Carl: "I want to name her Dottie, after my wife." Dottie: *Starts to smile* Carl: "She's a vicious, life-sucking bitch from which there is no escape..." Dottie: *calmly raises middle finger*
Bear: (steps in Harry's path, hefting a positively gigantic pipe-fitting wrench) What's going on there, boss? Harry: You don't want none of this, Bear! Bear: (smirks) Just trying to give my boy a head start, that's all. (steps aside)
Chick: You really don't wanna go killing the best man on your team right before we strike oil. Harry: Aw, shucks, Chick, I ain't gonna kill him, I'll just blow off a foot. A man can work with one foot. Remember ole Willie worked all them years with just one hand? Chick: Yeah, but he wasn't very good.
Ending with...
A.J.: (cowering) Harry! Please! (pause) I love her! Harry: WAY WRONG ANSWER! (shoots, catching A.J. with Just a Flesh Wound in the leg, which makes A.J. Freak-Out)
The best scene for laughs is when the gang goes through the training exams.
Chick: Aw, gee, lady. I just came here to drill. Nurse: *pulls out a very ominous medical probe* Oh! So did I. Chick: his eyes widen in horror and he hurries away from her)
Max: *reacting to an immense hypodermic needle* Who's that for? Mr. Ed? You stick that thing in me, I'm gonna stab you in the heart with it. You ever see Pulp Fiction?
Rockhound: (carelessly tossing aside a solved Rubik's Cube) Piece of cake.
Bear: I am not crazy! *begins crying* I'm just a little emotional right now, ok? Ya'll throwing all this stuff at me, man! Look, I mean, after this is over, can I like get a hug from you or something?
Rockhound: Okay, Cyclops Lady's starting to bug me.
Rockhound's less than confident reaction to the assisted slingshot (called an Oberth maneuver in real life)
Rockhound: Yeah, I remember this one. It's where the, uh, the coyote sat his ass down in a slingshot then he strapped himself to an Acme rocket. Is that...is that what we're doin' here? Harry Stamper: Rockhound... Rockhound: Really, because it didn't work out too well for the coyote, Harry. Truman: Well, actually, we have a lot better rockets than the coyote.
Some of the drillers looking over pictures of Lev's family. Lev then very calmly describes the one (his uncle) that designed the warheads of the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal, and how they were designed to seek out specific cities. American cities. He's very giddy about it. The drillers...aren't.
This bit of gold between A.J. and our friendly Cosmonaut.
A.J.: Have you ever heard of Evel Knievel? Lev: No, I never saw Star Wars.
Moments later, when something goes wrong during their vehicular jump, it's time for Lev to save the day.
A.J.: What are you doing? Lev: I'm going outside. A.J.: You're going outside? Lev: I AM THE ONLY CERTIFIED ASTRONAUT HERE, AND I AM SAVING YOUR AMERICAN ASS! Bear: (after Lev leaves) Yeah. You listen to him. Right.
And who could forget this little gem.
Rockhound: (sitting astride the nuclear bomb and humming the William Tell Overture to himself) YEE-HAW! RIDE 'EM COWBOY! YIPPIE KAI OH KAI YAY! Sharp: (gawking) GET OFF. THE NUCLEAR. WARHEAD. Rockhound: I was doing that guy, from that movie, you know, Slim Pickens? Where he rides it all the way in, the nuclear warhead?
Harry: You got any more bullets in that gun, Sharp?
During the tense "drawing straws" scene, we cut to all of the characters' faces, and then Lev looks at the straw he has drawn.
"...Is this good, or bad?"
Lev, the Russian Hero, has this to say to bitchy prima-donna astronauts who disrespect the man who had kept Mir running for the past eighteen months.Alone.
Lev Andropov: Amerrrrican compoooonents, Russian compoooonents, all made inTAIWAN!
And when the cowboy starts to panic, the cosmonaut then proceeds to repair the state-of-the-art spacecraft she couldn't.
Harry asks the guys where Grace went off to and they automatically respond "with A.J." and then remember that Harry doesn't want them together and try to retract the statement...badly.
The sequence of NASA trying to round up the guys, particularly, "COME AND GET PAPA BEAR!"
The team's "requests" before agreeing to go on the mission. Particularly the very last one:
Harry: Yeah, uh, one more thing, uh...none of them wanna...pay taxes again. Ever. (chuckles, shrugs)
Grace's chat with her father about growing up with roughnecks.
Grace Stamper: First time I got my period, Rock had to take me into Tai-Pei for Tampax. And then he had to show me how to use them, Harry.
[off Harry's stern look] Rockhound: Ho-ho. I ju- No I-I told her how to use it. I didn't show her, Harry.
"So we're going swimming on this asteroid? Is that what this is for?"
