I mentioned this in passing the other day, and then saw someone else mention it (also in passing), so I figured I’d better turn it into a post. I’ve talked before about “clams,” or jokes that aren’t jokes — standard lines that are inserted into scripts in lieu of original jokes. You know the kind: “That went well,” “Who are you and what have you done with [name of character who’s acting strangely].” But what I haven’t mentioned much is that at least some of these clams were developed as replacements for, or even subversions of, other clams. Then they became more hackneyed than the jokes they were intended to replace.
I mentioned this in passing the other day, and then saw someone else mention it (also in passing), so I figured I’d better turn it into a post. I’ve talked before about “clams,” or jokes that aren’t jokes — standard lines that are inserted into scripts in lieu of original jokes. You know the kind: “That went well,” “Who are you and what have you done with [name of character who’s acting strangely].” But what I haven’t mentioned much is that at least some of these clams were developed as replacements for, or even subversions of, other clams. Then they became more hackneyed than the jokes they were intended to replace.
The ultimate example of this is a line you all have heard in at least one TV show, “he’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?” (Or “she.”) Through much of the ’90s and ’00s this may have been the single worst cliché in TV comedy writing, given that not only did writers use the same joke, but the literal exact same phrase. It was infuriating because you knew these were professional writers who could come up with a different way of saying it if they wanted to, but they didn’t want to. And the fact that it happened on good and bad shows alike — it’s been on Red Dwarf and Dr. Who and other shows that can’t be dismissed as hack work — was even more frustrating; you couldn’t escape it even on good shows.
But that line was actually a reaction against a comedy writing cliché. Sitcom episodes will often call for a scene where someone is talking smack about another character, not realizing that that character is in the room. Eventually, the audience learned to expect that whenever a character started criticizing someone who wasn’t there, the criticize-ee would pick that moment to enter and stand behind the criticize-er. So, at some point, writers started thinking it would be a fun twist to have the character realize — without turning around or hearing the other person speak — that “he’s standing right behind me.” It was different from the old punchlines (like having the person sarcastically comment on what’s just been said about him, or just saying “hello” and making the criticizer jump), and it had a slight hint of meta-humour in it because the character almost seemed to realize that this is destined to happen when he starts saying bad things about a co-star.
Then, of course, everybody used it so often that viewers started groaning when they heard it, and it fell into the category of easy jokes that aren’t really funny (and that can’t convey character because virtually every kind of TV character has said it at one time or another). So shows have recently started moving back toward older ways of handing the gag, like bringing back sarcastic comments or nervous gestures from the person being talked to. But some shows still do it, and I don’t think we’ll ever get rid of this one completely; like “I said good day!” it’s part of the Clam lexicon.
Are there any other jokes that started out as avoidance of cliché, and wound up becoming even bigger clichés than the ones they tried to supplant?