I am a firm believer in the theory that some jokes simply require repetition, that they’re not only funnier that way but that they may not be funny at all without it. The best running gag will always go past the point of being funny, then come back around, as with the many names of David Ryder on the ‘Space Mutiny’ episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. At the point where they hit us with “Bob Johnson”, I though we couldn’t get any funnier, but we built and built until the perfect synthesis of absurdity hit us in the form of “Blast Hardcheese”, leading to today’s pseudonymous query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) seriously wants to know, are we not doing phrasing anymore, asking: What’s your favorite pop culture running gag?
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To paraphrase Joe Piscopo in 1984’s Johnny Dangerously:
“Don’t ask me for my favorite running gag. My mother asked me for my favorite running gag once… ONCE.”
Beast Wars, Rattrap’s “We’re all gonna die…”
In the early seasons of the current Transformers: Robots in Disguise: Bumblebee’s attempt to replace “Transform and Roll Out!” with his own battle cry.
The almost constant insistence that the medical problems on “House” is Lupus, eventually showing that House stashes drugs in a Lupus book because it is NEVER Lupus.
And of course, “Hi-Keeba!”
Pretty much everything in Phineas and Ferb.