Jive Turkey: Difference between revisions

* Played for laughs in a few 1970s ''Avengers'' stories; after [[the Falcon]] grudgingly joins the team on the orders of [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|Henry Gyrich]] (who wanted to make it more ethnically diverse), he speaks this way on purpose to annoy Gyrich.

* John Stewart's first appearance in ''[[Green Lantern]]'' #87.

* A lot of Vaughn Bode's characters talk like this.

'''A random lizard:''' But, is I down an out?! Not on yer life!...Dis is one little lizard dat got spunk an heart...Things can't get any worse. }}

* Anytime [[Jack Chick]] tries to relate to a black audience, it turns out like this. It's like the man learned all he knows about black people from watching [[Good Times]].

== Fanfiction ==

* In [[The Shoebox Project]], Sirius does this to Remus at the opening of Part 23.

'''Remus:''' Something is wrong with your brain. }}

* Devin from Total Drama School speaks almost entirely in jive.

** Sam's mother in Transformers 1 spoke of giving her dog jewelery by painfully claiming that she was "giving him some bling"; though in all probability, the audience was ''supposed'' to be laughing at her and not with her.

* Basher Tarr in ''Ocean's 11'' delivers several lines in an impenetrable mix of Cockney rhyming slang and technical jargon. Examples include:

'''Basher:''' Trouble! }}

** For the record, you'd have a lot of trouble finding anyone English who actually talks like that. Unless they're being played by [[Fake Brit|Dick Van Dyke]].

* In ''The Limey'', Terence Stamp's character occasionally speaks a bit of Cockney slang, forcing him to repeat himself and explain the word.

** At one point, after a particularly grievous monologue:

* Parodied in ''[[Semi Pro]]'' when Will Arnett's character [[Berserk Button|goes nuts]] during a poker game when he is called a "jive turkey''.

* Seen in ''Better Off Dead'', when Lane's father is trying to use slang, but gets the prepositions all wrong, resulting in gems like "Mellow off", "Bringing me over", and "Right off!". Made worse, perhaps in that he's reading these phrases from a book ''about'' how to talk to teenagers.

* There's actually a film '''called''' ''[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074715/ Jive Turkey]''. As you might imagine, it's full of this trope.

* Subverted in (original) ''[[V]]'' with Elias Taylor talking in jive and his respectable brother, Benjamin, who talks in perfectly erudite English, tells to stop using such bad grammar in a "poor man's Richard Pryor act."

* In the ''[[QI]]'' episode "Cockneys", Stephen announces that "any flamencos you give in Pyong score Barney, and I'll also give you two Sundays..." before Alan Davies, a Essex native, asks him "What the fuck are you talking about?"

'''Stephen:''' It was all I could think of! }}

* Parodied in ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' with the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rKYL0tW-Ek RAF Banter] sketch, where none of the pilots or officers can understand a word of what the others are saying. Made all the funnier by the characters seeming to be aware of the problem but helpless to do anything about it:

'''Squadron Leader''': Banter's not the same if you say it slower, Squiffy. }}

* ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' introduced a concept called "Revertigo" where, when people who knew each other in the past are reunited, they start talking and acting the way they did when they knew each other. Cue Lily and her high school friend Michelle suddenly speaking in [[Jive Turkey]] whenever they're in a room together.

* On the US version of ''[[The Office]]'', Darryl is fond of pranking Michael by making up ridiculous "black man phrases" to teach him.

* The local beat cops Hoppy and Smitty on ''[[Sanford and Son]]''. Hoppy, the whitest of white guys, would try to speak jive and get it wrong, or would deliver a line of copspeak with a gratuitous big word or two for good measure causing Fred and everyone else to give him a blank look and then turn to Smitty for a translation.

Hoppy :" Uh, right, split!" }}

* Parodied in an episode of [[Community]]. The main characters are playing a video game designed by a [dead] old racist. One level has Jive Turkeys as enemies.

== Web Original ==

* Chaka sometimes does this in the ''[[Whateley Universe]]'', mostly to bug rich-white-kid Phase.

'''Fey:''' (''looks up from her book'') What is it with you when Ayla comes over? You were being perfectly normal just two seconds ago. }}

* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'': Robute Guilleman from ''[[PRIMARCHS]]''. The other characters find him very annoying.

== Western Animation ==

* In ''[[Sealab 2021]]'', Hesh is sometimes used this way for laughs.

** When Quinn is re-purposed into a ''[[Shaft]]''-esque spinoff

* Foxxy Love on ''[[Drawn Together]]''; as stated by her voice actress, she's "10% bullshit, 90% jive."

* Parodied in the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "Time Keeps on Slippin?", where the future Harlem Globetrotters speak and act in a way that's half Jive Turkey and half [[Mad Scientist]]. They also hold a news conference to announce that Prof. Farnsworth is a "Jive Sucker". Additionally it has a parody of a [[Salt and Pepper]] pair of cops with a robot who frequently talks like this after the end of a sentence. Awwww, yeah.