Father walked towards me slowly, brandishing a straight-edge razor. His maniacal grin and bulging PJs made me feel jittery.
“This is gonna hurt me more than it’s gonna hurt you, Joey.”
“B-but I d-don't like that game, Father. P-please...” I blurted out. Shit. The girly tremor in my voice only proved what a little fucking pussy I was.
“But I don't like that game father please! But I don't like that game father please!” Father mimicked in falsetto, making me cry harder. His boner got even bigger as he began to slice my face up with the razor. I felt bad it was hurting him so much, so I caved in and we played Big Boggle until Mother got home.
Date Written: April 1, 2005 Author:Jon Matza Average Vote: 3.4167
04/7/2005Ewan Snow: Yeah, why did you rip yourself off?
04/7/2005qualcomm: lemme tell you, guy: i'd never use the phrase "maniacal grin." how dare you?
04/7/2005Mr. Pony: Seems to me that calling ripoff was a bit silly in most cases when there were just a thousand shorts on the site. 'Course, we don't really have to get into that now, especially if the ripoff qualcomm's calling is as incidental and inconsequential as it seems to be.
04/7/2005John Slocum: Sure, you never used 'maniacal grin,' but you always use 'B-but'!! (ie. gotcha!)
04/7/2005Trite: I have feelings, you know.
04/7/2005qualcomm: now look here, pony. both shorts use "game" as a metaphor/euphemism. then both shorts punchline with it turning out to be a board game. a hasbro board game, in each case.
04/7/2005Ewan Snow: Well, there are two questions: 1) Is there a close similarity? and 2) Is "calling rip-off" silly? Yes and Yes. I mean, you're aware of its silliness and call rip-off self consciously at this point. But that doesn't make the similarity and less real. Right?
04/7/2005Mr. Pony: So wait, you're saying that the whole thing with the razor and the boner and the cutting was all actually part of the Boggle game? I think I've been playing it wrong!
04/7/2005Ewan Snow: I think you're reading wrong, pony.
04/7/2005qualcomm: ewan: right! pony: i'm saying the razor was a coercive tactic to get the kid to play boggle, and the boner was a result of father's excitement over an imminent boggle game.
04/7/2005The Rid: Ugh.
04/7/2005John Slocum: this is going to be the most exciting betvite short ever!!! Anyone could have written this.
04/7/2005John Slocum (4): something a bit less than 4 rounded up to four for brevity and because I've been laughing all week at the title in the queue. Also, this is pretty well done.
04/7/2005John Slocum: Taking this short and qualcomm's as having the same punchline idea, in which forum does it work better, this one (family violence, family sex), or qualcomm's (samuel clemens creepiness)?
04/7/2005Ewan Snow: I think qualcomm's is a more efficient form of the joke. This one has some funny details, though, like the "bulging PJs". I forgot that qualcomm short, but I guess I remembered it "subconsciously", which is maybe why I thought he wrote it. Also the Father/Son thing.
04/7/2005Mr. Pony: qualcomm: No, no, I understood the short. I was interpreting the short through the lens of your ripoff explanation (10:45:43 AM) in order to point out the differences between the two shorts. Crafty, isn't it; using your own words against you like that? As for the Hasbro thing, though, I agree with you.
04/7/2005Ewan Snow: Yeah, you really used those words against him, pony. If only your post had made sense it would have totally crushed him.
04/7/2005qualcomm: pony: of course there are differences in the short. when i say "bit of a ripoff," that means that certain parts of the short have been done before. (bit). it does not mean that every single thing in the short is exactly the same as the prior one. in such a case, i would say something like, "this is plagiarized!"
04/7/2005John Slocum: In qualcomm's, there's something a tad flimsy in the logic of the joke. It works only on the first read. On second read, knowing where it's going, one wonders why the narrator is proclaiming that it isn't a game, since it is a game. The joke rests a bit weakly on the idea of someone taking a game so seriously they think it's not a game. Then thinking back, one wonders why it was funny. Was it funny? Or was that a trick of the imagination?
04/7/2005Mr. Pony: qualcomm: Well, I get that, and I wasn't trying to suggest that you were saying that. I think the core of your short, the actual joke, is that the two fellows were playing monopoly the whole time. I'm not misreading that, right? I guess what I was saying is that the joke here, in this short, the joke, the actual humor, is notably different. I think there are similarities in the details, but the reason a theoretical reader would laugh at this is different from the reason the same theoretical reader would laugh at your short. Therefore, while some of the trappings may be the same, I feel the structure & architecture of the joke is pretty different. Dylan: Good, we can compare numbers later.
04/7/2005Ewan Snow: Pony: the joke is identical. The word "game" seems to be used metaphorically, then the surprise/punchline is that it is an actual board game. The fact that they are structured differently and that this short has a bit more going on, doesn't change the fact the "game" joke is identical. The Buyer: send me your numbers at the end of the day. James K. Polk, please post smug little asides to me and whisper to me behind pony and dylan's back.
04/7/2005James K. Polk: Don't worry, Ewan. I've been counting all morning. Let's meet at the obelisk for our usual snickering session. Cool?
04/7/2005John Slocum: Is obelisk a euphemism for something else?
04/7/2005James K. Polk: Yes. Ewan knows what I'm talking about. Right, Ewan?
04/7/2005Ewan Snow: That's right. It's our little secret. It makes us feel good.
04/7/2005scoop: It seems to me that jokes are different but use popular games as props. In fledspar/lerpa/ ol' summer sausage/qualcomm's verison the joke is people playing a game but taking it seriously. In today's short, the joke seems more to be the surprise that little Joey is not in fact going to be violently rodgered by his father. Instead his dread stems from having to play a stupid game.
04/7/2005Ewan Snow: I'd agree with that distinction. But I think the "game" thing isn't just a prop, exactly. A joke can be identified by the combination of what it gets the audience to assume and what it later reveals to be the case. In both jokes the assumption is that "game" is being used as a metaphor, and the revelation is that it's being used literally. While this is not the only joke in each (other things are wrongly assumed such as the violent rodgering), it is one joke, and it's the same.
04/7/2005Dylan Danko: I can't tell you how good I feel.
04/7/2005scoop: Perhaps, Danko, you could tell us in terms of Jamesons, with one Jameson equaling five cubits of happiness.
04/7/2005Mr. Pony: I think you're right, scoop, and I think without the similarity in props, the (arguable/questionable) similarity in the actual jokes might have gone unnoticed; not that I think qualcomm was terribly serious in his calling of ripoff. One kind of weird thing: "The girly tremor in my voice only proved what a little fucking pussy I was."
04/7/2005Mr. Pony: I've often wondered what a unit of happiness was called!
04/7/2005Klause Muppet (4): I haven't read qualcomm's short yet. Sooo... Well done, Author! Very original!
04/7/2005Jon Matza (4): Also a ripoff of the qc short in the sense that it contains jokes. Eh, Disney?
04/7/2005qualcomm: i would just as jealously defend your shorts against infringements on matzaisms. i wouldn't die for them, but i'd be like, ripoff. it just so happens that i have to cry ripoff of my own material more often, since my oeuvre is, for acme, the equivalent of the king james bible, homer and shakespeare all rolled into one (as opposed to the decidedly narrower, yet totally admirable and in no way inferior, patch of earth to which you've staked claim). i won't fight it anymore -- use it, my brainchildren, use my rich, expansive body of work, which informs your very thought-dreams like memories of pregnant spiders taken from tyrell's niece and implanted in rachael's artificial mind. use it, acme, take my limbs, for i am your giving tree (which shel silverstein ripped off from me), your mother, your sire... the very fucking soil from which you sprout. farewell for now, and fuck you all.
04/7/2005Jon Matza: Quitter
04/7/2005Dylan Danko: I'm swooning
04/7/2005Ewan Snow: Hey author, I think this short is pretty funny, by the way. And just cuz it has a specific joke that's been used before doesn't mean it's a rip-off. It obviously wasn't intentional, and it works well in this short. Besides, I think the "game" joke was not original to qualcomm anyway. It's an old one, isn't it? Anyway, good short.
04/7/2005TheBuyer (4): goddamn, do I ever love the word 'boner'. boner.
04/7/2005TheBuyer: Mr. Snow, I missed that earlier comment, will do.
04/7/2005scoop: What is this, your farewell speech, qc?
04/7/2005Dylan Danko: Ewan, thanks for the link to that Frankenstone rant. Hadn't read it in a while. One of the truly amusing things about it is the number of times he repeats himself.
04/7/2005Ewan Snow: I didn't really re-read the whole thing. But I did notice the line "I'm your worst enemy. A good writer who's bored at work."
04/7/2005Dylan Danko: yes, me too! I was just about to post it.
04/7/2005Litcube: I like the hard-hitting introduction: "Ehhhh...".
04/7/2005Litcube (4):
04/7/2005scoop (4):
04/7/2005qualcomm (3):
04/7/2005Mr. Pony (3):
04/7/2005Partytime (3):
04/7/2005The Rid (2):
04/7/2005Jawbreaker (3):
04/7/2005Phony Millions (3):
04/8/2005John Slocum: Matza!
04/8/2005Litcube: No fuckin' way. Matza?
04/8/2005Jon Matza: That's right, you shit-vote-with-no-explanation-giving bottom feeders.
04/8/2005Ewan Snow: I laughed.
04/9/2005John Slocum: I wish I were a bottom feeder.