and Stimpy episode when Ren wants to be buried alive in a posh coffin, and this worm visits them and he says something like "i like to get to know my neighbors personally...heh heh heh" and the ending has Ren and Stimpy's skins still animated Stimpy "what a nice worm" Ren "Ssss shutup"
that episode ending grosses me out...i have this thing about eyeless figures.

Ren and Stimpy selling baby bottle nipples. and they go to Mr Horses house and he freaks out thinking they are cops. anyway R n S are shivering and just show the rubber nipples and Mr Horse says "nope i don't need those...but do you have walrus protectors?" and the Walrus goes "call the police" 0_o UGH

Tom and Jerry episode that has the little french speaking gray mouse. who wants to be a Musketeer. and the king orders Tom to get rid of them or he will behead him. well in the end Jerry and the little gray mouse look up to a building that has a guillotine outlined in black and then the blade comes down. and the little gray mouse goes "aaa c'est la gar" and walks away and the music is all happy.

[TrogdorNyimbhat]

Tom and Jerry episode that has the little french speaking gray mouse. who wants to be a Musketeer. and the king orders Tom to get rid of them or he will behead him. well in the end Jerry and the little gray mouse look up to a building that has a guillotine outlined in black and then the blade comes down. and the little gray mouse goes "aaa c'est la gar" and walks away and the music is all happy. That was so inappropriate. Also the South Park episode where Christopher Reeve is portrayed as a monster that cracks open fetuses and sucks their marrow so that he can lift cars.

[Fone Bone]

When the Simpsons are in New York and Homer visits the Twin Towers. Not so much a joke, but it's kinda creepy to watch it now.I disagree completely. The whole sequence makes me smile. I'm a firm believer in not pretending that places where tragedies happened never have existed. It was a cute and funny gag and it seems to me to be a nice way to remember what it was like when the Towers still stood. We shouldn't pretend the Towers were never there. That strikes me as gutless.

An example from me? Well, outside of the obvious Seigfried and Roy Simpsons joke and the Christopher Reeve South Park I'd have to say the Horatio Sanz joke made after listing dead Saturday Night Live players on Family Guy will probably be beyond tasteless if Sanz DOES in fact die young. And it's obviously a possiblilty or they wouldn't have bothered making the joke.

[Squall]

The only one I can think of is the pilot 'movie' of the original TMNT cartoon. In episode #3 (of 5), I think, the Turtles go to the World Trade Center, to keep the Terrrordrome from destroying it.