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

DJP won this argument years ago

"Oh boy, sleeping! That's where I'm murdery and rapey!"

― Marriage, that's where I'm a Viking! (HI DERE), Wednesday, April 28, 2010 12:58 PM bookmarkflaglink

@ GD - once again, refusing to engage with the substance of exceller arguments and instead insisting that they are either arguing in bad faith, or at least surely would be, in some parallel universe. this all feels like "i'm not trolling, YOU'RE the troll" projection to me.

"no other jokes are given this treatment," directly after a thoughtful and interesting post about giving another joke this treatment

Huh? I understand all your arguments. Your interpretation is still wrong.

That person who thought it was a mispronounciation of "school" is WRONG. His/her interpretation is not just as valid as the correct one. You want to totally redefine what a joke is because you interpreted one incorrectly.

There's been over 1000 posts engaging with this inanity plus the joke writer clearing things up so forgive me for not engaging to your ego's liking at this juncture

Burns: Stop everything!I don't remember writing a check for bowling.}
Smithers: Uh, Sir, that's a check for your _boweling_.
Burns: Oh, yes. That's very important.
Smithers: Yes, Sir. Remember that month you didn't do it?
Burns: Yes...that was unpleasant for all concerned. Anyway, back to the checks. Stop everything! I don't remember writing a check for bowling.

did anyone else have the official Simpsons episode guide book from the 90s that included a transcript of the above scene but replaced "Remember that month you didn't do it" with "Remember that monkey didn't do it"

btw I'm one of those people that misinterpreted the joke as funny as "lol he mispronounced school" since I didn't know about the practice of 'shul', but once I learned that, I adjusted my interpretation of why it was funny to understand he actually meant shul.

Your argument is "but what is a joke anyway? Who's to say whose punchline is correct" which is some postmodern bullshit created to assuage your ego

what is joke
baby don't tell me

Huh? I understand all your arguments. Your interpretation is still wrong.

That person who thought it was a mispronounciation of "school" is WRONG. His/her interpretation is not just as valid as the correct one. You want to totally redefine what a joke is because you interpreted one incorrectly.

I myself am a "dreamer" with regard to ol' Ralph's relationship with the Norse people, so maybe I am just trolling, but I am compelled to ask what you mean by "WRONG" here, GD. It is a somewhat uneasy experience but please consider stepping over the cliff of humor being one of the artistic categories where the value and experience of a piece of art is not confined to author intent

Vikings conquer. being a Viking at sleep = conquering sleep.

aka he wants immortality

Ralph is a highlander

no no he wears an apnea machine that resembles viking horns, that's what he meant obv

Wrong=not the intended punchline. Just because people stumbled upon an alternate hamfisted interpretation that both makes sense and is funny to them doesn't mean that all interpretations are equally "right".

"please consider stepping over the cliff"
Why should I? That's not how jokes work. Esp this one. Stop acting like this is fucking dostoeyvsky or Picasso.

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1476/6986/articles/6-Reasons-To-Love-Your-CPAP-Machine_1024x1024.jpg?v=1601315803

And as I've said I think writer's intent here helps to dismiss the excel option, even before actual confirmation from the writer: a joke that 75% of ppl think is incomprehensible is just not going to be pitched at a show like the simpsons, let alone make it thru multiple rewrites. It demonstrates a failure to view things from anything other than your own ie the audience's perspective.

Like, it happened to turn out that 25% of ppl immediately thought being a viking=excelling at something but no writer in their right mind would EXPECT that from an audience. And if he/she did, fellow writers would set it straight.

https://i.imgur.com/6WYDfgG.jpg

thank you Camaraderie at Arms Length, that was what I was going for :)

I mean, that's what Josh Weinstein was going for. Obviously.

and 6 hours later the revive is Worth It

If Hendrix said he sung "scuse me while I kiss the guy" yet you STILL insist "scuse me while I kiss this guy" is equally valid, you have a problem with admitting you were mistaken

feel like we're missing a rich opportunity for eleven years of ontological interpretation & debate rh

it's funny tho, as an "exceller," i've always been able to understand and accept that the "dreamers" hear the joke a different way and think it's funny! i ask only that the same courtesy be extended in our direction.

Tbf, this is what your position became after we heard from the writers. It used to be this:

I am the general population! This is the default, obvious reading of this joke! You "dream" believers are maniacs clinging to an unsustainable, over-stretched, non-joke.

― Doctor Casino, mardi 27 avril 2010 12:29 (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

sleep, that's where I'm inconsistent!

though tbf I've posted in praise of a song and said I'd always loved it only to find out I shit on 11 years ago so i'm sure if you took the magnifying glass etc etc

It's the most literal interpretation - he likes to dream he's a viking. If you have to think too much about what a line is referring to, it's almost always the most likely interpretation that's right

That said I think people should be able to laugh at a line for whatever reason!
— Josh Weinstein (@Joshstrangehill) September 25, 2021

― Long enough attention span for a Stephen Bissette blu-ray extra (aldo), Monday, September 27, 2021 2:05 AM bookmarkflaglink

aldo v much the dude in the mafia movies that quietly throws the match and walks away as the building explodes

it has been reinterpreted by nerds to mean that Ralph excels at sleep, and describes himself as a "viking" in that field.

Most often used by Dungeons and Dragons nerds to describe a particularly high stat.
"Roll for Reflex, you say? That's where I'm a viking!"

aldo v much the dude in the mafia movies that quietly throws the match and walks away as the building explodes

― Gardyloominati (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 28 September 2021 14:21 (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

My fiendish plan exposed.

Seriously though, I saw the writer had weighed in and thought it might finally provide some clarity. Instead I feel like I'm in a Facebook group with boomers sharing globehead memes.

*care react*

lol DJP

i just find it funny that a debate that exploded 11 years ago and has largely stayed dormant for years suddenly got rocket fuel.

think a case study is needed.

In the early days of MST3K I laughed at all the jokes that I didn't actually get, many of which were incomprehensible to 75% of the audience. In those scenarios I would always pick up on something that would get me anyway- like the delivery, or the juxtaposition, or the discrepancy otherwise between the energy of the riffers vs. the overly serious actors. I may have misunderstood or had no idea, but my enjoyment was valid even if my understanding of the intended joke wasn't.

If a misunderstanding of a joke leads to an absurdity that works for you, that's great. It's why Mad Libs is a thing. The takeaway doesn't really matter if it lands (and doesn't conflict with the plot or something).

but i thought the original purpose of this thread (beyond causing a hilarious, Sneetches-esque clusterfuck) was to determine what was the actual proper meaning of the joke? yeah, people lobbied for 'respect' for their view of the joke, but I feel like both groups wanted theirs accepted as canonical statement and that's where the friction is.

and in that lens, I'm team Granny

yeah, i think one interesting thing about yesterday's variation on this discussion is the idea that jokes/humor, for some observers, occupy this kind of functionalist space, where hearing it differently than intended means something incorrect is being done, and someone doing this needs to admit they're doing it wrong and stop. and i have no problem thinking about many activities this way - like, if you're trying to get an elevator to go up by whispering to the buttons "please, go up," you're obviously using an elevator wrong.

but this doesn't really hold up with jokes for me, even if i bought fully into this functionalist standpoint, since i think of the function as "laughter" rather than "laughter, but it only counts if it followed this particular intended mental path." if you laugh at the joke, you got what you came for. whereas the elevator user would indeed seem a dope if they posted about how valid their method was, even as they grew more frustrated with its failure. the people hearing a joke differently - whether Ralph's, or "schul," or an MST3k reference they don't fully "get," have no frustration to complain about. the function is fulfilled!

if jokes are to be understood functionally (rather than more open-endedly, like literature), i think they should be still filed with other kinds of everyday tools or practices that have looser "correct uses." like, ten people could buy the same weekly planner and have totally different ways of filling it in and using it to stay on top of things (or using it as a journal, or only filling in birthdays), and all ten could be very satisfied with their use of this tool. there are all kinds of little crafty or practical things we do around the apartment that are neither the "intended" nor an "incorrect" way of using the tool.

xpost i think the most basic purpose of the thread was just to see: how many people actually hear it one way versus the other? because it was being much discussed elsewhere on the internet, and this would be a way to put some numbers on how common the two hearings are.

but i think the way most of us engaged was to kind of treat it, in sport, as if it were a really important issue to which we'd bring our weightiest arguments and most overblown rhetorical moves. like, because it was so obviously trivial and impossible to actually settle, there was a kind of play in tackling it as a matter of life and death. but maybe there was more heat than i remember? it's been a long time and even that kind of "play" is way less interesting to me now, which might account for the friction between me and GD, if they're seeking to "play" in that manner and i'm not anymore?

STOP IT JUST STOP IT

― kinder, Wednesday, October 10, 2012 1:41 PM (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

"where hearing it differently than intended means something incorrect is being done, and someone doing this needs to admit they're doing it wrong and stop."

You're reading too much into it. I have no problem with someone finding different humor in jokes than what was intended. Laughing is good! Why on earth would I want someone to stop doing it? But objectively, interpretations can be wrong. Trying to force jokes into this postmodern "but what is truth? What is a joke even?" space rather than just admitting you didn't interpret it the way it was intended is ridiculous.

I have never denied that I interpret the joke differently than the way that that writer says he intended it! I just don't think the author's intention is very important or interesting!

And again, I find it hard to believe that if Weinstein was an excel-er you'd go down this "all interpretations are equally correct" path and being dismissive of creator's intent

"I am the general population! This is the default, obvious reading of this joke! You "dream" believers are maniacs clinging to an unsustainable, over-stretched, non-joke.
"

JOAN CRAWFORD LOVES CHACHI WHERE R U

That's pretty narcissistic isn't it? "My reaction is the only important thing. Who cares what the artist intended!" I find them both (audience reaction and artist's intention)interesting and important!

""Dream" theory just doesn't make sense.

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, April 27, 2010 10:02 AM (eleven years ago)"

the way most of us engaged was to kind of treat it, in sport, as if it were a really important issue to which we'd bring our weightiest arguments and most overblown rhetorical moves. like, because it was so obviously trivial and impossible to actually settle, there was a kind of play in tackling it as a matter of life and death.

OMG the dress is blue and gold, how can anyone say differently, am I being gaslighted, etc

YANNY

I think it's a dream, also I think they should stop making superhero movies and cats should be allowed outside at night and Koko the gorilla never learned a language.

I fall firmly on the side of “he dreams he’s a Viking” but it’s starting to feel a little gross, like we are attempting to impose our hegemony on the unwilling. Like, clearly some of us are doubling down in the face of any and all logical arguments, but if this is the hill they want to die on, I say they should be allowed to live on their weird hill in peace.

Fwiw, I think the author's thoughts on their own work and their intentions should carry some weight with songs, poems, novels, etc, as well as jokes, though they don't completely limit them. (Fun fact: the word "intention" never appears in La mort de l'auteur.) I also think this line was kind of random and absurd in a way that makes it easy to hear different ways or even just as quasi-gibberish where the character himself may not have really known what he meant. That said, hearing it as a weirdly phrased literal statement that belies confusion about how dreams work seems much funnier and more clever to me than a made-up macho synonym for 'badass', and also seems to be what the writer had in mind.

"dental plan...lisa needs braces" is clearly suggesting that Homer uses mnemonic devices to remember important facts

I have always been on Team Dream, but have to admit that Team Excel is a better joke

but yes, also cannot fathom why people are agitated about it, especially after more than a decade, but guess that's all part of the, well, not exactly fun, but whatever it is.