Armed Farces: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Simply put, military humor, [[Love It or Hate It]]. This particular brand of funny centers on stereotypically dim-witted military personnel, asshole officers, and naive recruits.

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' includes some military farce, even if it's only to contrast the difference between the real military and the Nadesico's crew of [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|oddball civilian contractors.]]

 

== Comic Books ==

* ''[[Sad Sack]]''.

* ''[[PVT Murphy's Law]]''

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]''

* ''No Time for Sergeants'' presents an Air Force take on the genre

* ''[[The Wackiest Ship In The Army]].''

* ''[[Operation Petticoat]]'' about a pink submarine.

* ''Buck Privates'', starring [[Abbott and Costello]].

* ''I Was a Male War Bride'', a [[Very Loosely Based on a True Story]] 1949 film with [[Cary Grant]] as a French army captain who ends up [[Disguised in Drag]] as a U.S. army nurse in order to accompany his U.S. Women's Army Corps wife back to America after [[World War II]]. (This was because the Pentagon had only anticipated war brides, not war grooms.)

 

== Literature ==

* ''Captain Fatso'' was just one a series of little remembered but once popular navy farces written by Rear Admiral Daniel V. Gallery.

* ''The Ship With the Flat Tire''

** His ''[[Flashman]]'' series is a good example of the wartime kind, featuring a [[Dirty Coward]] [[Designated Hero]] as the protagonist and replete with [[Black Comedy]] throughout.

* Hašek’s classic satire ''[[The Good Soldier Svejk]]'' is about the lunatic ineptitude of the Austro-Hungarian Army in [[WW 1]] seen through the eyes of the cunning peasant soldier Svejk.

* [[Evelyn Waugh|Evelyn Waugh's]] [[Sword of Honour]] trilogy is a story of a man who trains to be an [[Super Soldier|elite commando]] in [[World War Two]]... and spends almost the entire war dealing with pointless bureaucratic red tape and farcical incompetence. Only once in the entire war does he actually even see a [[Those Wacky Nazis|German soldier]] with his own two eyes, and that is an indication that he has gotten hopelessly lost and accidentally gone too far toward enemy lines. This series was [[Real Life Writes the Plot|based on Waugh's own experience]] as a Royal Marine during the war, during which he participated in several military actions... all of which were incompetently-managed and utterly ineffective fiascoes.

* A section specifically made for military humor has always been a tradition for ''Reader's Digest'' magazine.

 

* ''[[F Troop]]''

* ''[[McHales Navy]]''

* ''[[The Army Game]]''

* ''[[The Phil Silvers Show]]''

* ''[[Major Dad]]'' inevitably included some miliary farce (as you would expect from the title) though the true focus was on [[Domestic Comedy]].

* ''C.P.O. Sharkey'' with [[Don Rickles]].

* ''At Ease'', a short-lived '80s sitcom starring Jimmie Walker of ''[[Good Times]]'' fame.

* ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]''

 

== Radio ==

* ''[[The Navy Lark]]''

 

== Video Games ==

** ''Team Fortress 2'' in general, really. As opposed to a typical realistic military [[First-Person Shooter]], everything uses a cartoony style and the different playable classes are larger-than-life humorous personalities.

 

* ''[[Crew Dogs]]'': Similar to ''[[Air Force Blues]]'', a comic about a squadron of [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|Bunny Ears Aviators]].

* ''[[Terminal Lance]]'', a comic based on enlisted Marine life ([[Tagline|You can't spell "Disgruntled" without "Grunt"!]])

 

== Web Original ==

* ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'' practically ''embodies'' this trope.

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Private Snafu]]'', a series of [["Faux To" Guide|army "training" films]] made during [[WW 2]].

* The ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'' episode "In The Army".

* The ''[[Futurama]]'' episodes "War Is The H-Word" and "When Aliens Attack". Indeed, any episode centered on Zapp Brannigan will have some elements of this.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]

[[Category:Just for Pun]]