Silence of the Clams
Posted by Craig Mazin on 20 May 2007 at 11:12 pm | Tagged as: The Craft & Trade
After last week’s wonkfest regarding the WGAw’s foreign levies program, I suspect of number of you passed out from boredom.
Forgiveness, please. Things will continue to get wonky around here as we get closer to negotiations and possible strikes, but that doesn’t mean it’s all doom and gloom.
For instance, this week I’m serving clams.
According to Jane Espenson, clams are one-liners or comic concepts that have gone stale from overuse. Now, that was a new one on me. I knew the term was used in music for a bum note, and for the ultimate usage in that context, one need only review a transcript of just one of Buddy Rich’s infamous rants at his band (in this excerpt, it’s the trombonist getting the brunt).
You’ve got your f–kin’ horn so far deep in the f–kin’ bell, we don’t need to have a band here tonight. You afraid you won’t be heard? Everybody can hear your f–kin’ clams out there. You don’t need a mike for that. You’re takin’ up too much f–kin’ time blowin’ what? Shit!! You stand out here all night tryin’ to blow your f–kin’ brains out… when it comes time to play, what do you play? Clams!! You got nowhere to f–kin’ go tonight the next set because if I hear one f–kin’ clam from anybody, you’ve had it! One clam and this whole f–kin’ band is through…tonight!!
Yeah, Buddy was a real sweetheart.
Anyway, anyone who writes comedy for a living has written a clam, but we all recognize that they’re awful, and so when we’re together in a room, we’re supposed to keep ourselves from using them. In my room, we usually call them “badump bumps,” but I think Jane’s got a better, clammier term.
Here’s a short list I came up with, as well as some additions from friends. Feel free to use the comments section to add your own. As for definitions, I’m pretty lenient. It could be a single line of dialogue, or it could be a setup and payoff.
Maybe if we shine enough light on these things, we can eliminate them from the world.
The Inside Voice: “I’m sorry…did I say that out loud?”
The Freudian Slip: “Hey, Carol, I see you’re wearing some new boobs…I mean boots!”
The “Mr.” Insult: “Oooh, check you out. Mr. Big Man! Mr. Crazy hat-wearing guy!”
The Nutty List: “All I know is I want to eat a steak, get laid, and play some golf…not necessarily in that order.”
Dante’s Clam: “This is the date from hell!”
Albert Hoffman’s Clam: “This is like Ice Capades on acid.”
The Apollo 13: “Houston, we have a problem.”
The Ignored: (as the character is being talked about) “I’m standing right here…”
The Fork-Dropper: “Check please!”
The Optimist: “Well, I thought that went pretty well…”
The Invisible Puke: “I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.”
The Dismissive Segue: “Anyway….” (typically after another character goes off on a long, complicated rant)
The Factory: This is a visual one. Someone gets hurt in a factory, and a worker flips the “Days Since An Accident” sign back to 0.
The Upward-Looking Rejoice: “Thank you, God!”
Okay, now it’s your turn, li’l clamsters. As they come in, I’ll cull and add your contributions here in the main article.
As promised, here are some new ones.
The Circulation: “I can’t feel my legs!”
The Contradiction: in response to a question like “Where were you last night?”, two guys say something like “At the office!”/”Playing golf!”
Someone Called: any form of “Patti LaBelle called. She wants her hairstyle back.”
The Stealthy Insultee: “He’s such a fat, stupid, idiotic–he’s right behind me, isn’t he?”
Excited Confusion: “Mom, Jared Leto is visiting my school tomorrow!” “Oh my God, honey, that is fantastic news!…….Who’s Jared Leto?”
The Translation: “Isn’t my dress great?” “Yes, if by ‘great’ you mean ‘nauseating’.”
The Countdown: “I’m leaving now, and I’m NEVER COMING BACK AGAIN!” The character exits, and a remaining character says “And 5, 4, 3, 2…” At which point the first character re-enters.
The Calculator: “You do the math.”
The Jerry Maguire: “You had me at Idiot” or “You had me at rectal thermometer” or some “comedic” version of “You had me at hello.”
The Thesaurus: “The meteor disintegrated!” “Yeah, and it blew up into a million pieces too!”
The Grocery Store: “Clean up on aisle 3!”
I’ve actually never seen the Factory clam.
The Dead Cheerleader: “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” The Frat Boy: “ha ha ha, he said boobs” The Action Hero: any bad pun after killing someone The Space Pilot: “route the through the !” The Self-Aware: “…but not in a good way” The Post-Modern: “If this was a movie…” The Wimp: “There is no way I’m doing that, and that’s final!”
It almost sounds like I’m writing an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (but in a good way).
Yeah, but Buddy was right. I bet there weren’t any clams that night, either.
How about an entire movie full of clams? Here’s three recent ones:
“The Departed” – Under-written, over-acted and directorless – but you can’t stop people from giving awards when they’re dead set on doing so. Every freakin’ LINE in that waste of innocent film stock was a great big clam, and no pearls to be found anywhere, particularly with all those fine young actors following Saint Jack into the hole he’s been in since Batman, if not before – the man is a bad satire of his early self.
“Dreamgirls” – talk about one-note Sally, and the underutilization of all those talented actors doing their one-dimensional portrayals of what were originally three-dimensional people. Pretty much every scene in the thing – and certainly every set up in the script – was a clam. Sad.
“The Good Shepherd.” Proof of what happens when you have a really great actor trying to direct – actors stand at “A” and see “B”,directors need to stand at “A” and see “Z” (think the way Nicholson butchered “Two Jakes”). Even if you were like me and know the history of the CIA, the thing made no sense (God help the less-aware). And every line was out of every bad spy movie ever made.
Actually, if you want to see clams, just go look at just about any big studio movie made since the studios became widget factories for the mini-minds of Global Corporate World.
Speaking of clams, I am reminded of a great bit done on Saturday Night Live back at least 25 years ago: the scene from “The Birds” where the birds are in the gym bar thingie and they have to walk past them. Only instead of birds it was clams, and the clams chased the actors down the street. The title was “The Clams – a film by Brian DePalma – rated R for Ripoff” Indeed, DePalma is a clam.
comments is seriously messed up, delete my first one, it makes no sense at all with the stuff that got deleted.
May the Farce Be With You : Any Star Wars reference especially “May the Force be with you” said with a loud voice.
Remember the Ugly : A male character talks about a girl in high school that was particulary ugly. When he meets her 15 years later, she looks like a model.
“Qui se ressemble s’assemble” (sorry I didn’t find the english equivalent) : The girlfriend of a nerd / ugly / geek / gothic is always a nerd / ugly / geek / gothic.
Opposing couple : The 40 years old little shy guy wearing glasses and suspenders is married with a big fat woman with large shoulders, taller than him and treating him like a jerk.
The Sitting Fat joke : A fat girl who’s going to sit on guy’s legs, so the guy is suffocating or is making a pain face.
Twist-a-gay : A male character 1 and a heterosexual couple (including male character 2). At a part of the dinner, the woman leaves the room to go to the kitchen. Then, male character 2 reveals to male character 1 that he’s actually gay and is attracted by him.
Oh, I just remembered another one.
The Circulation: “I can’t feel my legs.”
The Drama Queen: Something mildly unlucky happens and the character drops down on his knees, screaming at the top of his lungs: “WHY?” (or “NO!”)
The Screaming House: A character does something which will hurt him for sure, but the outcome is not shown. Instead we see a shot of the house and hear a very loud scream.
The Too-Old Clam: “I’m too old for this sh-t!”
The Hilarious Contradiction.
This is where two characters simultaneously give conflicting answers to a question, typically because they’re covering something up.
So a wife might ask her husband, as he arrives home late with his best friend, ‘Where the fuck were you guys?’
And the husband instantly replies,’At the office!’ while his friend blurts out, ‘Playing golf!’
And the two guys then go on a long rambling account about how they were playing golf at the office.
Meanwhile, the viewer knows all along that the two guys spent the afternoon locked in a hotel room snorting coke off a hooker’s chest.
The Hilarious Contradiction is a clam that has survived more or less unchanged since prehistoric times. And I mention it only because it was used in an episode of Andy Barker PI, written , in part, by…..Jane Espensen.
I’m not sure I’m buying into this. I think there are bad clams (the kind you spit down into the subway tracks) and good clams (the kind you eat with linguini).
Over the weekend, I watched a Curb Your Enthusiasm with a classic The Freudian Slip clam. Larry is playing the game telephone with a bunch of 9 year olds and as he announces the message, a huge breasted waitress bends over — flashing him the Grand Canyon of cleavage. Larry says “I love tits” instead of “I love pigs.”
The fallout from the clam was incredibly funny — Susie Essman ripped him a new one, his wife gets po’d — you know, the usual. But funny.
Is it still a clam if its funny?
Staggering infront of a hot chick.
Staggering infront of a hot chick.
Pop culture clam :
wants his back.
Hey. On May 1 you said There is one and only one *funny name in the ZAZ pantheon (and I include SM3 and SM4 in that). First person to name it gets a nod of recognition.* Any followup?
After insulting someone: “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?” And sure enough, he certainly is.
Bonus points if the person being insulted is an authority figure.
I agree with Alfie on the prevalence of Star Wars clams. They’re especially common in the world of TV animation (my world), where rare is the series that doesn’t have the ripest clam of them all — “Main Character, I am your father.” This is often followed by the lesser clam of the main character looking skyward and shouting “Noooo!”
Full disclosure: I recently used “The Inside Voice” is a spec Earl and now hate myself.
Buddy Rich tirade was great.
Who drew that clam for you, Craig?
The Buddy Rich tirade was great.
Who drew that clam for you?
These responses are great.
I’ll add this one:
Excited Confusion -
Daughter: Mom, did you hear? Jane Smith is coming to speak at my school!
Mother: That’s wonderful honey. (Pause) Who’s Jane Smith?
The out-of-character victory arm pump – specifically when executed by a child (Home Alone?) or an old person when putting one over a young person. For some reason this specific clam is particularly gag-inducing to me.
The Inside Voice: I’m sorry�did I say that out loud?
Am I one big clam?
(Meeting continues . . . .)
If I may say so, you’re wrong and you’re stupid for saying that.
What an asshole.
The meeting stops in stunned silence. It’s what everyone has been thinking, but no one had the balls to say.
Did I say that out loud?
Yes. This meeting happened. And yes, I did use The Inside Voice Clam I am now a bad line in a movie.
The Ethnic Rebuttal: Talk to the hand!!
The Ethnic Question: Oh No, You D’int!
Action Movie Confirmation: That’s what I’m talkin’ about!
Bad Morning: Look’s like someone woke up on the wrong side of the…(insert bed, coffin, or something that relates to the story)
Old as Shit: Speaker 1 says, “In my day we didn’t have…(insert just about anything), and Speaker 2 quips, “In your day they didn’t even have…(insert fire, Jesus, or the wheel).
The Self-Aware: “but not in a good way?
This leads right into Back-Handed Clam, where Bob points out Bill’s flaws and adds “not in a bad way.”
The Clam Landing, after an object (or character) falls off screen, you would always hear a cat screech when it hit. Now thanks to modern technology you always hear a car alarm go off.
And of course these still make it into movies and people still laugh at them.
The “I got it all on tape” Good guy has recorded the bad buy in the act holds up the evidence and says “I got it all on tape.” Bad guy grabs the tape and runs away. Cue Benny Hill music.
The “You forgot my birthday” Sitcom plot in which the main character can’t believe everybody forgot his birthday only to realize they had been planning him a surprise party all along. Should have been retired in 1982 but crops up every few years. This year on Earl and a few years ago on Bernie Mac. Even worse than the “Locked in a freezer” or “evil twin” episodes.
“Wordplay sarcasm” as in “If by (insert word previously uttered by other character) you mean (insert sarcastic retort)”
And (I know one of Craig’s favorites) the “One guy in the crowd stands up and claps for the underdog hero starting a tidal wave of approval.”
“The bad poker player.” as in “Look I have all red cards.” or girlfriend looks at guys hand “Hey look at all those A’s.”
Yeah, I agree. There are some clam storylines that just have to go.
Oddly enough, the last 10 episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip had them all. From the episode of being trapped somewhere with a potential love interest…
To the episode of breaking a date with a potential love interest–and inexplicably not telling them why considering the reason is usually pretty noble–and then the love interest goes to the same event and sees you with another woman…
To the episode of the zany episode where an animal is on the loose…
Dear God…that was all the same episode.
“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
I wasn’t sure if this one quite fit the bill, but then I heard it three separate times today while flipping through the movie channels.
The Not Knot: “Clams are cool…not!”
“No way!” “Yes way!”
“One guy in the crowd stands up and claps for the underdog hero starting a tidal wave of approval.”
Spoofed in “Not Another Teen Movie”, by the way.
That’s not the only movie where “one guy starts a crowd clap” has been spoofed. I’d say that spoofing this particular clam has become a clam in and of itself.
If all these clams suddenly went away, the only joke left on TV would be Larry King.
Badump bump.
RED
The “Sounds like a sneeze.” As in: “what’s the capital of Somalia?” “Mogadishu” “Gesundheit.” The “Countdown to the character knowing something he or she could only know because the writer wanted them to.” Example: Character 1 “And I’m never coming back here again.” Leaves, slams door. Character 2 “In, 5,4,3,2,1… Character 1 returns: “and another thing!” (the preceding brought to you from the Bonnie Franklin school of comedy)
Has this one been said? The lowest form of comedy of all…
“You do the math.”
As in: Craig likes Princeton. Melissa likes Tigers. You do the math.
Clams-diggers, that’s the worse . . .
Clam-diggers are those directors, producers, creative execs who believe they’re fluent in funny but don’t really speak the language without a guidebook . . .
They don’t get the references to Twain or the Bolsheiviks in your very funny spec and keep digging and digging at the fine, beautiful beach that is your script until it is positively littered with nothing but clams.
They say things like, “Well sure, WE think that’s funny, but no one else will get it,” and “Gilligan WHO?”
and
“You know what we should do instead? Have the black secretary say something funny like, ‘Oh NO you DIDN’T,’ or the gay assistant say ‘You GO, girl’, something funny like that . . . WAIT! Maybe we need a kid who’s a real smartass, that’s always funny!”
Craig and company, y’all probably don’t have to deal with shit like that in the rarified air of superstar screenwriting, but clam-diggers can be the bane of a spec-monkey’s existance . . .
I should add, a clam-digger’s response to this post would be, “Buddy Rich? Who’s that? A drummer? Can’t it be someone like, Tommy Lee? He’s a drummer people really know. And can we maybe make him bitch about downloaded porn, how it’s wrong, something funny like that?”
Not to be contrary, but I’m not sure why the term “clam” needs to be coined for stale jokes. Doesn’t “cliche” already cover it?
cliche is such a cliche, clam is the new spam . . .
Great contributions, everybody. I don’t think anyone’s thrown down this one yet:
Calm Down For Fifteen Seconds And Then Tell Me Why You’re Hysterical
A character runs breathlessly into the room to deliver urgent news. The other character orders him to stop, relax, take a deep breath, and then say what he came in to say. Then comes the news, “Your car’s being towed!” or “The gorilla escaped!” or something else of a time-sensitive nature that causes the second character to shout “Why didn’t you say something?!”
It should make all of us clam-shuckers feel a little better to know that “The Larry Sanders Show” used this particular mollusk on one of its funniest episodes. Even the best writers in TV history are clammable.
Mr. Dotdotdot – As in: “Excuse me, Mr. ‘I never drive off with the wrong grandchild’”!
“Nuh-huh!” “Yuh-huh” back and forth.
Mispoken Ethnic Camaraderie:
“What’s up, home slick?”
Or a girl being introduced to a hot guy:
Him: Hi. Her: Hot…I mean, hi!
Or the clamato:
“God, I swear I’ll never…” drink again, have sex again, etc… and then the person does the exact same thing over again.
The TMI – someone going on and on into unnecessary graphic detail about something, and then the person they’re talking to responding with “Waaay too much information there!”
The Locker Room Gang Rape:
Rectum? Damn near killed him!
or howabout
The Locker Room Gang Rape:
The guy staggers to his feet, wipes his bloodied nose and says, “Is that all you got?”
And then 10 more smiling football players walk into the shower.
Here are some sitcom clams that really annoy me.
The Compromising position – Man is in a compromising (but innocent) position with a woman when his wife walks in. The man says: “It’s not what you think.” This is my most hated clam and extends well beyond comedy.
The Misunderstanding – Two characters think the wrong thing about each other, but their inability to communicate keeps them apart until the end of the story. “All this time I thought you didn’t like me, but it turns out that I just have chronic halitosis!”
[b]The “Don’t try the Clams” Clam[/b]
After his date has a big crying freakout in a restaurant, his date turns to the shocked onlookers and says “don’t try the clams.”
The Wacky Assortment of Items:
New roommate shows up and all he has is a hula girl clock, a swordfish, and a plastic bag full of underpants.
Uh-oh! This guy is wacky! Who knows what sort of wacky craziness he’ll be up to?
F@cking crap. Craig, edit my post for bold, and change the second “his date” to “a guy.”
Then delete this post.
Then make comments editable.
Here’s a non-comic clam that drives me nuts — just watched it again in a very recent DVD release that was otherwise great.
The Time To Die – The hero gets shot, but the wound barely affects him until he saves the victim/ vanquishes the bad guy, no matter how long it takes, at which point he keels over dead. The even worse version is:
The Oops! Forgot to Die – We (and the other characters) don’t even realize the hero’s been shot until after he’s won the battle, at which point he reveals the wound and drops dead.
(Note: 1982 science fiction films get a mulligan on this one.)
How’s about people who are attempting to speak spanish and they add “o” to the end of EVERY word. Kind of overdone.
Nicole
How about getting stuck in the elevator with the love interest/enemy/advice-giver? I’ve seen it numerous times in sitcoms and movies.
…Then make comments editable.
It’s called the “Preview” button; look into it.
-Clam Advice
The Darwin Defying Stupidity Clam
This is a character who through no fault of his own is still alive. This goes beyond Homer Simpson and Inspector Cluseaux. This is a character who repeatedly choses the dumbest possible outcome. For example, he sees a sign that reads “Danger High Voltage” and he walks up and grabs the wires but through some series of coincidences he doesn’t get shocked.
Can’t resist…
The self-depreciating-self-referencing writer: Guy: “I love you more than life itself.” Girl: “That was really corny.” Guy: “I’m sorry, that’s all I can think of right now!” (or some form of it)
Guilty as charged.
The “was funny the first time, but enough already” clam
NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT…
(I mean, really, how many times are we going to hear that? You didn’t write it? Don’t use it!)
These newfangled coffees the kids are into
Anytime a character is confused/angered by the sizes at a modern Starbucks-style coffee place. “I don’t want a ‘Grande,’ I want a ‘Medium,’ damn it!”
The Will Smith Thunderclap: Aww hell n’all!
The Confused Intimidator
In this sequence, a pip squeek is getting his ass kicked by a much larger bully. Still defiant, he stands with his fists raised only to see the bully’s eyes widen in fear and then the bully turns tail and runs away. The camera pans back to reveal four of the pip squeeks biker uncles have showed up.
This or other variations of it have been done to death.
“N’all?”
Craig:
Okay, I have a good one for you. This clam is one of the biggest clams of all.
There’s Absolutely No Way I’m…: A character exclaims, “There’s absolutely no way I’m going to–(some sort of event), and then CUT TO the said event with that same character saying, “Okay, but this is the last time.”
Voice of Reason Clam:
Character A (to the group): We need to get to the main entrance; then we can escape.
Character B (to A): Let me handle this. (to the group): We need to get to the main entrance; then we can escape.
The guys in a car sing along to an inappropriately girly song clam
See White Chicks, Lets Go To Prison, Harold and Kumar et al (actually in the case of White Chicks…don’t).
The ‘I though they spoke English in this country’
TOMMY McBRIT: Strike a light guv’nor, we’ll take the apple and pears.
TONY YANKEE: Huh? I thought they spoke…
All Shrek movies are the worst effing offenders. Which is a bummer because my kids are just starting to understand this humor and they think it’s super duper.
Once you get clams on the brain, you start spotting them EVERYwhere.
All Shrek movies are the worst effing offenders. Which is a bummer because my kids are just starting to understand this humor and they think it’s super duper.
Well, to quote NBC regarding reruns, if you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you.
All Shrek movies are the worst effing offenders. Which is a bummer because my kids are just starting to understand this humor and they think it?s super duper.
Well, to quote NBC regarding reruns, if you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you.
sorry, dupe.
The Dating Clams. What should I wear??! Character is shown in front of a mirror trying on a 100 different outfits before a date. The Blind Date (same concept for the job interview candidate clam – especially for a nanny position)- a montage of undesirable, wacky, inappropriate people.
The ‘You had me at hello’ clam:
You had me at hello.
Give me a break, I couldn’t think of a clever title for this overchewed mollusk.
The Caesar: E tu, Brute?
The “Hero accidentally knocks over a long line of Harleys in front of a dusty roadhouse” clam. Often followed by the “Hardcore bikers pour out of the roadhouse but aren’t fast enough to catch him so they throw their bandanas to the ground in frustration” clam.
Point of Order: What about the clams that work, i. e. the jokes that kill over and over, year after year, somehow managing to never go stale?
Craig,
Glad to see you back to doing what you do best.
I think it is best for me and others interesting in silly conspiracy stuff to take the conversation elsewhere. Thankfully there are a lot of interesting Screenwriter forums out there. Sorry if we bothered you.
Have fun with your clam bake!
JF
Craig,
Glad to see you back to doing what you do best.
I think it is best for me and others interested in silly conspiracy stuff to take the conversation elsewhere. Thankfully there are a lot of interesting Screenwriter forums out there. Sorry if we bothered you.
Have fun with your clam bake!
I’ll have fun with mine.
JF
The Gilligan Theasuarus as in: Skipper: The Meteor! It disintigrated! Gilligan: Not only that, it blew up into a million pieces! or Hawkeye: Radar, you look pensive. Radar: No, I was just thinking.
The denial that’s not a denial as in: “Here he is, my best friend and flaming homosexual… I’m just kidding. He’s not my best friend.”
It’s so nice for me to have found this blog of yours, it’s so interesting. I sure hope and wish that you take courage enough to pay me a visit in my PALAVROSSAVRVS REX!, and plus get some surprise. My blog is also so cool! Off course be free to comment as you wish.
How do you say “clam” in Portuguese?
Writer: “The WGA fucked me out $10,000 of Foriegn Levies!”
Other Writer: “But they fuck everyone.”
Writer: “Yeah, but for $10,000 they could have at least sent me some flowers!”
The Wrong Day Clam:
(As all hell breaks loose) “I picked the wrong day to quit smoking.”
This one was steamed to perfection in “Airplane!” Lloyd Bridges, I believe.
The “Is that an Eagle?” Clam:
Guy gets a glass of lemonade with a fly in it /tobasco sauce/ whatever that he doesn’t want to drink, but must for some reason. He points into space and says “Hey, what’s that?” while flicking the contents of the glass away while the server is distracted.
The “Child Genius” Clam:
Out of nowhere, a small child produces an incredibly detailed, insightful scientific analysis of a situation, producing an incredulous reaction from the nearest adult.
HOMOPHOBIC/GENDER BENDING CLAM
MACHO GUY 1: I have a great date tonight. MACHO GUY 2: What’s his name?
AGEISM CLAM
Upon seeing a hot girl, OLDER GUY says to second OLDER GUY “You are old enough to be her dad……’s young pal.”
COMPARISON CLAM
“What did you do this weekend?” “I played a round of golf with a coed. I scored a hole in one.” “How was the golf?”
The one where Milton Berle dies and the undertaker discovers he was as incredibly endowed as rumored, and since it’s closed-casket, he removes the organ and takes it home to show his wife, who screams, “Oh my God, Milton’s dead!”
I’ve seen this on every damn sitcom since The Brady Bunch, and I’m sick to death of it.
The Grocery Store
Cleanup in aisle [x]!
The squeaky voice, revolted at something clam:
Eeeeeewwww!
The PERSON WHO WON’T LISTEN clam
A: I need to talk to you, it’s important! B: You’ll never guess what happened to me today, I was wlaking down the street… A: Listen, it’s really important! B: And I bumped into old what’s-his-name… A: But listen to me! B: And he told me that so-and-so has been banging what’s-her-name…. A: Please stop talking, I have vital information! B: And with the daughter as well, anyway, got to go, bye!
B leaves. A stands there looking apprehensive about what the possible outcome of not being able to pass on the information could be. For this clam, see every episode of every British soap opera ever written.
The “Bad Feeling” Clam
I’ve got a bad feeling about this!
Friends
As much as I love Friends didn’t it basically subsit on a diet of pure clam? i.e.
The Chandler Clam This suit is SOOOO not going to get me laid
The Phoebe ClamDidn’t you ever have that thing where…[relates an experience only she could have, to wide-eyed incomprehension from the others]
The Joey ClamGuest character eplains something intellectually intricate to Joey at a social gathering. Joey nods vigorously whilst eating, then turns to Ross in wide-eyed panic when guest’s back is turned
Or maybe none of these ever happened and I just think they did because the indelible characters could only behave this way in these situations. And maybe that’s good comedy writing?
Sorry about the typos in that last posting. My quality control centres have been lobotomized by drink.
Not sure if this one has been said yet, as there are so many, but…
The Dictionary Clam:
If you look up …(insert word here)… in the dictionary, then you’ll find a picture of you.
or, as used in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang:
Character A: If you look up …(insert workd here)… in the dictionary you’ll find –
Character B: A picture of me?
Character A: No. The definition of …(insert word here)…, which you are.
Note how all of these have been used on FRIENDS… and none on SEINFELD.
The Timetable: “I remember it like it was yesterday…” “That was yesterday.”
The Mute-Character Double Clam
Version a) A character says nothing the entire film/episode and then when he finally does speak at the end it is something deeply meaningful and insightful – a la silent bob.
Version b) A (male) silent character eventually does speak and turns out to have a comically high voice.
I’ve got a feeling this one has been mentioned but I can’t seem to see it:
The no-no clam.
“You aren’t planing on ditching us are you?” “Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no… yes. Sorry.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you.” – “Don’t believe a word.”
“Oh my God!” – “Just call me Stan.”
The Whitey-With-No-Rhythm Clam: White person dances, very badly. Then the African-American person says: “Don’t EVER do that again!”
But white people do dance badly. Ask Craig to dance to some hip-hop, sit back, and laugh.
I think white people dance fine. It’s just that black people dance really really really well.
I was watching the documentary Rize the other night. Damn.
The Chyron: Freeze frame on a character’s face upon first introduction CHYRON: Bob Dempserson, Professional Douchebag.
One more that just crossed the line for me:
The Perky Boy: When a male character pretends to lick his fingers and then makes little circles around his own nipples (with or without a shirt on).
Lest we not forget the worst and MOST overused:
The Refusal: “No I’m not going to the prom! FINAL!” Next scene is character at the prom…or any variation of the “No I’m not…”
I love (something). Then why don’t you marry it?
Do you know (something)? No, but I have a feeling you are going to tell me.
I submit that some of the clams cited were funny… the first time they were used. Many others were lame from the get-go.
To the above list, let me add “I guess you had to be there.” Some guy launches into a manic explanation – usually fabricated – of why he was late, to his stern and obviously disbelieving wife (who stands, always, with arms crossed). When he realizes that she’s not buying a word of it, he trails off, only to finish with “I guess you had to be there.” A clam if there ever was one.
One that gets me is when someone is talking to someone who clearly has their mind on something else. As the person talks, they realise that the other person is not listening, and starts to say more and more outlandish things, to which the person not listening says “oh that’s nice, honey” or similar.