TV's top 25 put-downs published - What's your favourite?

[Brian Doolan]

The list of put-downs covers the last 40 years from British and American TV,
to me, some of them are hilarious.

• Basil Fawlty - Fawlty Towers. To Sybil: "Oh dear, what happened? Did you get entangled in the eiderdown again? Not enough cream in your eclair? Hmm? Or did you have to talk to all your friends for so long that you didn't have time to perm your ears?"
• Mrs Merton - The Mrs Merton Show. To Debbie McGee: "So what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?"
• Edmund Blackadder - Blackadder II. To Lord Percy: "The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr Brain has long since departed, hasn't he, Percy?"
• Roseanne Conner - Roseanne. To husband Dan: "Your idea of romance is popping the can away from my face."
• Father Jack Hackett - Father Ted. "Drink! Feck! Arse! Girls!"
• Carla - Cheers. Cliff: "I'm ashamed God made me a man." Carla: "I don't think God's doing a lot of bragging about it either."
• Patsy Stone - Absolutely Fabulous. "One more facelift on this one and she'll have a beard."
• Jim Royle - The Royle Family. Nana: "Is this hat too far forward?" Jim: "No. We can still see your face."
• Malcolm Tucker - The Thick Of It. To a junior minister: "All these hands all over the place! You were like a sweaty octopus trying to unhook a bra! It was like watching John Leslie at work!"
• Statler and Waldorf - The Muppet Show. Statler: "Wake up, you old fool, you slept through the show." Waldorf: "Who's a fool? You watched it."
• Inspector Monkfish - The Fast Show. To a bereaved woman: "I realise this must be a very difficult time for you, so put your knickers on and go and make me a cup of tea."
• No Offence - The Fast Show. "I notice you're not wearing a wedding ring which, given your age, means you're divorced or a lesbian."
• Rupert Rigsby - Rising Damp. To lodger Alan, who complains his room is too cold to study in: "The only thing you study is your navel. You even shave lying down."
• Nan - The Catherine Tate Show. Describing an encounter with an overweight hospital volunteer: "She said to me last time, 'You look bored, Mrs Taylor. I've got three words for you: Barbara Taylor Bradford.' So I said, 'Yeah? I've got three words for you too: calorie controlled diet."'
• The Professor - The Mary Whitehouse Experience. "I have here a copy of your book, Origins of the Crimean War. It smells of poo." "That's because it's been inside your mum's bra."
• Alf Garnett - Till Death Us Do Part. "You Scouse git!"
• Alexis Carrington - Dynasty. "I'm glad to see your father had your teeth fixed - if not your mouth."
• JR Ewing - Dallas. "Ray never was comfortable eating with the family - we do use knives and forks."
• Dr Perry Cox - Scrubs. Dr Elliot Reid: "I don't think you understand the severity of the situation here. I am dangerously close to giving up men altogether." Dr Cox: "Then on behalf of men everywhere - and I do mean everywhere, including the ones in little mud huts - let me be the first to say thanks and hallelujah."
• Dr Gregory House - House. "You can think I'm wrong, but that's no reason to stop thinking."
• Gary Strang - Men Behaving Badly. "Let's face it, Tony, the only way you're gonna be in there is if you're both marooned on a desert island and she eats a poisonous berry or a nut which makes her temporarily deaf, dumb, stupid, forgetful and desperate for sex."
• Arnold Rimmer - Red Dwarf. "Look, we all have something to bring to this discussion. But I think from now on the thing you should bring is silence."
• Larry David - Curb Your Enthusiasm. "Switzerland is a place where they don't like to fight, so they get people to do their fighting for them while they ski and eat chocolate."
• Sam Tyler - Life On Mars. To Gene Hunt: "I think you've forgotten who you're talking to." Sam: "An overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine-stained, borderline-alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding?"
• Captain Mainwaring - Dad's Army. "You stupid boy!"

My favourite is Patsy Stone - Absolutely Fabulous, what's yours?

[Isis]

Favourite single put-down:

Mrs Merton - The Mrs Merton Show. To Debbie McGee: "So what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?"

The best overall at put-downs was Carla from Cheers and Waldorf and Statler from the Muppets.

[bigdjiver]

One of my favourites, not mentioned, was (from Seinfeld?) :-


Just when I think you are as shallow as a man can be, you manage to drain some more water from the pool.

[Stuart M]

Much as I enjoyed the poll, it does seem to have been limited to "one per character" (not "one per show" as there's 2 Fast Show characters in there, it seems).

Which is a shame, as Blackadder had a superb range of putdowns for - well, just about everyone really. Culled these from elsewhere:

"Percy, far from being a fit consort for a Prince of the Realm, you would bore the leggings off a village idiot. You ride a horse rather less well than another horse would, your brain would make a grain of sand look large and ungainly and the part of you that can't be mentioned, I am reliably informed by women around the court, wouldn't be worth mentioning even if it could be. If you put on a floppy hat and a furry cod-piece you might just get by as a fool, but, since you wouldn't know a joke if it got up and gave you a hair-cut, I doubt it."

"Your brain's so minute, Baldrick, that if a hungry cannibal cracked your head open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit"

"Baldrick, to you the Renaissance was just something that happened to other people, wasn't it?"

(on Baldric again) "Kate, he looks like what he is: a dung ball in a dress."

(On the Prince Regent) "He's got a brain the size of a weasel's wedding tackle....A master with all the intellect of a jugged walrus and all the social graces of a potty."

[philsmove]

Tomorrow Never Dies well its on TV now


Admiral Roebuck - With all due respect M, I don't think you have the balls for this.
M (Judi Dench) - Perhaps. The advantage is I don't have to think with them all the time.

[CJ]

Ali G interveiwing the Beckams...

"So, young Brooklyn... will he be a footballer like Daddy?? Or a singer like Maria Carey?"

[~*~Saligal~*~]

I'm surprised House only has 1 insult in the list! the show is full of them! (btw I love the show's shock-value cos of them )

[NZ Monkey]

From Firefly (Malcom Reynolds to Jayne)

“Well, my days of not taking you seriously are definitely coming to a middle”

[Mini Mac]

Catherine Tate- Nan Taylor- She's getting the fat...sucked out of her thigh and into her arse...when it was already a fair enough size to start with!

The next one is a classic one from blackadder goes forth

Baldrick: Wanna hear my war poem?

Blackadder- How hurt would you be if i said "No, i would rather french kiss a skunk."

Blackadder is the ultimate master of putdowns...

[johnnyman]

This one would be my favourite:

• Edmund Blackadder - Blackadder II. To Lord Percy: "The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr Brain has long since departed, hasn't he, Percy?"

You can also add any number of Simon Cowell put-downs from American and Pop Idol.

best
johnnyman

[johnnyman]

Following on from the Ali G post earlier, this reminds me of another one from that classic exchange (or words to that effect)

Ali G: So, Posh, if the most beautiful goes out with the most attractive and you is with David, does that mean that Sporty goes out with somebody from Scunthorpe United?

Posh (suitably horrified) That's horrible!!! She's my friend!!!

Ali G: What you mean!!!? Are you saying Scunthorpe United isn't a good team!!!?

best
johnnyman

[clevedonboy]

Love House - all the best lines in one tv show.

Julia reminded me yesterday of not a put down but an expression used by Nick Mason of Pink Floyd that sums up being British - "It got so bad that at one point somebody almost said something"

[Nigel Toast]

Love House - all the best lines in one tv show.

Julia reminded me yesterday of not a put down but an expression used by Nick Mason of Pink Floyd that sums up being British - "It got so bad that at one point somebody almost said something"

That would be in regard to Syd ........ did you know Norman "Hurricane" Smith (producer of Piper at the Gates of Dawn) just died? More Pop Trivia available on request :-)

[bigdjiver]

I chickened outof telling that story. :-<

[Jhutch]

'I wouldn't trust him to sit the right way round on a toilet'

[Stuart M]

Actually, watching Doctor Who last week, I was reminded obliquely of the true sci-fi master of the put-down (enough with this Firefly nonsense!). Step forward, Kerr Avon from Blake's 7:

Vila: I've got this shocking pain right behind the eyes.
Avon: Have you considered amputation?

There's a compilation on - worth watching for the outfits as well...

[Genevieve]

Lord Blackadder everytime..........the one where he has been appointed executioner and he is greeting the staff Mr Ploppy etc.

"I would shake your hand but I fear it may fall off"