Oh boy, ILX! That's where I'm a viking!..?

he also covers "ever see a man say goodbye to a shoe" line in the Hank Scorpio episode and the answer is most satisfying imo

in the new patreon episode of chapo trap house, former simpsons showrunner bill oakley state that the correct interpretation of this line is 'ralph means that sleep is literally where he becomes a viking'

case closed

fake news

Total Viking hunt

Unfortunately the case will only ever be closed by thinking about it for 5 seconds while having at least a vague conception of how the English language or jokes work

he also covers "ever see a man say goodbye to a shoe" line in the Hank Scorpio episode and the answer is most satisfying imo

was it this answer?

It turns out the line was ad-libbed by Dan Castellaneta. BuzzFeed reached out to the voice actor, who responded, “The line was improvised. Albert Brooks always improvised whenever he did the show. That line was a reflexive response to Albert’s improvised line about seeing a man say goodbye to a shoe. I probably thought it was a previous time, but it is funnier if it means he saw it at that moment.”

Yep.

it is satisfying, I agree

Ha, I missed or forgot that line. It's a good one.

I was reminded of this thread tonight and I want to state that anyone who voted “ralph means that sleep is an area in which he excels” is either a simpleton or, more likely and more troublingly, an unrepentant scoundrel.

i try to remember this thread whenever ppl seem (to me) to be going to rather extreme lengths to misunderstand the obvious thrust of simple statements on ilxor.com

it doesnt help but i try, god help me but i do

the root of the problem is that ralph would not know the word or the concept "viking" even literally so both readings are impossible

The problem is that playful subversion of meaning is the soul of linguistic fun but pretending to misunderstand Simpsons jokes isn't that

my problem is better

Perhaps but i am resisting your attempts to delimit Ralph who is apparently functioning at a second grade level

the baby looked at me

In a deleted scene Clancy had taken Ralph to see Erik The Viking but upon realising Ralph was too young for its PG-13 rating they instead saw Uncle Buck. To avoid upsetting Ralph, Clancy convinces Ralph that they are actually watching the former and a few years later Ralph still belives Vikings to be feckless deadbeat cigar chompers from Chicago who you shouldn't really let look after your kids.

Mrs Hoover has clearly left the students watching The History Channel's 'Vikings' while she is absent from the class

WTF? “ralph means that sleep is an area in which he excels”? Who the fuck thinks this shit?

I have never seen this thread before. You people are insane.

i've been an "exceller" since age 13 and i'll be an "exceller" til the day i die

I'm an ex-exceller. Now I think the dream reading is right, but the excel reading was just how it struck my ear when I was really young, and went unchallenged long enough to stick.

My guess as to how this happens is that, given the preceding dialogue, one might anticipate that Ralph will say something to the effect that sleep is an area in which he excels. So when some people hear the line, they start from this anticipated meaning and apply that to what he says, rather than starting from the words and drawing the literal meaning from them.

y'all are bending my wookiee

My guess as to how this happens is that, given the preceding dialogue, one might anticipate that Ralph will say something to the effect that sleep is an area in which he excels. So when some people hear the line, they start from this anticipated meaning and apply that to what he says, rather than starting from the words and drawing the literal meaning from them.

This is partly why the 'dream' interpretation seems much funnier to me: it is more unexpected.

so is he good at sleep?

just the most idiotic fuckin debate

should the fact that this was a decade ago and i thought it was last year make me happy or sad

i miss dayo

yep

me too

Not a dayo goes by...

straight from the horse's mouth:

Yes, again, it's the simplest answer - Ralph dreams of being a Viking.

— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) December 21, 2020

THANK YOU

So he dreams of being excellent at something huh

lol Dan I'm imagining you slamming the table in victory

ilx, where the author is dead, except for simpsons joke arguments!

Now this, this was trolling

the author is not dead, he's just asleep, which is where he is a viking

I was in the room when it was pitched and laughed because I thought it meant he was great at sleeping

— Mike Scully (@scullymike) December 21, 2020

!!!

laughed because I thought it meant he was great at sleeping

before taking this at face value remember, we are dealing here with someone who was the class clown.

Simple: Ralph dreams he's a Viking. Ralph was never written with the ability to understand a complex & obscure metaphor like saying he is a Viking at something, meaning he is great at it. If I knew Scully had misunderstood a joke like that, I would have fired him instantly.

— David Mirkin (@DaveMirkin) December 21, 2020

straight from the horse's mouth:

Wow, ha, I guess that's also now canon! Do you remember who pitched it? Maybe they could say for sure. I think we may have been out of the room writing a script at the time so I have zero authority to weigh in on this, it's just my opinion.

wow settled after all these years

xp you left out where he mentioned mirkin who then posted the tweet i posted just above you

my point was him saying "I was not in the room and my opinion literally means nothing" indicates either that he was not the horse, or that the horsethor is dead

THANK YOU

Let's flog it some more anyway

did we never get this sorted