Talk:Running gag

This article was nominated for deletion on 18 January 2011 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

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Note for new editors
	Just a quick note for editors who haven't edited this article before: It used to be much larger, with a long list of examples of running gags (see here). This was unmanageable, as even the most trivial gags seemed to be added, so a consensus was achieved (here) that NO examples should be provided.

Books?

I've noticed that several books have running gags, but when I looked on the running gag list, there were absolutely no books mentioned whatsoever. Shouldn't there be at least a mention of one book with a running gag? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sunstar54321 (talk • contribs) 23:05, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User

Why does this page link to a User page in "List of running gags"?? isnt that against the Wikipedia guidelines?--Coin945 (talk) 05:41, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Technically yes. But it's all in good faith. Basically, 2 or 3 editors decided that there shouldn't be a single example on this page, and i'm pretty sure a list of running gags wikipedia page would get deleted, i set up a subpage to host the running gags, so people could see examples of running gags without having to search through the article history. - -The Spooky One (talk to me) 06:44, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed, Moving them to Talk:Running gag/Running gags. - -' The Spook (TALK) _{(Share the Love with Barnstars)} 00:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the fix, LukeTheSpook. Television examples are now available. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:00, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Origin of the term

When did the term "Running Gag" appeared? One of the origin of the name I have heard is that it come from the "Benny Hill Show" where the usual running gag was precisely people chasing Benny, running everywhere. Therefore creating the expression "Running Gag". Can anyone back that up, or is that just an Urban Legend? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.228.79 (talk) 16:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So, anyone has info about that?--81.247.70.25 (talk) 10:55, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seinfeld

Are all of these really running gags? For Pinky and the Brain to try and take over the world every night is the premise of their show, not really a joke. "Are you thinking" is definitely a running gag. I would argue that the constant presence of Superman in Seinfeld isn't much of a joke, either. Ventura 17:26, 2004 Jul 21 (UTC)

Well, I waited a while, but I removed the Seinfeld line. The inclusion of Superman memorabilia is hard to spot, even for dedicated fans of Seinfeld. I realize there's a heavily Superman-inspired episode, but that doesn't seem like enough to be a running gag to me. Ventura 18:25, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

Section Headers

Does anyone have better suggestions for the section headers? The list was getting very long and very difficult to read, so I thought breaking it up would help. The television list is still a bit long, so maybe we'll split it into live action vs. animation?

-- Ventura 18:25, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

Comics

I don't know if this counts as a running gag, but the old Moomin comics by Tove and Lars Jansson always started with a picture of a Moomintroll's behind. The next panels explained why the Moomintroll was crouching down in whatever situation he was in.

Another running gag is Smithers or Mr. Lodge kicking Archie out of the home in the Archie Comics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bellag19 (talk • contribs) 01:41, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Webtoons?

I added some running gags from animated web series, but created a new section for them because there wasn't one that would apply to them. Could we have a broader section, perhaps Animation?

Examples

This article is almost useless without a good list of examples. It is really a pity that these lists are deleted again and again. -- 85.181.9.209 (talk) 22:12, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion

I note that there are some tags saying that this article should be expanded, and is in need of help from an "expert on the subject". I agree that it is a poor article: however, the "list of running gags" is not present for some very good reasons (primarily the fact that you can not possibly have a "list of" something without a clear definition for criteria for items to be included in the list).

Therefore, as it stands this article is little more than a dictionary definition. I find it hard to see how it could be expanded to a proper encyclopædia article. So my suggestion is: transwiki it to Wiktionary, and delete the article. Can I have opinions please? (And no - this is not an invitation to re-open the debate on whether a "list of running gags" should be present. There has already been a consensus reached here, and no new arguments have been put forth otherwise.) EuroSong ^talk 15:48, 1 February 2010 (UTC) —°″←·±§ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.114.58 (talk) 14:07, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Example of Examples

[1] is one of the better articles on the net, but every one of the better articles includes SOME examples. I believe as long as they are woven into the text with some elaboration as to how they illustrate particular aspects rather than dumped into an infinite list, it should be fine. There are a lot of useful lists on WP, and I don't have an objection to such lists as long as they are useful and verifiable. Redhanker (talk) 18:46, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that one or two examples, not a list of many examples, would be a good idea. Perhaps this could be done with links to particular comedians whose biographies have an example or two. --DThomsen8 (talk) 12:05, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there should be several examples, as there are several running gags that have achieved notability in their own right. The first one that comes to my mind is "What's up, Doc?" by Bugs Bunny; I'm sure that there are others from Seinfeld, The Simpsons and other well-known TV shows. Purple backpack89 04:12, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No - for the reasons already discussed in the archive. Firstly - any examples will invite well-intentioned but misguided contributions from other editors who want to add examples of their own favourite running gags. And so the problem begins again. Secondly, although this is the English Wikipedia - that just means that it's an English-language version of a worldwide encyclopædia. But to add our favourite examples would naturally show cultural bias towards the Western world. The running gag of Bart Simpson writing different things on the blackboard in the introduction to the Simpsons might be well-known to a significant proportion of British and American TV audiences, true - but is it similarly recognised in, for example, Brazil (to pick a country at random)? In many other countries all over the world they have their own favourite examples of running gags in popular culture. So there is no reason why we should simply pick out some well-known ones from UK/USA culture over and above those from other countries. Again - this is simply the English-language version of an international encyclopædia - not a culturally biased encyclopædia which only focuses on a Western viewpoint. EuroSong ^talk 09:05, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maintenance Tags

Those improvement tags seem somewhat out of date. Most articles could do with attention from an expert, so it's hard to argue with {{Expert-subject}}, but I don't think it's needed here any longer; the article seems coherent. I don't think that there's any problem with the context either. Anybody else have any ideas? pablo 10:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. That tag is just plain ridiculous here. What sort of experts are looking over articles like this anyway? And if none of them felt like commenting by now, they aren't likely to. There are experts for science articles, history, and things like that. No college degrees in gag-ology exist to my knowledge. Dream Focus 21:07, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Woman being tied to railroad tracks

I wrote this on the Snidely Whiplash talk page and will cite here below: Running gag is defined as "a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling". Even this features the same photo scene as this article. Only it is completely false. As it is, the aticle contributes to the misconceptions that being tied to the railways is a common plot device in silent films. However, outside of the very film that the article mention, there are very, very few appearances of people being tied to railroad tracks and, even in those films that feature those scenes, the victim is usually a man, not a "damsell in distress".

More info:

http://moviessilently.com/2013/07/05/questions-from-the-google-who-was-the-silent-era-villain-who-tied-women-to-train-tracks/ - this artcle even makes a note that a similar device (leading man "was nearly sliced in half in a sawmill before being rescued by leading lady Viola Dana") was considered to be old-fashioned when appearing in a 1916 film
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rethinking-the-origins-of-the-damsel-on-the-railroad-tracks - there is a great citation in this article: “This is like taking the Saturday Night Fever spoof scene from Madagascar and using it to ‘prove’ that disco was the number-one music of the 2000s”

Even some films described as having the trope, such as a lost film "The Single Track (1921)" ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0012695/ ) are highly dubious, as the synopsis doesn't mention anything: https://archive.org/details/exhibitorsherald13exhi_0/page/n391 To conclude, I propose changing the article to make note that the running gag was not common in silent films. StjepanHR (talk) 14:22, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's not a running gag, since it is by no means limited to a single work, but is found throughout many different works that have no connection with each other. It's more of a narrative stereotype. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:29, 23 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]