Thanks to my teenage daughter’s newfound love of cringe comedy like ‘The Office’ and ‘Parks and Recreation’, I’ve been thinking about the comedic potential of the awkward silence. The silence after Woody screams that Buzz is a toy is nearly as funny as the response (“You are a sad, strange little man. And you have my pity.”) Or the moment where Mal Reynolds snarls to his disobedient muscle, “You want to run this ship?” only to unexpectedly hear “Yes.” “Well… ya can’t!” is funny, but it wouldn’t be nearly as much without Mal’s utterly taken aback pause, leading to today’s staccato query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) can’t remember which Daffy Duck cartoon it is, but has always found hilarity in Daffy reacting with complete silence and a flat “Uhh…. yeah”, asking: What’s the BEST awkward moment in all of pop culture?
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I don’t know about the best, but recent ones that have stuck with me are from Guardians of the Galaxy when Drax just flat out explains everything that’s going on without any subtlety.
There’s this picture you can find of Donald Duck coming across some wild ducks a third of his size. He just stares at them without comment.