1776 (musical)/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • "But Mr. Adams."
    • Combined moment of Awesome and Funny: "NEVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! NEVAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
      • Also, "Mr. Morris. What in hell goes on in New York?!"
    • "Are you calling me a madman, you... you fribble?!" (And the ensuing name-calling and bitch fight.)
      • "LAWYER!"
      • Made funnier by the fact that Adams actually was a lawyer.
        • As was Dickinson.
        • Also fribble is an actual word along with piddle, twiddle, pish posh, gay, and queer.
  • Adams' morose worry that for all his effort to make America free, his contributions would never be known:

Franklin: Don't worry, John. The history books will clean it up.
Adams: It doesn't matter. I won't be in the history books anyway, only you. Franklin did this and Franklin did that and Franklin did some other damn thing. Franklin smote the ground and out sprang... George Washington, fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them - Franklin, Washington, and the horse - conducted the entire revolution by themselves.
[Beat]
Franklin: I like it.

  • Pretty much everything Ben Franklin says. He was pretty much our nation's first Deadpan Snarker.

Franklin: (to arriving delegate Dr. Lyman Hall) "What's the matter? Haven't you ever seen a Great Man before?"
And
Adams: Wake up, Franklin, you're going to New Brunswick!
Franklin: (Half asleep) Like Hell I am. What for?
Hopkins: The whoring and the drinking!
(Franklin gets up and marches off right behind Adams)

Adams: Do you mean to tell me that it is not yet finished?
Jefferson: No, sir. I mean to say that it is not yet begun.
Adams: Good God! A whole week! The entire earth was created in a week!
Jefferson: Someday, you must tell me how you did it.
Adams: Disgusting. Look at him, Franklin! Virginia's most famous lover!
Jefferson: Virginia abstains.

  • "A NEETION OF BRRRRBARIANS!?"
  • Adams realizing that Jefferson and his wife were having the 18th century equivalent of a booty call:

Adams: You mean they're going to... in the middle of the afternoon??
Franklin: Not everybody's from Boston, John!