The Top Ten One Liners

sluffy · Post by **sluffy** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 8:57 am

Peter Kay's line in Phoenix Nights - "Garlic bread, it's the future, I've tasted it" - has been named the greatest one-liner in TV comedy history.

Uttered by wheelchair-bound nightclub owner Brian Potter, it beat other memorable favourites from the likes of Only Fools and Horses, Blackadder and Fawlty Towers.

The Mrs Merton Show, where the acid-tongued pensioner played by Caroline Aherne asks Debbie McGee: "So, what first attracted you to millionaire Paul Daniels?", takes second place.

Next is The Office, where Ricky Gervais' creation David Brent launches another desperate attempt to boost his credentials as a cool boss. He tells his employees: "If you were to ask me to name three geniuses, I probably wouldn't say Einstein, Newton... I'd go Milligan, Cleese, Everett, Sessions...".

Fourth in the poll, commissioned by UKTV Gold, is Father Ted, where actor Dermot Morgan utters the line: "I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do. Whereas priests... more drink?"

The survey put Rowan Atkinson's Edmund Blackadder in fifth place, with the vitriolic butler uttering: "He's mad! He's mad. He's madder than Mad Jack McMad, the winner of this year's Mr Madman competition."

In sixth place is Only Fools And Horses, where street cleaner Trigger (Roger Lloyd-Pack) speculates on the name of Del Boy's new baby and continues a lifelong habit of thinking that Rodney's name is Dave. "If it's a girl they're gonna name it Sigourney after an actress, and if it's a boy they're gonna name him Rodney after Dave," he says.

Absolutely Fabulous, and PR woman Patsy's (Joanna Lumley) typically catty remark: "One more facelift on this one and she'll have a beard" is seventh. Fawlty Towers takes eighth place, with John Cleese's hotel proprietor Basil Fawlty responding to two guests speaking to him in German by saying: "Oh, German. I'm sorry, I thought there was something wrong with you."

I'm Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) is ninth with his message relayed to his downtrodden secretary over his hands-free kit while he aimlessly drives around Norwich: "I'm going nowhere, Lynn. Quite literally, I'm on the ring road."

The Vicar of Dibley takes the last spot in the top 10, with Geraldine Granger (Dawn French) making her village debut as new priest, by announcing: "You were expecting a bloke with a beard, a bible and bad breath. You've got a babe with a bob cut and a magnificent bosom."

Must be me, only the Mrs Merton and Father Ted one's made me smile when I first heard them.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/14082006/344/k ... -best.html

keveh · Post by **keveh** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:04 am

Most of them on there are better than the Peter Kay one.

Saying that, I could compile a top 10 with just Alan Partridge.

mummywhycantieatcrayons · Post by **mummywhycantieatcrayons** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:16 am

Tis a strange winner. From Phoenix nights, I preferred "How far away are they?" when the vertically challenged fellas in Bolton kits are in the car park.

Gertie · Post by **Gertie** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:28 am

Garlic bread??? Nope, not very funny for me.

I think there should be one's just for Blackadder, that used to make me laugh loads.

Hats off to Mrs Merton, a brilliant one-liner

blurred · Post by **blurred** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:43 am

sluffy wrote:Peter Kay's line in Phoenix Nights - "Garlic bread, it's the future, I've tasted it" - has been named the greatest one-liner in TV comedy history.

That's funnier than the actual line, what a joke

communistworkethic · Post by **communistworkethic** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:44 am

Gertie wrote: I think there should be one's just for Blackadder, that used to make me laugh loads.

Oh, God. Fortune vomits on my eiderdown once more.

We're about as similar as two completely dissimilar things in a pod

A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn.

Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.

George: Well tally ho! With a bing and a bong and a buzz buzz buzz!

George: 'I'm thick. I'm as thick as the big print version of the Complete Works of Charles Dickens.'

I know from long experience all my men have the artistic talent of a cluster of colour-blind hedgehogs in a bag.

George: 'I'm absolutely top-hole, sir, with an ying and yang and yippiedeedoo

They do say, Mrs M, that verbal insults hurt more than physical pain. They are, of course, wrong, as you will soon discover when I stick this toasting fork into your head.

Blackadder (on actors): You mean they actually rehearse? I thought they just got drunk, stuck on silly hats and trusted to luck.

Baldrick: Well, Mr Blackadder always says, when the going gets tough, the tough hide under the table.

George: Oh no! What a mad blundering, incredibly handsome young nincompoop I've been!

Ha ! I laugh at danger and drop ice cubes down the vest of fear.

The girl is wetter than a haddock's bathing costume.

I'm as poor as a church mouse, that's just had an enormous tax bill on the very day his wife ran off with another mouse, taking all the cheese

Baldrick:
'Hear the words I sing,
War's a horrid thing,
But still I sing, sing, sing,
Ding a ling a ling.'

George: Now I've got my lovely fire I'm happy as a Frenchman who's invented a pair of self-removing trousers.

Baldrick, believe me, eternity in the company of Beelzebub and all his hellish instruments of death will be a picnic compared to five minutes with me and this pencil if we can't replace this dictionary.

Something is always wrong, Balders. The fact that I am not a millionaire aristocrat with the sexual capacity of a rutting rhino is a constant niggle.

Blackadder's succinct summary of British battle plans: 'to continue with total slaughter until everybody's dead except Field Marshall Haig and Lady Haig and their tortoise, Alan.'

You see the ancient Greeks, your Highness, wrote in legend of a terrible container in which all the evils of the world were trapped. How prophetic they were. All they got wrong was the name. They called it 'Pandora's Box', when of course they meant 'Baldrick's Trousers'.

Ambassador: I hate you English. With your boring trousers and your shiny toilet paper and your ridiculous preconceptions that Frenchmen are great lovers. I'm French and I'm hung like a baby carrot and a couple of petits pois.

I've just been hearing about your work in Taunton. Imagine that - every single person in the village having an affair with the same duck.

Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area

I think the phrase rhymes with Clucking Bell!

Flasheart: "You should treat your aircraft like you treat your woman."
Blackadder: "So you should take your plane out to dinner and a movie?"
Flasheart: "No, get in her 5 times a day and take her to heaven and back!"

blurred · Post by **blurred** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:49 am

communistworkethic wrote: Flasheart: "You should treat your aircraft like you treat your woman."
Blackadder: "So you should take your plane out to dinner and a movie?"
Flasheart: "No, get in her 5 times a day and take her to heaven and back!"

Pedants hat on, but that's not right. Presumably those are copied from some website or other... Tut tut...

Gertie · Post by **Gertie** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:52 am

Blackadder is brill I'm laughing away to myself...

oooh....

Bruce Rioja · Post by **Bruce Rioja** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:55 am

So Peter Kay's praising of garlic bread is a funnier line than the "You invaded Poland" line from Faulty Towers, is it?

I think not.

communistworkethic · Post by **communistworkethic** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:56 am

blurred wrote:
communistworkethic wrote: Flasheart: "You should treat your aircraft like you treat your woman."
Blackadder: "So you should take your plane out to dinner and a movie?"
Flasheart: "No, get in her 5 times a day and take her to heaven and back!"
Pedants hat on, but that's not right. Presumably those are copied from some website or other... Tut tut...

and the correct version is, mr pedant??? Kite instead of aircraft?

anyway one of my favourites and one I reckon will tickle Gertie's bits...

"We're in the stickiest situation since Sticky the Stick Insect got stuck on a sticky bun."

blurred · Post by **blurred** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:38 am

communistworkethic wrote:
communistworkethic wrote: Flasheart: "You should treat your aircraft like you treat your woman."
Blackadder: "So you should take your plane out to dinner and a movie?"
Flasheart: "No, get in her 5 times a day and take her to heaven and back!"
and the correct version is, mr pedant??? Kite instead of aircraft?

Well there is that. Plus the fact it isn't Blackadder that interjects with the question, but George. And the fact that that isn't what George says. And the fact that it basically isn't the exact script but someone's (very vague) memory of what was said.

wovlad · Post by **wovlad** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:39 am

"I am the baby eating Bishop of Bath & Wells, haven't any children have you Blackadder"

Bishop " Animal, mineral, vegitable no act of pervesity is to gross for me "

& my particular favourite

Bishop "Poisoned by god"
Blackadder " No by Baldrick but the effect is similar "

TANGODANCER · Post by **TANGODANCER** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 4:08 pm

Two corkers for me, near as I can remember them:

Roadsweeper Trigger of Only Fools and Horses. "Ive had this brush for twenty years. It's had ten new heads and half a dozen new shafts and it's still going strong!"

David Brett of The Office. "Eagles fly high, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines"

Backgammon · Post by **Backgammon** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 5:04 pm

communistworkethic wrote: I know from long experience all my men have the artistic talent of a cluster of colour-blind hedgehogs in a bag.

It was the delivery of the line that made it so memerable... I can't think of anyone other than Rowan who would be able to say the words "in a bag" to such comic effect.

Soldier_Of_The_White_Army · Post by **Soldier_Of_The_White_Army** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 5:54 pm

"Oh. Well, in that case, sir, I hope you will not object if I also offer the doctor my most enthusiastic... contrafibularities"

"What?"

"Oh, I'm sorry sir. I'm inuspeptic, frasmotic, even compunctious to have caused you such pericumbobulations"

communistworkethic · Post by **communistworkethic** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 5:59 pm

Soldier_Of_The_White_Army wrote:"Oh. Well, in that case, sir, I hope you will not object if I also offer the doctor my most enthusiastic... contrafibularities"

"What?"

"Oh, I'm sorry sir. I'm inuspeptic, frasmotic, even compunctious to have caused you such pericumbobulations"

You're kidding nobody SOTWA, you've cut and pasted them. There's no way on this earth you spelt all them words right!!

Soldier_Of_The_White_Army · Post by **Soldier_Of_The_White_Army** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 5:59 pm

Alan Partridge

"Is he gonna get any petrol? No he's using the forecourt to turn around... he thinks he's Rod Stewart!!"

plodder · Post by **plodder** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 6:49 pm

Not exactly one liners are they?

Fawlty every time, chockle head on from the opening moment........... Farty Towels indeed!

"It is not rat is Siberian hamster."

"I think we're just out of Waldorfs"

and the night just keeps on going.

We have not even started on Python.......... if you know what I mean.Say no more

TANGODANCER · Post by **TANGODANCER** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 7:16 pm

"He's from Barcelona you know"

TANGODANCER · Post by **TANGODANCER** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 7:18 pm

David Brett, when asked to name just one famous Argentinian:

"Fray Bentos"