Sanford & Pun
John Hinderaker, Powerline:
The Sanford Fiasco
- Fappaquiddick
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
The phrase ‘Sanford & Pun’ represents a rare, minimalist form of multiple-entendre, seldom encountered in the wild and so far unnamed. Another one, honoring TV pseudoeconomist Amity Shlaes, appeared here not long ago, regrettably in a hedged, lengthened title that was swapped in at the last moment in case ‘people didn’t get it’ — the kind of overthinking that, if brevity is the soul of wit, is wit’s Ausch. ‘Amity & Irony‘ is now the second best out of an oeuvre of three, while the really funny one is banked for later deployment.
Because yes, if ‘getting it’ were the point of humor, then today I might have said, “Hey, they posted the new schedule at the planetarium. Let’s get fucked up on drugs and catch Laser Dane Cook.” On the other hand, since the form in question is a way of explaining a joke into being — i.e., it is to actual-funny like licking a bouillon cube is to trying the soup — here’s what a diagram of it would look like, if there were any such thing as diagrams for experimental jokes you make up.
[POP CULTURAL REFERENCE (proper noun) | linking term | (name of metaphor or fallacy to be invoked)]
It is an architectonic improvement — whether or not an actual one — over the classic ‘perfect headline,’ as in the following real and invented examples:
Swiss Charred
-Zurich Man Critical
H.R. Puff ‘n’ Stuff
-Press Release Praises Marijuana Advocate, ex-Bad Brains
Stoner With a Boner
-Mullah in Adultery Death Mob Sports Erection
Spaniard and Span
-Guggenheim Bilbao Highlights Alberto de Palacio, Designer of Vizcaya Bridge
Ex Lax
-Billionaire Owes $19K Child Support
Haley Barbour and the Forty Thieves
-Governor Faces Racketeering Charges
Pole Dance
-Falcon Club Hosts Swing Night
Headless Body Found in Topless Bar
It says a lot that all they’ve got is Chappaquiddick. And, claims that Sarah Palin has no skeletons in her closet.
SAMMICH!
Also. Headless Body Found in Topless Bar is still the won.
Add little keys to the sandwich and he will be playing a sandoneon suitable for playing Punsacion No. 1.
taken seriously by some (but not me) as a Presidential candidate
Funny how they all seem to be saying this.
I’m terrified to even comment on this thread, lest I break the delicate spell of Gavin’s ever-more-astonishingly-great metahumor — seriously, man, you’re rapidly becoming the Andy Kindler of political blogging, which I could not mean as more of a compliment — but I’d like to point out that the linked Powerline post expresses a desire, for the first time ever in a right-wing blog, that America was more like France.
So, here are the bad things about France, according to the nutters:
– their snooty food; their stuck-up culture; their jerky respect for intellectuals; their unwillingness to get involved in pointless foreign wars; their treatment of workers, including good pay, universal health care, and decent amounts of time off; their respect for education; their willingness to criticize their allies if they behave badly; their cooperation with international law; and their reticence to let big corporations dictate how the country is run.
Here is the good thing about France:
– they put up with their leaders’ constant philandering.
Hinderaker:
So, after I picked myself up off the floor, it occurred to me that it could be said Palin has only one skeleton in her closet — but each and every one of its hundreds of bones represents a separate personal, family or political scandal.
Worst novelty mouth-organ evah.
Chappa-fucking-quiddick? THAT’S their comeback?
Enjoy the tall weeds, dickheads. You’re going to be there a long, long time.
SomeNYGuy said,
June 27, 2009 at 1:25
Hinderaker:
…and Sarah Palin’s supporters would add her to the list of those unlikely to have a nasty skeleton in the closet, notwithstanding one family member’s history in the tabloids.
So, after I picked myself up off the floor, it occurred to me that it could be said Palin has only one skeleton in her closet — but each and every one of its hundreds of bones represents a separate personal, family or political scandal.
If she had a “D” following her name [I mean a real one – not one added “accidently” by Fox] then her husband’s buddy’s sealed divorce proceedings would be fair game for speculation. To paraphrase Peggy Noonan: it would be irresponsible not to speculate that the court proceedings were sealed to not reveal that the Bible Spice was a home-wrecker.
If Sarah Palin would just admit the truth there wouldn’t be a problem.
Um, did Gavin just use a BNF grammar in a joke? And it worked?
I’ll be in my bunk…
minimalist form of multiple-entendre, seldom encountered in the wild and so far unnamed.
While the preceding makes me want to call it “A Gavin” I have to suggest a “Proctor-Bergman” after one of the few reliable historical sources of the construction.
Or OR OOOR republicans can stop trying the legislate their family values. Then when they act all infideliscious we will just shrug our shoulders. These guys just don’t get it.
And I’m sure it’s not long before we hear that Mitt has been getting H Jays in a storage closet at the tabernacle and the guy licked his kids right off his special mormon pajamas.
Palin has only one skeleton in her closet — but each and every one of its hundreds of bones represents a separate personal, family or political scandal.
It is a 50-ft skeleton MADE OF LITTLE SKELETONS.
Come to think of it, that’s a Clark Ashton Smith story.
I just had to click. Episode#98745 of “Always Believe the Shorter”.
Always believe the fuckin’ shorter, man. Absolutely goddamn right.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
It is a 50-ft skeleton MADE OF LITTLE SKELETONS.
Come to think of it, that’s a Clark Ashton Smith story.
Uh, no, dude, that’s fucking VOLTRON!!!
And what is the fucking deal with Michael Ramirez? Does he ever draw anything from, say, the last forty years?
Next up from Ramirez: Tippacanoe and Tyler too!
We swapped Mr Hinderaker’s tie with a banana slug. Let’s see if he notices.
We don’t talk about Palin’s skeletons <for the kids’ sake.
(whore-ish I know, but the thread died)
Well a good pun is its own reword.
@Nom de Plume: My hometown paper is in love with that douche. You know a man is an astute political mind when he draws Jimmy Carter with a mug reading “I HATE AMERICA”.
It is a 50-ft skeleton MADE OF LITTLE SKELETONS.
Come to think of it, that’s a Clark Ashton Smith story.
Rendered in resplendent color by the immortal Erol Otus.
It is a 50-ft skeleton MADE OF LITTLE SKELETONS.
Come to think of it, that’s a Clark Ashton Smith story.
Let’s try that again:
Erol Otus
No way pantload would eat a sammich with that many veggies.
Who knows what hindrocket would do with it?
Or OR OOOR republicans can stop trying the legislate their family values. Then when they act all infideliscious we will just shrug our shoulders. These guys just don’t get it.
The thing that to this day galls the shit out of me about the whole “family values” bullshit …ok, well, the THINGS, which are legion, start with WTF is a political party – not to mention one that whinges incessantly about the need to “get government out of our lives” – doing barging in and lecturing about what your family’s “values” should be? Not to mention the fact that “family values” will take you about as far as your front door, and these motherfuckers have been doing everything in their power to destroy the social values under which everything outside of the sacred family operates for as long as I’ve been alive. You know, having a dad who doesn’t drink and beat or cheat on mom is a good thing…but it’s not going to stop dad from getting ass-raped by his company and having his pension plundered.
Here’s the really sick and twisted thing about it: if mom and dad follow the GOP’s demands and do a good job of raising Jr. and Jr.ette with good old fashioned values such as being responsible and working hard, essentially they’re training them for future ass-fucking by the GOP cronies who sit atop the heap not thanks to being responsible and working hard, but to family wealth and position and connections.
Here’s the other thing that just flies all over me whenever this topic comes up: the 30 years the Democrats have sat around and allowed these soulless motherfuckers to beat them over the head with “family values” without ever ONCE pointing out that what goes on in your family should be fuck-all the government’s business, not to mention the impossibility of really accomplishing anything in terms of improving individual families’ values, but that government absolutely CAN, and SHOULD, play a role in improving and reinforcing SOCIAL VALUES – shit like “fair play” and “justice” and “equal opportunity” and the like – which is exactly where the conservatives argue the government should have NO role. I mean, goddamn, how fucking hard is it to point out that we don’t need a government referee living in our home with us; we need a fucking government referee to stop wealthy and powerful interests from continually stomping on our necks every time we step out the door. How bout a fucking HEALTH CARE referee, bitches? Is that too fucking much to ask?
And see, then I circle around to WHY it is that the Democrats have remained so ineffectual at delivering what is a really goddamned simple deconstruction of all the “family values” bullshit.
Well said Jennifer. Well said.
Toddzelbacher Fever: Catch It!™
Every election is 1980, don’t you know. After all, we made fun of Reagan pretending to be an extra on Fargo in between stealing money for pretty dresses and talking down to people who knew things he didn’t.
As a committed libertarian, it is one of Hinderaker’s core values that the state has no place in our bedrooms. But unlike you liberal hypocrites, he knows that the real state is actually the media, that “our” only applies to wealthy white men with property, and “bedrooms” extends just far enough into secret liasions into South America to keep the peasants from getting worked up.
Yes, yes, that’s all very clever, very “Tiger’s Revenge” By Claude Baulles, but ‘fappaquiddick’, now that is pearl beyond price.
Re: The skeletons in Sarah Palin’s closet.
When will the the wingnuts stop being outraged by the Triggate speculation and realize that The theory that she was only pretending to be pregnant to cover up Bristol’s illegitimate teenage pregnancy is the charitable interpretation of the whole thing?
The only other possibility is the official story: that her water broke, she sat through a long meeting, flew 5,000 miles, transferred to another plane and flew home before receiving medical attention. If that is really what happened, then she’s completely deranged or absolutely irresponsible. Which scenario would you rather a prospective president had carried out? I know my answer.
Headless Body Found in Topless Bar is still #1, followed closely by
Prison Population Rises Despite Drop In Crime
and
Heat Wave Hits New York: Blacks, Jews Suffer Most
Bonus Errors
[working the Argentina angle]
Swiss Charred? Ex Lax? Spaniard and Span? You are SO going to Hell. Good thing you laugh in the face of punition.
“Amity and Irony” still gets my vote.
Also, Jennifer, I am totally, totally in love with you right now.
PENIS.
Personally, I liked the Gorby-related headline: New Kid on the Bloc
As well as the earlier (if somewhat differently funny): Red Prez Brezh Dead
@Jennifer:
Mainline Democratic politicians aren’t intimidated by the GOP. They see eye-to-eye with it. The Democrats are not going to stand up and make a case for the importance of social justice over ‘family values’ because they don’t believe in social justice in the first place.
I think because of the culture of corporate/lobbyist abuse from the 80s on the Dems have come to be dominated by terrified old men, which due to the people in power for that time being radical wingnuts has produced a vibrant industry in pretend wingnuttery.
The issue is, though, that it’s seldom genuine. There are in fact a few southerners who call themselves Blue Dogs in between cross-burnings, and you’ve got your horrible DLC corporatist dillweeds, and even the best lefties have bullshit lacunas. But by and large, the perceived conservatism of the Democrats is because they’re cowards, not because they’re reactionaries.
You never hear Reid popping off his floppy old Mormon hole about abortion, even though (unlike pretty much everything else about the GOP agenda) it’s something he’s taken an open stance against the Party mainstream on. That’s because the primary ideology of Harry Reid is Harry Reid. Same goes for eight out of ten Representatives and nine out of ten Senators – and the remainder are mostly kulturkampf holdouts with the odd Blue Dog and proggy Jew for leavening.
This is why we ought to be at least somewhat tolerant of the Dems for now – the Republican Party has to deal with a looming crisis in which good party politics and good electoral politics are fundamentally incompatible, and until they’ve shrunk into a beady-eyed regional obscurantist movement we and the triangulators have bigger fish to fry together.
Anyone else remember that heartfelt obituary headline “Ike Beats Tina to Death”?
Headless Body in Topless Bar (which I saved and have somewhere) is still a close second to Variety discussing the preference among rural Americans for movies set in sophisticated urban milieus: Hix Nix Stix Pix.
When discussing headlines, we should never leave out the classic NY Post front-pager that blared:
“Khaddafi Goes Daffy!!!”
proggy Jew
And to think, I’d always misheard the lyrics.
can’t make this shit up shit up
Thanx, Righteous, for bringing the Astor.
This, though, right here, stands as the funniest Republican sex scandal of all. The former mayor of Gainesville, FL was arrested for public indecency, after someone reported a man wandering around nude. The cop who was dispatched to the campsite where the ex-mayor was hanging out, found him, nude and drunk. He denied that he was the man who was reported on, and didn’t seem to think he had done anything unusual.
http://tinyurl.com/r9l96e
The sheer level of don’t believe your lying eyes wins big, IMHO. To keep the Piazolla theme going, one imagines this music playing as the policeman approaches:
can’t make this shit up shit up
a 40-year-old man
TW00FY!!!!!
POST TO REALITY: DROP DEAD
The same people not taking Sanford seriously as a Prez dispenser are taking Que Sarah Sarah seriously.
The Mined Boggles
Haiphong Harbor to host word game tournament
Mainline Democratic politicians aren’t intimidated by the GOP. They see eye-to-eye with it.
Thank you. I’m thinking it’s time to retire words like “cave” and “capitulate” and “cowardice” when it comes to Dems siding with Republicans. Because, you know, they’re not so much “caving” to them as agreeing with them.
Hey, it’s Leonard Pierce. Nice to see you around here for once. I’ve been enjoying your work over at the AVC, but, you know, it’s not the same as having you here at Teh Sadly.
Please, please tell me that involves shooting high-energy lasers at Dane Cook.
#1 in the category “Unfortunate Names for New Companies”
“The new firm, to be called Nigaz…
The agreement comes during a four-day African tour by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.”
Medvedev, please.
Central to mah point
~
ITTDGY,
The Kim Jong Il version is the funniest thing I have seen in a LONG time, and I have seen a lot of teh fonny lately.
Jennifer said,
June 27, 2009 at 2:23
Jennifer, I love you and want to bear your children.
Ok, I vote for Batboy.
I just saw a bunch of lawnguylander comments on youtube with -20 ratings, and that made me laugh.
That’s what he gets for rating for Jerry!
The phrase ‘Sanford & Pun’ represents a rare, minimalist form of multiple-entendre, seldom encountered in the wild and so far unnamed. Another one, honoring TV pseudoeconomist Amity Shlaes, appeared here not long ago, regrettably in a hedged, lengthened title that was swapped in at the last moment in case ‘people didn’t get it’ — the kind of overthinking that, if brevity is the soul of wit, is wit’s Ausch. ‘Amity & Irony‘ is now the second best out of an oeuvre of three, while the really funny one is banked for later deployment.
I don’t get it.
I think it’s central to his point that it not be gotten.
Good Thames?
Tut’s Happening?
Particularly poignant should The Anchoress ever scold the MSM for playing up a scandal involving Haywood Nelson to the detriment of an uprising in Egypt.
Spaniard and Span
That word…I do not think it means what you think it means.
Tut’s still on the road? He’s been out longer than the Dead. Seriously, I caught his Box & Other Shit For The Afterlife tour in the early(?) ’80s, & then sometime in the ’90s he blew through again.
He’s lucky he’s dead, ’cause that non-stop touring will kill you.
I remember him coming to NY in the ’70s. I really want to see him while he’s at the USS DeYoung (tell me I’m not the only one to think it looks like a post-apocalyptic carrier), but I’m kind of absurdly broke these days.
Leonard Pierce said,
the linked Powerline post expresses a desire, for the first time ever in a right-wing blog, that America was more like France.
It’s always amazed me that US right wingers are so disdainful of the ways of France, where some of the men, not all but a great many, are exactly the kind of swaggering, macho, womanizing creatures that people like Hindraker aspire to be, and fail miserably, by French standards.
And yes cheating on one’s mistress is not only not unheard of, it’s commonplace.
The best headlines I ever saw BTW were “British Left Waffles on Falklands” and “Iraqi Head Seeks Arms”.
Among my favorite headlines of all time was a non-headline. I don’t remember the actual large print, but it was plain enough, “Man Mistakenly Shot” or some such. A truly talented editor or layout person, however, had made sure the salient points were all available above the fold, spread over the tops of three columns. Poor fella was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and bore an unfortunate resemblance to a paramour of a young lady with a jealous boyfriend. Poor fella was also saddled with the equally unfortunate, if apt, moniker of Harry Ringer.
Sometimes the best ones are the ones you just let shine on their own.
Oh for the days of true newspaper professionals.
Chapaquiddik? I wouldn’t know anything about that. Meghan McCain wasn’t born yet.
Words of wisdom from Pafnuty Rodriguez.
“Finally, brazen it out.” He could also wear a white cowboy hat and stare off into the middle distance.
Through inter-family relations and so forth I am acquainted with the head of one of Massachusetts’s biggest developers/contractors. He’s been a mucky-muck in anti-union lobbying groups and is a major Republican fundraiser in the state. He is not a fan of our erstwhile governor.
Anyway, I don’t know him well but I have found myself at dinner with him a few times, including once while the Republican primaries were still being contested. The conversation got to politics and we were talking about all the candidates that had cheated on their wives. I was describing a phony Giuliani commercial I’d seen somewhere on the intertubes–maybe here–that including a line like “Does Mitt Romney even cheat on his wife? Sure doesn’t seem like it,” to which this man replied, “Yes he does.”
Shorter Mark F:
YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO MY FATHER IS, DO YOU, MAN?
Huh? He’s someone I’ve met through in-laws. He wouldn’t be popular among my peoples, who are mostly trade unionists or public school teachers.
Buttrocket:
Speaking of Chappaquiddick: Michael Ramirez, for one, hasn’t forgotten.
Michael Ramirez was eight years old at the time, so I doubt he remembers much prior to discoverning – as an adult – the political advantages of the situation.
I’m sure I’ve already said this, but I used to sub-edit for a corporate magazine where the surnames of two of the execs were Boner and Balls. I spent years waiting for the opportunity to write a headline like ‘Boner Rises Above Balls’ or ‘Balls Left Hanging While Boner Remains Firm’, but it never came.
One of the UK tabloids had a good headline about a TV health ‘expert’ who turned out to be a quack with made-up medical qualifications. The headline was simply ‘Dr? No’. Not bad for five characters and a space.
England keeper David Seaman was a gold mine for fitba commentators back in the day … e.g. ‘Seaman dribbles out of the box’ or ‘… and Collymore lobs Seaman!’ … combos involving Nicky Butt were, of course, the Holy Grail.
‘Seaman-Butt Transfer Complete’ was what I was hoping for, but alas.
BTW – clever heds are a thing of the past as news moves completely online … outlets now have to optimize headlines and lead grafs for Google News clusters, which means rearranging the same words that every other source has used in their heds, so Google picks the story up. Shame.
Google-fascism.
I shoulda suspected…
Mainline Democratic politicians aren’t intimidated by the GOP. They see eye-to-eye with it. The Democrats are not going to stand up and make a case for the importance of social justice over ‘family values’ because they don’t believe in social justice in the first place.
I’m thinking it’s time to retire words like “cave” and “capitulate” and “cowardice” when it comes to Dems siding with Republicans. Because, you know, they’re not so much “caving” to them as agreeing with them.
Glad to see at least three of us have figured this out. Only about 50 million Dem-voters to go.
Mrs. Parker won a Best Imaginary Headline contest with “Pope Elopes”, but my favorite real one has always been “Milk Drinkers Turn To Powder”.
One septic-pated wingnut yanking their gristle over another’s Chappaquiddick cartoon in 2009 = Comedy Gold.
Gavin’s weapons-grade paranomasia let off its leash yet again to lurk on the Interwebs = Comedy Platinum Studded With Rubies, bitchezzzzz!
(Disclaimer: commenter has a known serious mecha-chubby on for Teh Puns even though he rarely indulges in them himself – read with caution)
Headline from my local paper: Overeaters Stage Marathon.
Deadbeat Dad Beat Dead
Speaking of Old King Tut, my favorite song about him isn’t by Steve Martin.
G.B. Trudeau: “humor is like a frog. you can learn about it by dissecting it, but the frog tends to die in the process.”
also from the NY Daily News when a brooklyn couple had triplets in a tiny walk up: “Three of a Kind gives Pair Full House”.
now that is the greatest headline of all time. no question.
also, Ken Kesey at the house in Oregon where all those guys lived had a triple pun on the entry driveway to the compound–they laid stones on various turns on the driveway, but not on other turns and then had a sign saying “no left turn unstoned” which is pretty record setting i think.
Offsetting inanities
The Haley Barbour one is especially good, because the man’s Mississippi mangling of his own name makes it come out sounding like “Hali Baba”.