Last night, I was reading a discussion about which John Cusack film was his funniest. At the time, I argued that it was this movie (Better Off Dead). Now, it's been years since I watched it, so I was lucky to discover that someone had uploaded it to YouTube. After watching it again, and although I laughed heartily at a few things, it was more uneven than I'd remembered. (I was also unimpressed with Cusack's performance, since he all but raced through his lines.)
However, there was one really subtle joke that made me laugh very hard. It's one of those jokes that comes at a time when you don't expect it; a blink-and-you'll-miss-it joke.
For Christmas, Lane's mom gives his dad an aardvark coat. As she flips the hoodie, which is designed to look like an aardvark's head (ears and all) into place, she reassures him that this gift is sure to be the most popular gift this Christmas. Later, as the father escorts the mother outside to show her the garage door where he had replaced all of the broken windows the paperboy has shattered, Lane botches a suicide attempt and reverses his car through the door, destroying it. As the parents survey the damage, the camera pans over to the neighbor, who has looked on for several weird events in the movie, and he's dressed in the exact same aardvark outfit.
I adore that kind of left-field humor. I'd love to hear other examples of weird, out of place jokes that nonetheless tickled your funny bone.
Here's the scene:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aANsVptwrLw
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Reply by rooprect
on December 22, 2021 at 8:35 PM
To me the whole movie was full of bizarre gags like that, almost Airplane-esque humor. Surreal, out of place jokes, totally without context but hilarious. How about "Now that's a real shame when folks be throwin away a perfectly good white boy like that."