This week’s prompt comes from our TV critic Saloni Gajjar: What TV show do you quote more than any other?
As always, we invite you to contribute your own responses in the comments—and send in some prompts of your own! If you have a pop culture question you’d like us and fellow readers to answer, please email it to [email protected].
Clone High
The original run of Clone High came at exactly the right time for me. Well, its cancellation and subsequent appearance in full on YouTube while I was in middle school came at exactly the right time. I never saw it actually air on TV and I was a little too young to get all the teen-show stereotypes it was mocking, but that didn’t stop me from relentlessly quoting some of my favorite bits, regardless of if they applied to my life or the moment at hand. But where some grow out of endlessly regurgitating lines from popular, of-their-time comedies (looking at you, Austin Powers), the relative obscurity of Clone High actually lodged these gags further into my brain. “Nothing bad ever happens to the Kennedys!” and mistaking “beers” for “beards” and replacing sexual euphemisms with “to verb the adjective noun,” not to mention suppressing the urge to say “they flipped the bitch” whenever I’m around a pool—these are genetically encoded in me like the DNA of famous guys and ladies is encoded in these clones. [Jacob Oller]
30 Rock
I watched 30 Rock multiple times all the way through when my brain was still plastic, meaning I soaked it up as if it were a foreign language. Of course there are the obvious references that have seeped into every pop culture fanatic’s vocabulary: Mind grapes, werewolf bar mitzvah, blerg. But beyond that, I would say that I’m in a situation about once a week where something will happen or someone will tell me a story and I can’t help myself from saying, “This reminds me of that 30 Rock bit where…” and I will reconstruct about one minute of dialogue from a given episode of the show. (An especially frequent one is how Jenna Maroney keeps getting turned on by car accidents, which she chalks up to her biological clock.) Thankfully, I stop short of trying to do character voices, but I still consider this to be one of my dorkiest qualities. But if there’s one show for this to happen with, I’m glad it’s a show with so much sharp, timeless material. [Drew Gillis]
The Office(U.S.)
Last week, I said “how the turntables” to a group of people who looked at me like I was the problem, so this is an easy answer. I’ve rewatched the U.S. Office enough (including random episodes during TV reruns), so the lines are rattling around my brain, waiting to be spoken out loud, regardless of who understands that “I have a lot of questions. Number one: How dare you.” The dialogue’s straightforward hilarity, usually in mundane yet awkward situations, make The Office as quotable as it is. Or (and picture me shuddering here) there are times you actually relate to these characters, like Michael Scott going “I knew exactly what to do, but in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do.” Or it’s the pointed delivery of something like “Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica” and, of course, the “that’s what she said”s that make the show a constant presence in my mind. [Saloni Gajjar]
Doctor Who
Look, when your favorite television franchise has been around for over 60 years, there are simply a lot of options when it comes to quotable quotables. Whether it’s muttering “I’m really trying not to kill anyone today. It would be tremendously helpful if your major arteries were out of reach” in the style of Missy, Michelle Gomez’s female Master, when someone is being particularly annoying, or telling yourself “Brave heart, Teagan” when you need a burst of courage, Doctor Who can probably provide you with an appropriate response in almost any situation. I find myself quoting the show regularly both in my everyday life (David Tennant’s “Allons-y!” is a constant) and professional work (the Eleventh Doctor’s line about “sometimes impossible things just happen and we call them miracles” has definitely been quoted in more than one review of a show that shouldn’t work but does, sorry not sorry). But, mostly, it’s an endless source of personal mission motivation: “Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind” isn’t just the perfect farewell line for Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor; it’s a helpful checklist for how to do life. [Lacy Baugher Milas]
Mr. Show With Bob And David
I don’t have a personality of my own, but I did grow up watching HBO! Mr.ShowWithBobAndDavid hit me at Mach 3, or whatever speed the infamous roller coaster The Devastator goes. Colorful, funky, punky, vulgar, and weird, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross’ late-night sketch series is responsible for many of the awkward conversations that friends, family, and strangers have had with me over the years. (Spare a thought for my loved ones when 24 was on Fox.) From answering the phone with “Okay, Go?” to telling my girlfriend to look for elusive kitchen items “in the bag hutch,”Mr.Show has molded me into the obnoxious asshole I am today. Bonus fact about me: I can quote every line from the series’ finest sketch, “Monk Academy,” and will probably see the whole clip playing behind my eyelids on my deathbed. Take it from me—I love you! [Jarrod Jones]
BoJack Horseman
It was in the nascent years of the streaming era, back when Netflix shows could last beyond a second season. My friends and I started tuning into this quirky animated show, BoJack Horseman, and inevitably, their jokes and references made their way to our messages and hangouts. Not since The Critic did a show so successfully make fun of the industry we love to talk about. Whenever a bunch of us from different cities get together, “What is this, a crossover episode?” The running joke of “AOL-Time-Warner-Pepsico-Viacom-Halliburton-Skynet-Toyota-Trader-Joe’s” has only gotten better with age, unfortunately. And the steady stream of animal-related puns? A never-ending stream of amusement (RIP MSNBSea). But the show also gave its fans a number of meaningful quotes about depression, grief, and heartbreak, including one of my favorites, “When you look at someone through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.” [Monica Castillo]
The Simpsons
Me, capture just how many Simpsons quotes make up my everyday vernacular? That’s unpossible! I have voluntarily said “Boo-urns” more times than I can count. I’ve asked callers to speak up because I’m wearing a towel, suggested to people that they enjoy some Shake’n Bake in their coffee, reminded them that the law is powerless to help them, not punish them, and that you don’t make friends with salad. Is this due to the fact that I’ve watched the first 12 seasons all the way through more times than I can count, or because the show has staffed some of the best comedy writers of all time? A little from column A, a little from column B. But I find myself quoting less-inspired bits just as regularly; when I enter a house or building through the front door, I will still sometimes say “No going through the window for us.” It’s okay if you think it’s passé; my late mom used to say I’m cool. [Danette Chavez]
Arrested Development
The thing about having pretty much the entirety of the first three seasons of Arrested Development permanently burned into my brain is that it’s shockingly useless; at no point in my day-to-day life have I ever needed to let someone know “There’s always money in the banana stand,” or inform them “Perhaps an attic I shall seek.” I don’t even know a Pop-Pop, let alone why I might have him in the attic, or, once there, why he might deserve a treat. (“I just brought you a fucking pizza!”) My demands to be taken seriously go unheeded; people respond to my pointed “Her?”s with puzzlement or polite acknowledgement. I could go on listing these—I am a bit of a blowhard, likely destined to only ever blue myself—but, honestly, we just blew through nap time, huh? And, oh man, it’s tired in here. [William Hughes]
Mad Men
Mad Men may not immediately scream for quotations like the first 10 seasons of The Simpsons, but Mad Men‘s potent quotables are everywhere online, from “That’s what the money is for” to “Not great, Bob!” Those are great, too, but after several rewatches, low-key classics like “I feel like I’m getting sucked into that thing” and “I’m Peggy Olsen, and I want to smoke some marijuana” have wormed their way into my personal vocabulary. Weirdly, so has “Title? I’m Ken…Cosgrove…accounts.” I find myself mouthing the words “Coca-Cola” like Jim Hobart, using “it’s not a wheel, it’s a carousel” for recent revelations, and “the king ordered it” to get out of any long-simmering familial disputes. Unsurprisingly, I repeat every piece of Sterling’s gold that comes out of Roger’s mouth, including a couple dozen oysters (“It’s the GOP! They’ll never smell it over the stench of brill cream”). Other shows? I don’t think about them at all.
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