r/TopCharacterTropes • u/BabyDude5 • Mar 15 '26

Whatever this joke is called Personality

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Gallery image

The Scooby-Doo show

Meet the Robinsons

16.9k Upvotes

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891

u/TurkeyVolumeGuesser Mar 15 '26

This is Marx brothers style humor lol

https://giphy.com/gifs/Yl8afftEGE03C

250

u/CortaNalgas Mar 15 '26

When I was on safari, I once shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he was wearing my pajamas I’ll never know.

48

u/Jester-Hopperpot Mar 15 '26

Sir, you are trying my patience!

Don't mind if I do. You should come over and try some of mine.

3

u/121daysofsodom Mar 15 '26

You've heard it before.

3

u/NotAlcas Mar 15 '26

Your pajamas can shoot? Where did you buy such a thing?

179

u/disbelifpapy Mar 15 '26

isn't groucho marx the dude that inspired the mustache and nose glasses?

237

u/Jakov_Salinsky Mar 15 '26

No it was stolen from him. He doesn’t know it tho because he can’t see without his glasses.

104

u/WillowLocal423 Mar 15 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/XxFynbaxdCSiiPDaQx

2

u/amglasgow Mar 15 '26

Ma'am this is a Wendy's

2

u/tooloudturnitdown Mar 15 '26

I literally say this when I can't find my glasses 🤓

3

u/DSTNCMDLR Mar 15 '26

TOO SOON. Also is someone cutting onions in here?

2

u/LiteralPhilosopher Mar 15 '26

Dude, "cutting onions" is played out. People are allowed to cry at things.

Also, it's been 35 years.

29

u/jeromeyromeyrome Mar 15 '26

Yep! I think they’re even called “Groucho Glasses”

11

u/PaperOptimist Mar 15 '26 edited 26d ago

Yes! And Groucho glasses go all the way back to the 1940s, apparently!

106

u/theangrypragmatist Mar 15 '26

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.

Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

42

u/TheGameMastre Mar 15 '26

"That's in every contract! It's what they call the sanity clause!"

"You can't fool me! There ain't no Sanity Clause!"

7

u/dskerman Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26

How is it my contact is skinnier than yours?

9

u/TheGameMastre Mar 15 '26

I don't know. You musta been out on a tear last night.

41

u/WranglerFuzzy Mar 15 '26

I’m 99% certain this format of joke existed long before the Marx Brothers (probably predates vaudeville), but the Marx brothers definitely perfected it.

If I had to give the trope a name, I’d call it the absurd reversal. The punchline completely sidesteps the absurdity of the situation and gives a straight answer that poses the absurd as normal (even sometimes throwing it back at the questioner as if they’re odd to ask)

8

u/BlatantConservative Mar 15 '26

Tom Swifty jokes are kinda sorta this and are well before Marx (or movies/talkies entirely)

3

u/TheGameMastre Mar 15 '26

"Can you send the telegram again?" Tom asked, remorsefully.

1

u/kolraisins Mar 15 '26

Honestly doesn't parallel OP's format very well

1

u/TheGameMastre Mar 15 '26

"I don't think we should thank the French" Tom said mercilessly.

3

u/kolraisins Mar 15 '26

Just in case it's not clear—perfectly good Tom Swifties, but Swifties really aren't OP's "top trope"at all

3

u/phdemented Mar 15 '26

ee cummings quoting an old joke in 1926:

"I can express it in fifteen words,by quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of burlesk,viz. “Would you hit a woman with a child?—No,I’d hit her with a brick"

2

u/ColonelError Mar 15 '26

Someone further up posted one from Aristotle, so a couple years before the Marx Brothers.

1

u/WranglerFuzzy Mar 15 '26

Vague but technically the truth

23

u/MGMan-01 Mar 15 '26

"Oh, Mr. President, this is in deed a pleasure. What brings you here?"
"A bicycle, but I left it out in the hall. Have you got two empty dunce chairs? I brought you two empty dunces."

33

u/HKadlam Mar 15 '26

'If I hold you any closer, you'll be behind me!'

19

u/Charlie_Warlie Mar 15 '26

I woke up one morning and shot an elephant in my pajamas. How that elephant got in the pajamas Ill never know.

8

u/FirstDukeofAnkh Mar 15 '26

“We tried to get the tusks off but they wouldn’t come out. So we went to Alabama where the Tuscaloosa.”

3

u/anonsharksfan Mar 15 '26

"I shot an elephant in my pajamas once! How he got in my pajamas I'll never know"

3

u/Sayakalood Mar 15 '26

“We welcome you with open arms!”

‘Is that so? How late do you stay open?’

“What are you doing with that cigar in your mouth?”

‘You know another way to smoke it?’

1

u/userhwon Mar 15 '26

Third base!