Farscape/Funny
- In the episode "Suns and Lovers," a religious fanatic stows away on the ship, using herself as a homing beacon for a space storm (don't ask.) She also happens to be stuck to a bulkhead, and is nondetachable in that state. Crichton, upon finding her, is completely unfazed, and while walking away notes that the bulkhead she is attached to is detachable. In a completely out of character moment, Pilot is shown cackling maniacally as he ejects her into space.
- Pilot doesn't get to entertain himself very often; He savors it when he can, man.
- In a largely dark and depressing season finale, Farscape gives us this moment; following an attack by a psychotic Leviathan, power has gone out all over Moya, leaving Aeryn to perform repairs on her Prowler in the dark and without power tools. Her only available assistant is Jool AKA She of the Sonic Scream. As if things couldn't get any worse for Aeryn, Jool is dispensing unwanted advice as she is trying to concentrate.
Jool: In the short time I've known you, you've changed so much. Don't go backwards. Assassinating people? Seems like going backwards. |
- The climax of "Throne For A Loss," in which Crichton has to convince a gang of mercenaries that holding Rygel hostage is pointless.
Crichton: Look, Rygel is an obnoxious gas bag and who's gonna shell out for that? |
- And upon Crichton's success:
Crichton: Where's the you-know-what? |
- Finally, Crichton ending his day by collapsing... and landing on Rygel.
- "Crackers Don't Matter." The parts of this episode that aren't Nightmare Fuel are hilarious, particularly when Crichton's getting prepared to fight the Monster of the Week. This begins with having a chunky green substance smeared over his face:
Crichton: What the hell is this? |
- The conclusion to this segment: Crichton is now dressed in a pair of goggles that have been soaked in Zhaan's puke, a cloak made of light-reflecting tarpaulin, and a tyre-sized cloaking device hanging from his neck. For additional protection, he has been given D'Argo's qualta blade and a shield made from a section of Aeryn's prowler. There is a pause, and then Crichton, humming "The Ride Of The Valkyries," strikes a Heroic Pose: without changing her expression, Aeryn remarks,
Aeryn: We are going to die. |
- Everyone's a bit off their rockers, but John starts hallucinating a hilarious version of Scorpius.
Crichton: They don't get how crazy they are. |
- "Nobody... has margaritas... with pizza."
- Neeyala's breakdown when Zhaan blames her for everything that went wrong. So far Neeyala had been polite and calm even when threatened with a gun, but she just lost it -
Neeyala: What I have done? It is you who have destroyed my life's endeavour whilst I have suffered your probing, your confusions and your smell! Do you not think that my bristles contain enough poison to dispatch you all? Yet, when I fail to overload what are clearly inferior intellects with a drist of needless information, you bring weapons to bear! Kill me if you will; see how you fare on your own! |
- Aeryn being disarmed in the background during the Peacekeeper Wars. By the time they'd finished it looked like they'd taken half her bodyweight in concealed weaponry.
- And in A Clockwork Nebari, Crichton has just been given a very thorough mind-cleansing that is apparently supposed to deprive him of negative emotions, and wanders into Pilot's den in a daze:
Pilot: If you've also come to tell me what a wonderful thing the Nebari are doing for you, I am not interested! |
- Later on in the same episode, Crichton goes looking for a less-than-cooperative Rygel in one of the cargo holds- holding a very large metal pole:
Crichton: Oh Ryyyyyygel? Where are you my little huskyyyy? I have a stick for youuuu! (He whistles loudly) Where are ya booooooy? |
- And Crichton pretending that the mind-cleansing was still working. Five words: New Age Retro Hippie, man.
Varla: What are you doing? |
- And in the same episode, Rygel had the following line:
Rygel: I am nobody's puppet! |
- From Won't Be Fooled Again, in which such moments are myriad:
Crais: [wearing police uniform and red high-heels] Freeze! You're under arrest. You have the right to the remains of a silent attorney! If you cannot afford one, tough noogies!. You can make one phone call, I recommend "Tracy", 976-555-LOVE. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you? Well do you, punk?! |
- The funniest part? Crichton brings it up in the comic, causing Aeryn much confusion.
- From the same, a scene with D'Argo and Crichton, together in a car.
D'Argo/Gary Regal: (speaking in a suspiciously high voice)John, I really need to just unburden myself on you. |
- The entire episode is this trope, but these two moments arguably take the cake.
- This troper's favorite line of the episode is:
Zhaan/Dr. Kaminski: I can wear a freudian slip. |
- YMMV, but Rygel's sudden appearance framed by Crichton's legs and wearing the gimp suit had his troper literally rolling on the floor.
- All the animated parts of "Revenging Angel": D'Argo is turned into a Butt Monkey,Aeryn does impressions,and what Crichton does with and to Harvey... *splorfle*.
- Best part is when Cartoon-Aeryn is flipping through various pop culture women for Crichton's amusement. When John takes it too far (asking her to be Sharon Stone from Basic Instinct) she turns into a finger-waving Nancy Reagan:
Aeryn/Nancy: (With "Hail To The Chief" playing in the background) Johnny, just say... |
- Crichton and Scorpius' Shut UP, Hannibal / Shut Up, Kirk exchange from the end.
Crichton: I don't want to be like other people. I don't want to be like you. I don't want to stoop that low, Kirk wouldn't stoop that low. |
- "Unrealised Reality" gave us a funny and tension-easing moment after Crichton is trapped in a pocket dimension maintained by godlike aliens from another dimension and comes face to face with their well-dressed and black-eyed time-warping representative, Einstein:
Crichton: (Wearily) Nice threads. Helps to humanize you. Makes it easier for me to sympathize with your problems. |
- In part II of the episode "Look At The Princess," Crichton is about to be frozen into a statue for 80 years. D'Argo gives him a good news/bad news pep talk just before the freezing process:
Crichton: Alright, gimme the bad news first. |
- Sikozu at her snarkiest: "As stupid as you must think them, the Scarrans have managed to build one of the most extensive empires in the galaxy, in part - and I shall repeat this because it does not seem to sink in - by not advertising the location of their secret bases."
- Scorpius used as an invincible human shield, and Crichton acknowledging the Foe Yay:
Crichton: That's a damn nice set of body armor, does that come in blue? What the hell did you do when you left the fatherland? Steal the goose that lays the golden egg? |
- This troper hasn't seen the episode from this, but there is a monster on board Moya and John manages to get it out by going "Baaa" and taunting it. The highlight of this? Chrichton advertising his BUTT as "Grade A PRIME AMERICAN BEEF!!!"
- Actually, this was another Leviathan (Elack), on which Crichton spent some time alone (not counting Elack's Pilot and DRD 1812), as we learn in the said episode, "Crichton Kicks".
- In the same episode:
Crichton (to the bad guys): NOH! PAV'HOR! HERRUCH'T! |
- Season 1, episode 6, "Thank God It's Friday... Again." After meeting the local leader on Sykar, Aeryn has a very interesting comment.
Aeryn: She gives me a woody. (Looks at an obviously disturbed Crichton.) What? It's a human saying. You say it all the time. When you don't trust someone or when you feel uncomfortable with a situation. |
- Then again, the difference between a woody and a willy is only a matter of degree.
- Aeryn's bright comment on a bad guy saying that John is insane. "I know, isn't it fun?"
- No mention of "Thanks for Sharing?" Moya and company are seeking a medicinal compound for leviathans, and find a planet whose ruler is dying. The ruler's son has given the heroes no shortage of trouble and Crichton has finally had enough. He and D'argo storm the palace and exact a little justice:
Crichton: Hey! You been screwin' me from the beginning! |
- In the same episode, the royal family employs a type of vaguely crustacean-looking alien symbiont as a living lie detector that, when placed on the head of an interrogation subject, will pick up on brain waves and kill them if they're not telling the truth (it does this by jamming a big, nasty-looking spiked tail right between their eyes). To get the king to believe him, Crichton, who is currently one of two copies of himself - the other copy was the one who committed the crimes of which this copy is being accused, so he can say he didn't do anything wrong and technically not be lying, walks over to the tank, picks the critter up, delivers his testimony followed by "That IS...the truth." and then unleashes a line that had me on the floor laughing.
Crichton: Cross my heart, smack me dead, stick a lobster on my head! |
- HUUUUMAAANSSS! AAAARRREEEEE! SSUUUUUPEEEERRRRRIIIIOOORRRR!!!!!!!!
- From "Coup By Clam":
Doctor: Your problem is that you are not mollusks. |
- At the end of "Self-Inflicted Wounds Part 2":
Jool: Everything I have seen so far is despicable! |
- In "The Ugly Truth," Moya's crew have ended up imprisoned on a "hubcap" suspended above empty space while the Plokavian judges interrogate them. It soon becomes clear that they can't escape:
Zhaan: Where would we go, anyway? |
- When Aeryn returns from her interrogation, Crichton attempts to speak to her without the listening judges suspecting anything:
Crichton: (Passionately) Oh God! I missed you so much! God, I was so worried about you! (whispering) Play along. |
- In the first part of "Self-Inflicted Wounds," Moya ends up colliding with the Pathfinder vessel and tumbling into a wormhole. Understandably, Pilot is having a lot of trouble adapting to the stimuli- allowing for a very funny moment in a pretty dark episode:
Pilot: (bewildered) I don't know what's wrong! I don't know what's happening to us! |
- In the episode "Meltdown," gas leaked by Talyn takes everyone's prevailing traits and dials it up to eleven. Stark as usual tries to save someone by accidentally almost killing everyone and then goes catatonic, Crais becomes even more paranoid and controlling than normal, Rygel begins eating everything in sight (to the point he begs others to stop him), and John and Aeryn become incredibly horny for each other. For instance, when Aeryn enters a room John breaks off mid-sentence and says "Hey, baby, how you doin'?"
- This troper found it especially funny when Crais demanded that Aeryn give him a gun, since he couldn't find his. (He was holding it the entire time.) She laughs at him and walks away.
- "John Quixote." Rygel as The Black Knight.
Crichton: Brave sir knight! I am King Arthur of Camelot! This is my loyal vassal, Patsy! |
- From the same episode, Crichton as Max Headroom turned elevator operator:
Yes, I know, this elevator sucks. My job su-su-sucks. Every day, the same-the same thing: Up. Down. Up. Down-down. Just once, just once, it'd be nice to go- sideways. Just-just... sideways... |
- I find that a lot of the humor comes not necessarily from the lines themselves, but from their delivery. In particular, the two lines that I quote the most:
- From one of the parts of "Liars, Guns, and Money," I believe the first part, John describing Scorpius to Stark:
John: (waving his finger in a circle) Hey, Stark! What's black and white and black and white and black and white? |
- And from "Lava's a Many Splendored Thing," John explains why Rock Beats Laser:
John: Lava. That's like thermal energy. Thermal energy is like kinetic energy. A rock has kinetic energy. Ergo, a rock will work. |
- Oh. My. God. You bring up "Lava's a Many Splendored Thing" and fail to mention Noranti stripping? Evil, nasty troper!
Noranti: I am the flower, you are the bee! I am the pod, you are the pea! I am the target, you are the gun! I am the woman, you are the man!! (tears off top) |
- John's anxiety over being frozen as a statue for eighty years somehow manages to be both hilarious and saddening at once, thanks to the delivery of it:
John: Eighty... Cycles. M-my college loans will be delinquent. I'll miss the strippers on my 100th birthday. I-I'll get a utility bill... for three trillion dollars for a single porch light that I left on AND EVERYBODY I KNOW WILL BE DEAD! [...] Humans do not live as long as Sebaceans, or Hynerians, or Delvians. When I get back, everyone, my Dad, DK, my sisters, Cameron Diaz, Buffy the Vampire Slayer will be dead! |
- Pretty much the whole episode "Out of Their Minds," particularly the early scenes where everyone is just completely freaked out at being in the wrong bodies ("It's the Three freaking Stooges! I'm hitting myself!") and John taking undue advantage of being in Aeryn's body, with Claudia Black's amazing impression of Ben Browder's laugh.
- Scratch N' Sniff. The whole thing is Harpo Does Something Funny.
Pilot: It made him... dance? |
- The part where Crichton wakes up in a window without clothes.
Crichton: (Screams Like a Little Girl) |
- Oh, he's got clothes. Well, fishnets, at least.
- Liars, Guns, and Money: Rygel has finally succeeded in killing Durka, his former Peacekeeper tormentor, and has taken to carrying Durka's head on a pike as a trophy. This comes to a head (no pun intended) in the midst of an argument between Moya's crew and a group of bounty hunters they're hiring to rob the Uncharted Territories' equivalent of a mafia-run bank.
Rorf: What are you doing with that head? |
- As part of a long-running game of Break the Haughty, Jool ends up getting shot in the arm with an arrow in "Different Destinations." Then one of the nurses is kind enough to give her an anasthetic, which she drinks with a very strange bubbling noise. And then...
Jool: At least maybe now I won't die of shock. The bitch just shoved the arrow right through! She- (her eyes roll slightly.) Oh hello... Heska... |
- And later...
Chiana: Keep the comms open. I'm going out to look for them... |
- Also there's the bit with the Western-ish harmonica background music and the gradual pan across to Harvey... who actually is playing the sad song on the harmonica, while wearing |cowboy boots with the word "Andy" written on their soles.
- Most of Kansas with the crew on Earth, in the 80s, misunderstandings including whether sugar is a narcotic, John's younger self losing his virginity to Chiana, and the very limited English they can use from Sesame Street
- In "Die Me Dichotomy," when Diagnosan Tocot- whose language is too complicated for translator microbes- tries to inform Stark he needs to step away from the operating table. Stark, of course, doesn't understand, so the serene and kindly doctor resorts to prodding Stark violently in the chest to get him to move.
- Crichton's deadpan commentary to Tocot's surgery.
(Tocot is about to take a look at his brain) Just be sure he puts the KY on the glove. |
- D'Argo, Stark and Pilot getting stoned on the anaesthetic mist being used on Moya.
Chiana: Pilot, you're high, okay? |
- Jool's That Came Out Wrong moment in "Fractures", when Moya's crew are awaiting the return of Talyn's crew (and they don't yet know that the other Crichton has died):
Jool: (to Crichton) Chiana's right, Aeryn's fine. I'm sure the other you has taken extra good care of her. I mean... all I meant was that I'm sure that he did everything that you would have done if you had been with Aeryn all this time... |
- From the same episode, the moment when the Boolite explodes, splattering Jool and Crais.
(Jool and Crais look at each other, stunned and grossed out) |
- This gem from "Losing Time":
(Pilot is being possessed by Tallip) |
- From the same episode:
D'Argo: Girls, we'll all sit down and watch John. Off we go... |
- Many of the scenes on "Yellow" Moya in "Through the Looking Glass", given that it causes everyone inhabiting this dimension to dissolve into helpless fits of laughter and Rygel to start cracking jokes.
Crichton: I gotta get outta here before I end up like you! |
- In "Look at the Princess: I Do, I Think" Cargn has just finished interrogating Prince Clavor, using his Scarran Heat Probe, before turning his attention to Jenavian, Clavor's fiancée:
Cargn: As I interrogated your loving fiancé, what was going through your delicate little mind? |
- The previous episode, "Look at the Princess: A Kiss is But a Kiss", features this exchange:
Cargn: I don't believe I've had the pleasure. |
- Earlier in the episode, there's D'Argo's dancing. Everyone else is swaying seductively (especially Chiana), but D'Argo? His dancing can best be described as "moshing".
- In "Thanks For Sharing", Crais and Jool's introduction goes very, very badly. Crais, having immediately woken up from a coma, grabs the unfamiliar Jool by the throat, who, in response frantically grabs an enormous syringe, and slams it right into Crais' leg. When Crichton comes to see what all the commotion is about:
Jool: There. I woke him up. (she savagely yanks the syringe out) Now I hope he drops dead. |
- The moment in "We're So Screwed, Part II: Hot to Katratzi" where Chiana finds out - painfully - that Scarrens have Balls of Steel:
Chiana: Let me ask you somethin'. You short-faced Scarrans - you all look alike, y'know? But uh - were you - Were you uh - down- down on the border station? |