Puns

[thestarjar]

I hope this doesn't already exist...

Okay, in the anime they made a LOT of puns that were so bad they were almost funny. Some actually were good, though.

If you know of any puns they made that were good or bad or anything, as long as it's somewhat funny for whatever reason, post them here please.

In the very first episode of pokemon, Professor Oak made some TERRIBLE puns while acting as if he was perfectly serious.

He described pikachu as having an "electrifying personality" and then said, "shocking, isn't it?"

I think that these were so terrible that they were almost funny. It was actually pretty silly.

 

[sonic10158]

In one of my all time favorite episodes: "The Path to the Pokemon League" (the eighth episode ever)

When AJ told Sandshrew to "Pick up your pacing!", Ash said: "I thought you said pacing, not passing", then Pikachu held up a pillow making Ash say "Padding, I MEAN PACING!"

so bad it made me LOL a LOT

 

[SandmanDPBeDoublEwe]

Don't forget about episode titles, although that didn't really start until "Pokemon Scent-sation". I gotta say, Black and White not relying on puns is hit and miss. I understand that after over 700 episodes you may be running out of ideas, but still, puns at least keep the titles from being boring. So far the two worst episode titles were "Ash and Trip's Third Battle" (BLECH:dumb and the one with Luke's debut. It's so dang long I don't even wanna bother writing it out!

 

[Karamazov]

Puns! I heard puns!

Every single pun in this show is pure gold. One of the most memorable bits of dialogue is still lodged within my brain, along with a dig tooth and a crayon:

Misty: "Why don't you [Team Rocket] make like a tree and leaf?"
James: "Oh, good one! Did Prof. Oak tell you that one?"

Such beautiful delivery. Such a well-contrusted joke that obviously had a lot of effort put into it.How the two characters bounce off each other was so dynamic. Surely this meaningful exchange will be remembered fondly for years to come.

 

[Feenie]

My favorite puns were from the anime episode titles. Like, "May, we harley drewed ya" or something stupid like that. It's sort of a pun on their names.

 

[TPrower]

How about in Electric Shock Showdown, when Pikachu survived Raichu's mega-Thunderbolt by using his tail like a grounder?
Jessie: What a shocking story!
James: *holding Koffing like a mask* That was quite a...tail!
*Meowth hits them*
Meowth: And now, you've both been...punished. Heheheh.

 

[sonic10158]

Some Pun Episode titles from seasons 1 and 2:
-Not sure if this counts as a pun, but: "School of Hard Knocks"
-"Beauty and the Beach"
-"Snow Way Out!"
-"So Near, Yet so Farfetch'd"
-"The Purr-fect Hero"
-"Beach Blank-Out Blastoise"
-"Clefairy Tales" (One of my all time favorite episodes IMO)
-"The Battle of the Badge"
-"The Showdown at the Po-ke Corral"
-"The Pi-Kahuna"
-"Lights, Camera, Quack-tion"
-"To Master the Onixpected"
-"Fit to be Tide"
-"Stage Fight"
-"Wherefore Art Thou, Pokémon?"
-"Get along, little Pokemon"
-"Enter the Dragonite"
-"Viva Las Lapras"
-"A Tent Situation"



@TPrower That pun has never made sense to me XD

 

[TPrower]

@TPrower That pun has never made sense to me XD

I found out in looking the quote up that the original Japanese dialogue had something to do with aasu, or ground. Jessie had said something about the ground "aasu", and James said "Dogaasu", which is Koffing's Japanese name. Meowth hits them and tells him to be "more serious than nyaasu" (Meowth's cat noise in Japanese).

 

[Shinneth]

I really do miss the pun-tastic episode titles of the dub. Sure, a lot of them were horrible/cheesy/stupid, but it's been a practice for the dub (both 4Kids AND TCPi) for so long that it's sort of a defining trait of the show. And I think the cheesiness is totally intentional, which works for a silly show like Pokemon. It was bad, but in a good way for me (most of the time).

What they're doing with BW's episode titles... augh. On the rare occasion a pun-like title will show up, but for the most part they're bland and just not something I get excited for. It's more or less a very short summarization of the Japanese titles, but then why not just literally translate those titles word-for-word. It still wouldn't be that interesting, but it'd be a hell of a lot more professional and interesting than "Ash and Trip's Third Battle!" or "Cilan versus Trip, Ash versus Georgia!". I could tell towards the end of DP that they might've just run dry on the pun ideas since a lot of them were just mindless alliterations, but that's still better than a literal definition of the episode. It inspired me to make my own terrible puns for my chapter titles for my story; I'm still proud of my ridiculously horrible "It's On Like Bastiodon!" title. :') (much much better than "Dealing with Defensive Types!")

At least BW retains some play on words within the episodes themselves, but still... those hilariously awful pun titles were like part of the dub's identity. It just doesn't feel the same without them. ._.

 

[Aestivate]

and not just because it is a meme.
or maybe because it is

 

[Hitomi]

What they're doing with BW's episode titles... augh. On the rare occasion a pun-like title will show up, but for the most part they're bland and just not something I get excited for. It's more or less a very short summarization of the Japanese titles, but then why not just literally translate those titles word-for-word. It still wouldn't be that interesting, but it'd be a hell of a lot more professional and interesting than "Ash and Trip's Third Battle!" or "Cilan versus Trip, Ash versus Georgia!"

I know... I was heartbroken when I learned that the one Club Battle tournament episode was going to be titled "Club Battle Hearts of Fury! Emolga Versus Sawk!" instead of "Sawk It To 'Em!" like I was hoping it would be. ;_;

Pun titles are way more memorable anyway; even after all these years, I remember "Nice Pryce, Baby" and "It's Still Rocket Roll to Me." and not just because the latter is a play on one of my favorite Billy Joel songs.

I also still giggle inside when I think of that Dark City Showdown episode way back in Kanto:

Ash: My name is Tom Ato.
Misty: Mine is Anne Chovie.
Brock: Caesar Salad.

 

[Shinneth]

I know... I was heartbroken when I learned that the one Club Battle tournament episode was going to be titled "Club Battle Hearts of Fury! Emolga Versus Sawk!" instead of "Sawk It To 'Em!" like I was hoping it would be. ;_;

That's freaking ingenious. We need to just get a list of all the BW dub titles and make alternative pun titles for the ones that didn't have any puns at all (I know they at least had one like "Scraggy: Born to be Wild!" which was kinda clever, but besides that...). That would make me a happy happy girl.

I personally liked "Smells Like Team Spirit!" myself. :') Nirvana is the shit. Pokemon parodying Nirvana was awesome and it was for one of the best episodes they ever made, to boot.

Maybe TCPi should hire Weird Al Yankovic to give titles to their episodes.

 

[Hitomi]

That's freaking ingenious. We need to just get a list of all the BW dub titles and make alternative pun titles for the ones that didn't have any puns at all (I know they at least had one like "Scraggy: Born to be Wild!" which was kinda clever, but besides that...). That would make me a happy happy girl.

We totally should; that would be really fun. xD I'm pretty sure all of the English Pokémon names can be punned (some more than others), so the results could be amusing. (I have to file "The Home of the Braviary" away for future use...)

I personally liked "Smells Like Team Spirit!" myself. :') Nirvana is the shit. Pokemon parodying Nirvana was awesome and it was for one of the best episodes they ever made, to boot.

Maybe TCPi should hire Weird Al Yankovic to give titles to their episodes.

Ah, yes, when I watched that episode, I gave TCPI some brownie points for an awesome title. DP had quite a few punny titles that I liked too - "O'er the Ramparados We Watched," "Oh Do You Know the Poffin Plan," "Malice in Wonderland," and "One Team, Two Team, Red Team, Blue Team."

Weird Al would have punched someone if they'd suggested "Ash and Trip's Third Battle!" to him if he were in charge.

Oh yeah, I remembered another couple of puns I liked:

*In the episode where Jesse went to nurse's school with the Chansey... and the Chansey she befriended spilled food on her: "Even though you paid for it, looks like this lunch is on me."
*Ash, in response to Brock swooning over all the Nurse Joys at the Indigo League: "Yeah, it's a Joy...ful world."

 

[SandmanDPBeDoublEwe]

I really do miss the pun-tastic episode titles of the dub. Sure, a lot of them were horrible/cheesy/stupid, but it's been a practice for the dub (both 4Kids AND TCPi) for so long that it's sort of a defining trait of the show. And I think the cheesiness is totally intentional, which works for a silly show like Pokemon. It was bad, but in a good way for me (most of the time).

What they're doing with BW's episode titles... augh. On the rare occasion a pun-like title will show up, but for the most part they're bland and just not something I get excited for. It's more or less a very short summarization of the Japanese titles, but then why not just literally translate those titles word-for-word. It still wouldn't be that interesting, but it'd be a hell of a lot more professional and interesting than "Ash and Trip's Third Battle!" or "Cilan versus Trip, Ash versus Georgia!". I could tell towards the end of DP that they might've just run dry on the pun ideas since a lot of them were just mindless alliterations, but that's still better than a literal definition of the episode. It inspired me to make my own terrible puns for my chapter titles for my story; I'm still proud of my ridiculously horrible "It's On Like Bastiodon!" title. :') (much much better than "Dealing with Defensive Types!")

At least BW retains some play on words within the episodes themselves, but still... those hilariously awful pun titles were like part of the dub's identity. It just doesn't feel the same without them. ._.

Any title over 7 words is too long. That's why the translation they did with Luke's debut episode was one of the worst titles EVER. Honestly, I think the whole "Going back to basics" idea with BW treaded into the episode titles, which is sorta sad

 

[sonic10158]

Maybe TCPi should hire Weird Al Yankovic to give titles to their episodes.

I agree. He should also do a Poke-rap for Sinnoh and Unova Pokemon with a Polka twist (Like he did in Polkamon)

 

[Almonds]

The titles were all puns, weren't they?

 

[Pidgeot]

I'm surprised we're 16 posts in without a reference to...

*groan*

 

[sonic10158]

I'm surprised we're 16 posts in without a reference to...

*groan*

"That's not funny! You know I hate bugs and I saw one over there."




How about the name of the director of "Pokemon in Love": Cleavon Schpielbunk

 

[Shinneth]

Lame as "Cowterpie" was, I'm honestly willing to pardon that because I can't think of a better alternative to a pun that was tailored for the Japanese audience. "Cow" and "bug" sound very similar in Japanese (ushi/mushi) and not even remotely similar in English. Really, the anime's had a ton of jokes and puns that were specifically tailored to the Japanese language that can rarely (if ever) be fully retained while still keeping the joke intact. Many times the dub does have a clever alternative, even if they have to rewrite the original joke to do it.

Such as Diamond Dandruff/DeeDee being used in place of Pikari. A lot of us wondered for years how the hell the dub would adapt that. Even if the puns aren't always stellar, I can't fault the dub writing staff for putting effort into them in situations where it's gotta be difficult. XD

 

[Aestivate]

Even though "Diamond Dandruff" is a complete asspull xD
...They managed to half pull it off!

Some of the puns like hinoko/kinoko sadly remain in obscurity ;_; Oh Haruka <3