I Don't Get Them Jokes..

[Joel007]

Good point, pTerry's books are some of the few I don't even read reviews about before buying.

 

[DarkBunni]

I read it because it's silly, and ridiculous, and ludicrous, and funny, and because it's heartfelt, and insightful, and moving, and just plain brilliant.

*nods furiously* RIGHT ON!

 

[Morpork46]

I have another question: In Interesting times I read "Everyone had expected him to become a tsimo wrestler, but he’d failed the intelligence test because he hadn’t eaten the table."
Could that mean "because he hadn’t eaten the vegetable"?
Or are tsimo wrestlers (obviously referring to Sumo-Wrestlers) supposed to so be that tough they even eat the tables?

 

[Pyan]

... supposed to so be that tough they even eat the tables?

Not tough exactly, but they're supposed to be so ravenous because of their size that they'll eat everything associated with food including the table it's served on.

Welcome to the Chrons, by the way! Why not nip over to the Introductions thread and tell us a bit about yourself? Don't worry, we won't bite!

 

[Neil]

When the first disk world books came out there was a bulletin board on the Internet version 0.9 the went through just about every line - it was like a school Shakespeare book with the words on the right side of the page and the explanation on the left. I wonder if that still exists?

 

[Alex The G and T]

The Annotated Pratchett File v9.0 - Index ?

The Color of Magic. 1983. My, my. but that was an early version of an ARPANET BBS.

 

[Neil]

Yea - that's about it. The Turtle really does move!

If I had something that would read 135MB Syquest EZ disks I'd probably find v1.0 of that website stored somewhere on one.

 

[Paul_C]

I think that they are in (large) parts silly and ridiculous, but are throughout well-written and far more insightful and human than a lot of the dross passing itself off as 'Literature'. I guess though there's a difference in writing the whole thing off as just silly, as opposed to embracing the silliness.

I mean, come on, what's not silly about Nobby Nobbs? Or a nation called Llamedos? Or a vampire photojournalist?

Some gags are far better if you get the reference - I assume Llamedos is a nod to the village of Llareggub in Under Milk Wood.

The joke towards the end of Soul Music was both the finest, and worst of TP's IMHO and I laughed (and cried) for a good minute when I read it, but if you have no knowledge of the Kirsty MacColl song then it means very little.

 

[The Ace]

Some gags are far better if you get the reference - I assume Llamedos is a nod to the village of Llareggub in Under Milk Wood.

The joke towards the end of Soul Music was both the finest, and worst of TP's IMHO and I laughed (and cried) for a good minute when I read it, but if you have no knowledge of the Kirsty MacColl song then it means very little.

(My bold) It was.

I just wonder how many non-Scots got the, "Scone of Stone," reference. While more commonly known as the, "Stone of Destiny," it was kept at Scone (just outside Perth) for centuries until it was nicked by Edward I.

 

[Culhwch]

The joke towards the end of Soul Music was both the finest, and worst of TP's IMHO and I laughed (and cried) for a good minute when I read it, but if you have no knowledge of the Kirsty MacColl song then it means very little.

I have no knowledge of said song, so I probably missed that one!

I'm currently trying to get my wife into Pratchett, so we're listening to the Wyrd Sisters audiobook on the way to and from work. A lot of the humour in these books is in the written word, so I was curious to see how it translated, but it's pretty successful - and so far my wife is quite enjoying it. We do have sufficiently different senses of humour that I find myself sniggering to things that she misses, though!

 

[Morpork46]

Some gags are far better if you get the reference - I assume Llamedos is a nod to the village of Llareggub in Under Milk Wood.
The joke towards the end of Soul Music was both the finest, and worst of TP's IMHO and I laughed (and cried) for a good minute when I read it, but if you have no knowledge of the Kirsty MacColl song then it means very little.

Absolutely correct: Llamedos = s.. them all.
There are quite a lot of songs quoted in Soul Music, starting with Chuck Berry till even Dean (!) Martin. But I don't know the Kirsty MacColl song. can you write, what you know about it? Thanks.

 

[Morpork46]

Quoting Culwhch: I have no knowledge of said song, so I probably missed that one!

Here's a list of many of the songs in "Soul Music":
- Chuck Berry: Johnny B. Goode (But he could play the guitar like ringing a bell. )
- a fair young maiden one morning in May - referring to folksongs
- Little Richard: Tutti Frutti
- Sly and the Family Stone: There's a riot going on
- Carl Perkins: Blue Suede Shoes
- Little Richard: Good Golly Miss Molly
- Big Bopper: Chantilly Lace
- Gershwin: Stairway to Paradise (from An American in Paris) AND
Led Zeppelin: Stairway toHeaven
- Bruce Springsteen: Born To Run
- Tina Tuner (et alii): River Deep Mountain High
- Dean Martin: Wella Wella Wella (I Ain't Gonna Lead This Life No More)
- The Crystals: A doo ron ron
- Buddy Holly: Every Day
- Jerry Lee Lewis: Whole lotta shakin'
- (Gospel): Give me that old-time religion
- James Brown: I've got Ants in my Pants and I want to Dance
- Sonny & Cher: The Beat goes on
- Don McLean: American Pie
- Buddy Holly: That’ll be the day
and a few more.[/QUOTE]

 

[Paul_C]

There's an elvish/Elvis gag running through the book, which culminates in Susan, Gloria and Princess Jade chatting about "boys" on the last day of term.

Gloria has bought some fried fish which is better than usual, and mentions that it's because there's a new boy working there, who she'd "swear is elvish"

Here's the song:

 

[Morpork46]

There's an elvish/Elvis gag running through the book, which culminates in Susan, Gloria and Princess Jade chatting about "boys" on the last day of term.

Gloria has bought some fried fish which is better than usual, and mentions that it's because there's a new boy working there, who she'd "swear is elvish"

For some reason I don't understand I can't post links.I always get the message
"You must have at least 15 posts to post link."
Therefore there aren't any of those I wanted to insert.

Thank you! You're absolutely right:
‘It’s the new boy working there,’ she said. ‘I’d swear he’s elvish.’

There are some references to Elvis.
And there's a lot of Blues Brothers Quoting in the book.
If you're interested: I collected some background information about Terry Pratchett's books - unfortunately mainly for German speaking readers. But some of it might be readable for English speking readers, too.
Look for ankh-morpork anmerkungen, and there "Schweinsgalopp" (the strange german title).
In addition to that, I compiled parts of that to a power point praesentation with some of the music in it. If should be interested, you can find my address in the annotations files I mentioned above.

 

[Overread]

And there we realise one of the great powers of layered comedy. Something I feel that we've actually lost in more recent years in many comic productions.

On one layer you've got your simple slapstick comedy and comic themes which most people can understand. In TP's world the insane twists and turns it takes can also make some comments appear funny even when, if taken out of context, they don't seem to be.
However dig deeper or have a greater understanding of one of the topical areas and there's a whole host of puns and intelligent nods toward real world things.

Of course the latter often requires one to not only be knowledgeable but to also be thinking along the same way as the author, although it wouldn't surprise me if there's more than a few which can be taken in different ways depending on interpretation.

 

[Vladd67]

Don’t forget the Blues Brothers reference where they are on a mission for Glod.

 

[Alex The G and T]

I'm currently rereading The Truth

Demented beggar, Foul Ole Ron frequently includes the phrase, "I told 'em, I told 'em. Millenium hand and shrimp," in his mutterings.

There's gotta be a joke there; but I can't figgur it.

 

[Morpork46]

Don’t forget the Blues Brothers reference where they are on a mission for Glod.

Some references even.


- Mr Clete, secretary of the Guild of Musicians: Jake asks the „Old Boys“ for their „Union-Card“
('Tin Lid Alley', by the way, refers to 'Tin Pan Alley', New York in the 1930ies, 28th Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue)
- At the restaurant: You do fried rat?’ said Glod. / ‘Best damn fried rat in the city,’ said Gimlet. / ‘OK. Give me four fried rats.’ / ‘And some dwarf bread,’ said Imp. / ‘And some coke,’ said Lias patiently. / ‘You mean rat heads or rat legs?’ / ‘No. Four fried rats.’ / ‘And some coke.’ /
‘You want ketchup on those rats?’ / ‘No.’ / ‘You sure?’ / ‘No ketchup.’ / ‘And some coke.’ / ‘And two hard-boiled eggs,’ said Imp.
- Blues-Brothers- Film, Elwood and Jake collecting Matt guitar Murphy: ‘You got any fried chicken?’ – ‘Best damn chicken in the state.’ – ‘Bring me four fried chickens and a Coke.’ – ‘You want chicken wings or chicken legs?’ – ‘Four fried chickens and a Coke.’
(The "and a coke/boiled egg" phrase is even taken form The Marx Brothers: A Night at the Opera.)

- The Blues Brothers Band playing at the country restaurant is similar to the scene of The Band With Rocks In:
The wall behind the stage had clearly seen action. He stared at it as Lias patiently stacked up his stones.
‘Oh, just a bit of fruit and old eggs,’ said Glod. ‘People probably get a bit boisterous. I shouldn’t worry about that.’

- Also the talk between the host and Jake about the money: ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘But you owe me a dollar for the beer and twenty-five dollars for the broken furniture—’

- When The Band looks for an instrument: but here’s my primer as well and a strap and some pleckies, that’ll be thirty dollars and I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll throw in the space between the strings for free, okay?’ - The Blues Brothers buy a piano at Ray Charles' music shop: ‘I throw in the black notes for free.’

- The Band visits the lady who sold Buddy’s guitar:
‘Are you the Watch?’ / Glod bowed. / ‘No, ma’am. We’re musicians.’
Blues Brothers: ‘Are you the police?’ – ‘No, ma’am, we're musicians.’

 

[Morpork46]

Foul Ole Ron is always muttering. And it's not making sense.
Youo can find the answer easily, when you go to the website of lspace. org, then to Lords and ladies, p 233
(I, as it seems, am not allowed [yet?] to post a link.) You'd find:
The answer concerns Terry's experiments with computer-generated texts:
"It was a program called Babble, or something similar. I put in all kinds of stuff, including the menu of the Dragon House Chinese take-away because it was lying on my desk. The program attempted to make 'coherent' phrases (!) out of it all."
One of the other things Terry must have fed it were the lyrics to the song 'Particle Man' by They Might Be Giants (see the annotation for p. 199 of Soul Music ):
Universe man, universe man
Size of the entire universe man
Usually kind to smaller men, universe man
He's got a watch with a minute hand
A millennium hand, and an eon hand
When they meet it's happyland
Powerful man, universe man.

 

[The Judge]

For some reason I don't understand I can't post links.I always get the message
"You must have at least 15 posts to post link."

(I, as it seems, am not allowed [yet?] to post a link.)

The software is set up to deter spammers, who would otherwise be able to post links as soon as they arrive, but this way either leave before trying or make themselves obvious with a long line of junk posts.

You'll be able to link to outside sources as soon as you get to 15 counted posts -- as long as those outside sources aren't your own website or blog or similar site, since we have a 100 post requirement for any kind of self-promotion.