I don’t understand how pressure cookers work. I have never understood how they work. And I know that my mother knew that. So I never knew if overcooking something in the pressure cooker could ruin something. I also never developed a palate sophisticated enough to distinguish between well cooked and over-cooked foods. Therefore, I was never aware of the stakes of the task my mother was setting for me as she put that stainless steel magic box with my grandfather’s name engraved on it on the stove before she went for her evening walk. I mean was it a ruined dinner or just a mild change in taste that could be offset by adding a little salt. I also never understood how salt works.
But my point is, when she did come back, and I had forgotten...Sorry I should mention I would almost always forget to turn it off after the requisite number of whistles. But not because of confusion over the importance of time in cooking, but because of sheer carelessness. When she did come back, and I had forgotten to turn off the cooker she would scold me. I deserved it. She would say "Sorry … ain't gonna fix dinner". And she was right. Saying sorry won't fix anything.
Now that's a lesson some comedy writers need to be taught. Just because you acknowledge that a joke is lazy or is derivative of something else with a smart alec quip, a fourth wall break or any other nonsense it doesn't make the joke funny. That’s preemptive defensiveness. That's a lesson Deadpool 2 (2018) writers needed.
Look - everyone’s done it. Monty Python has that famous ‘two coconuts in hand’ bit. Shakespeare has done it (“If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.” ~ Twelfth Night). But why am I annoyed at Deadpool doing it but not when It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia does it. I don’t know . It all comes down to whether something is funny or not.
The Simpsons
The impetus of the previous 300 words was a Simpsons episode. ‘The Simpsons’ S04E18 episode titled “So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show”. It's April Fool’s day in Springfield and fed up with Homer’s incessant pranking, Bart plays a prank that lands Homer in the hospital. The episode then turns into a clip show. The first clip show in Simpson’s history. This episode aired in 1993 and this is the early days of Simpsons, where the writers, animators were famously overworked. So the clip-show as a format works in this context. You can reuse old clips, therefore less storyboarding, not as many cells to animate etc. But this self-aware ‘So It’s Come to This” title annoys me. Either go for the joke or don’t.
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