The Muppet Movie (1979) Writers: Jack Burns, Jerry Juhl First, the set up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0Pow7Gi7Xw DELUISE: Ooh, ooh! You! You with the banjo. Can you help me? I have lost my sense of direction. KERMIT: Have you tried Hare Krishna? DELUISE: Ha, ha---no. And the payoff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7B3Ivya1FI FOZZIE: Wakka, wakka, wakka. Here I am, Fozzie Bear, to tell you jokes both old and rare. Wakka, wakka, wakka. Hey, hey! Let's start things off with a bang. Audience member shoots a pistol toward the stage. FOZZIE: Thank you, sir! Wakka, wakka, wakka, wakka, wakka! KERMIT: This guy's lost. WAITER: Maybe he should try Hare Krishna. KERMIT: Good grief, it's a running gag. DIALOGUE ON DIALOGUE: The Muppets' were never shy about playing with jokes and puns, or making them self-referential.

7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964) Writers: Charles Beaumont (screen play); Charles G. Finney (novel "The Circus of Dr. Lao"); Ben Hecht (uncredited) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih-TtS5R5Mk The set-up: DR. LAO: Mike, let me tell you something. The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it. The way the sun goes down when you're tired, comes up when you want to be on the move---that's real magic. The way a leaf grows, the song of the birds, the way the desert looks at night with the moon embracing it. Oh, my boy, that's...that's circus enough for anyone. Every time you watch a rainbow and feel wonder in your heart, every time you pick up a handful of dust and see not the dust but a mystery, a marvel there in your hand, every time you stop and think "I'm alive, and being alive is fantastic!" Every time such a thing happens, you're a part of the circus of Dr. Lao. MIKE: I don't understand. DR. LAO: Neither do I! (He leaps over Mike and begins to dance.) And the payoff at the end of the film: ANGELA: Michael! Mike, come back here! ED: Mike, come back here! MIKE: Dr. Lao! Dr. Lao! Wait for me! ANGELA: Mike! Michael! Come back! MIKE: Wait for me, Dr. Lao! Wait for me! ANGELA: Come back, Mike! MIKE: Wait for me, Dr. Lao! ANGELA: I wonder where he came from? ED: Or where he's going? STARK: Or if he was ever here at all? Mike finds three golden balls and begins juggling them. MIKE: I can do it! You see, Dr. Lao, I can do it! Look, Dr. Lao. Watch me. I can do it! DR. LAO (V.O.): Mike, the whole world is a circus if you look at it the right way. Every time you pick up a handful of dust, and see not the dust, but a mystery, a marvel there in your hand, every time you stop and think "I'm alive, and being alive is fantastic"---every time such a thing happens, Mike, you are part of the circus of Dr. Lao. DIALOGUE ON DIALOGUE: Young Mike is the only character who truly believes in Dr. Lao, a mysterious Chinese circus proprietor who arrives in town one day and helps a crusading newspaper publisher defeat a corrupt businessman. It's done not through bullets or protest or confrontation, but by simply exposing each character to who they really are inside through the various exhibits in his circus (all played by Tony Randall). In this moment Mike wishes to run away to join Dr. Lao's circus, and Lao wisely talks him out of it. Again, at the end, Mike wishes to run away with Lao, failing to understand that it means abandoning his family, and once again, Lao recaps his wisdom, trying to ease Mike's pain since he can't accompany the circus.

Road to Bali (1952) Frank Butler, Hal Kanter, William Morrow (screenplay); Frank Butler, Harry Tugend (story) http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x51ovp_pattycake_fun COCHRAN: Just listen at that, will ya? For whom the bells toll. GRIDLEY: Yeah, I saw that picture. Very few laughs. Even Gary Cooper got killed. BOTH: Yup. COCHRAN: Well, I don't mind gettin' killed, but they're gonna torture us. GRIDLEY: Oh, no, no, I couldn't stand torture. COCHRAN: Me, neither. GRIDLEY: They're not gonna torture me. It hurts! COCHRAN: Well, there's only one thing to do. GRIDLEY: Yeah. Ready? They approach the guards. BOTH: Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man, bake a cake as fast as you... They swing, but the guards duck and Cochran and Gridley knock each other cold. DIALOGUE ON DIALOGUE: Almost all of the Road To films use this routine. Normally, when Hope and Crosby swing they knock their opponents senseless. However, in Road to Bali, they changed up the routine and let it work to their own disadvantage.

Ghostbusters (1984) Writers: Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis (written by); Rick Moranis (uncredited) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyaLZHiJJnE The set-up: SPENGLER: There's something very important I forgot to tell you. VENKMAN: What? SPENGLER: Don't cross the streams. VENKMAN: Why? SPENGLER: It would be bad. VENKMAN: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean 'bad'? SPENGLER: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. STANTZ: Total protonic reversal! VENKMAN: Right, that's bad? Okay. All right, important safety tip. Thanks, Egon. And the pay-off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wrEEd1ajz4 STANTZ: Funny us going out like this, killed by a hundred-foot marshmallow man. VENKMAN: We been goin' about this all wrong. This Mister Stay Puft is okay. He's a sailor, he's in New York; we get this guy laid we won't have any trouble. SPENGLER: I have a radical idea. The door swings both ways. We could reverse the particle flow through the gate. VENKMAN: How? SPENGLER: We'll cross the streams. VENKMAN: Excuse me, Egon, you said crossing the streams was bad. STANTZ: Cross the streams. VENKMAN: You're gonna endanger us. You're gonna endanger our client, the nice lady who paid us in advance before she became a dog. SPENGLER: Not necessarily. There's definitely a very slim chance we'll survive. VENKMAN: I love this plan. I'm excited to be a part of it! Let's do it! ZEDDMORE: This job is definitely not worth eleven-five a year! DIALOGUE ON DIALOGUE: While not the joke in itself, the callback to the earlier warning about not crossing the streams sets up the situation that allows the group to pull off a few last-minute jokes before our heros face down their nemesis at the climax of the film.