Funny / Apollo 13

• When Jim Lovell's elderly mother Blanche is at the Lovell home, Marilyn has two men to keep her company while watching news coverage. Who are those two men? Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Upon meeting them, she asks, "Are you boys in the space program too?"
  • Also counts as a tearjerker - Blanche had recently had a stroke and was showing signs of multi-infarct dementia.
  • And a heartwarmer/tearjerker combo - Blanche had not been told about what was going on, to spare her the anxiety. Armstrong and Aldrin were assigned to her by Marilyn Lovell to prevent her from finding out, either from the other guests or by the news reports.
  • Another funny moment from Blanche is when she is trying to watch 13's live broadcast from her nursing home, which had been cancelled:
    Blanche Lovell: My son is supposed to be on. He's in outer space.
    Orderly: These are all the channels we get, Mrs. Lovell.
    Blanche Lovell: It's that damn TV Guide again.
  • Finally, Mrs. Lovell's encouragement to her grandchildren is both heartwarming and funny:
    Blanche Lovell: Don't worry, if they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it!
• Black Comedy when a re-entry simulation run with Swigert ends with failure and the capsule being incinerated:
  Lovell: How are we feeling, Freddo?
  Haise: Charbroiled.
• When the crew are suiting up for the launch Haise is still chewing on some gum just as his helmet is about to go on. At first he looks to his already-gloved hands to spit it out before a worker offers his hand, into which Haise quietly drops the gum.
• Haise vomits in the cabin soon after engine shutdown. A little later Lovell is talking to Houston and tries to quietly tell them that some unfinished food will be eaten by him and Swigert. Haise overhears and pipes up "Hey, I'm hungry!"
• When the Flight Surgeon at Mission Control begins to freak out when Lovell's bio readings flatline, followed by Haise and Swigert (they just removed their sensors in a fit of cabin fever).
  Lovell: I am sick and tired of the entire Western world knowing how my kidneys are functioning!!
  Flight Surgeon: Flight, now I'm losing all three of them!
  Kranz: (chuckles) It's just a little medical mutiny, doc. I'm sure our guys are still with us. Let's give them a break, alright?
  (Flight Surgeon looks totally dumbstruck and at a loss for words)
• During the Transposition and Docking maneuver (flipping the CSM around and docking nose-to-nose with the LM), the Odyssey isn't lined up perfectly, so the drogue scrapes noisily against the docking collar on the Aquarius. Haise and Lovell look over at Swigert with a mixture of concern that he might be having trouble, and annoyance that this rookie is scratching up the spaceship.
  • This was put in as a bit of Rule of Drama. If Swigert couldn't pull off the docking maneuver, Lovell or Haise could've easily taken over.
• As the crew begins to prep for its re-entry, we briefly glimpse a piece of paper over a panel in the cockpit, simply marked "NO!". When all three men get back in the cockpit, Jim asks Jack about the note; Jack admits that he was getting "kinda punchy" and didn't want to accidentally jettison the LEM with the other two men still inside. (This happened for real on the actual Apollo 13. The note part, not the jettisoning the LM part.)
  Lovell: (deadpan) That's good thinking.
  • Fridge Brilliance, as it turns out. A button Jack was supposed to press in the upcoming sequence of events (the service module jettison) was directly beside it.
• The Mood Whiplash moment right after the three astronauts get into a heated dispute:
  Jim Lovell: All right, we're not doing this, gentlemen. We are not doing this. We're not going to go bouncing off the walls for ten minutes, 'cause we're just going to end up back here with the same problems! Try to figure out how to stay alive!
  CAPCOM: [over communications mic] Aquarius, this is Houston.
  Lovell: [shouts] Are we on VOX?!
  Fred Haise: No, we're not on VOX.
  [Lovell turns on his mic]
  Jim Lovell: [calmly] Yeah, Houston, this is Aquarius. Go ahead.
  • Another Rule of Drama invention: at no point did anything like such bickering occur. It was later handwaved as being an illustration of the effect the build-up of carbon dioxide could have upon the crews' mood.
• Pete Conrad, just as much a joker in the film as in real life, yelling at the TV for Neil Armstrong to abort his moonwalk at the last minute, and calling Armstrong's historic mission a dress rehearsal for his upcoming Apollo 12 flight.
  Jim Lovell: Yeah, better than Neil Armstrong. And way better than Pete Conrad!
  • Lovell and Conrad were test pilots together at Pax River, where Conrad gave him the call-sign "Shakey".
• Kranz's reaction on learning they only have square carbon dioxide scrubbers for a round filter (a literal metaphor that's kind of funny in and of itself):
  "Tell me this isn't a government operation."
• Followed by:
  "Well, gentlemen, I suggest you figure out how to put a square peg in a round hole. Rapidly."
• When Ken Mattingly first speaks to the crew after being grounded due to fears of getting measles:
  Jim Lovell: Hello, Ken. Are the flowers blooming in Houston?
  Ken Mattingly: That's a negative, Jim. I don't have the measles. (glares at the flight surgeon)
  • After he successfully guides Swigert through the power-up procedure:
    Swigert: Boy, I wish you were here to see it.
    Mattingly: I'll bet you do. (Because if he was there, Swigert would be safely on the ground)
  • Also a Brick Joke in the epilogue:
    Lovell: Ken Mattingly orbited the Moon as command module pilot on Apollo 16, and flew the Space Shuttle, having never gotten the measles.
• "Get ready for a little jolt, fellas!" *BAM* *crunch*
  Swigert: That was some 'little jolt'.
  • This is also a bit of Fridge Brilliance. Lovell knew exactly what to expect during staging because he was the first astronaut to fly a Saturn V for the second time. He was also America's most experienced astronaut at the time (first person to fly four times), and was possibly hazing Swigert and Haise, who were both making their first flights.
  • Kevin Bacon's expression as his face is slammed forward is a particularly funny Freeze-Frame Bonus.
• John Young coming to wake up Ken Mattingly in his apartment, after Mattingly took his phone off the hook:
  "Oh good, you're not dead."
• The sequence showing how you urinate in space (which Jim wishes they could show on the news special they're about to film).
  • The golden urine spray is described as the "Constellation Urion" (which they pronounce Yoo-ryan) - the name was first given to the 'procedure' by Apollo 7 Commander Wally Schirra (one of the original Mercury 7).
• As Kranz starts the meeting in the discussion room, he brings up an overhead projector, turns it on and, appropriately, it immediately breaks on him. He shoves it aside and starts using the chalkboard instead.
• When Swigert tells what he thinks is a watching worldwide audience that he forgot to file his income tax return, EECOM controller Sy Liebergot down in Mission in Control turns to the others and says seriously "That's no joke. They'll jump on him!" On the DVD commentary director Ron Howard says his brother Clint, who played Sy and had trouble with the IRS ad-libbed the line!
  • And the follow-up: Kranz informs Swigert that no less than President Nixon has granted him an extension on his returns, "since you are most definitely out of the country."
  • They actually did talk about the income tax thing during the mission.
  • On Jim and Marilyn Lovell's commentary track, they crack up laughing at this line, and you most likely will laugh along with them.
• After the liftoff, as reporters run towards them, Marilyn advises Mary Haise by saying "Remember: You're proud, happy and thrilled.". And when they finally reach them, an overwhelmed Mary tells them "Oh, we're very proud, we're very happy, and we're thrilled."
• On Halloween, Barbara Lovell, the eldest daughter, wants to dress like a hippie, much to Marilyn's disapproval. But as Jim is telling Marilyn he's been named flight commander of Apollo 13:
  Barbara: Dad, can I wear this?
  Jim: (mild glance) Yeah, sure.
  Marilyn: Jim...
  Jim: No! No, absolutely not!
  Barbara: (walking away, groaning) This stinks!
  • Also funny is how Ron Howard says on the DVD commentary that the above conversation was a typical vignette taken from the Howard household.
• A sleeping Mission Control worker wakes, checks his watch and blearily asks a passing colleague if it is AM or PM. The reply is "AM. Very, very AM."
• As they're preparing to fire the LM engines for the corridor-control burn, one of the scientists who designed the LM keeps warning Gene Krantz that the lunar module wasn't intended to do stuff like this, he can't guarantee it will work, Blah, Blah, Blah, obviously just making sure he won't be blamed if anything goes wrong. After the burn is successful, he's slapping Gene on the shoulder, saying, "YES! I knew it! How 'bout that LEM, huh?!"
  • Even better, he's a contractor from Grumman Aircraft Corporation (nicknamed the "Grumman Iron Works" for their planes' legendary durability and reliability), who designed the LEM. After that outburst, Kranz sardonically says to him "I guess you get to keep your job," calling back to their earlier conversation where Kranz told him that he won't hold him responsible. The man's response of "you betcha!" elicits a sly smile out of Kranz.
    • Ironically, firing the LM descent engine while still attached to the CSM had been performed on the Apollo 9 mission, so the Grumman engineer would have known it would work all along. However, this was one of several scenes in the movie which had no real-life antecdents: this slur upon Grumman's LEM engineers and designers was inserted purely for Rule of Drama by Howard (despite his trumpeting it's authenticity).
    • In real life, a Grumman engineer forwarded to North American Aviation, the builders of the Command and Service Module, a "towing invoice" including charges for mileage and "extra person in room" (CMP Swigert, who never should have gone in the Lunar Module during a normal mission) for Aquarius' epic feat of carrying Odyssey around the moon, far outside of anything the craft had ever been envisioned doing.
    • North American Rockwell had a similar sense of humor about it and reminded Grumman that the Command and Service Module had "ferried" the Lunar Module to the Moon previously without payment, and it would be a good idea to just call it even.
• Swigert shamelessly flirting with the girl at the moon landing party with the most unsubtle Does This Remind You of Anything? "docking maneuver" metaphor imaginable. Kevin Bacon's delivery is a thing of sleazy beauty.
  Swigert: ... when you feel that thing sliiiide in, everything's clicking it's like no other feeling in the world.

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