Funny / Dogma

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• Before the movie even starts, we have a foreword by Kevin Smith explaining that his intention wasn't to bash Catholicism or religion, but to somehow find humor in it, and that it wasn't his intention to offend anyone. He then goes on to say that he knows God has a sense of humor, citing the existence of the platypus as an example. The audience is then treated to a meandering apology to platypus supporters for the previous joke.
• Bethany's conversation with Liz in the abortion clinic.
  Bethany: They hate me more than they hate you. You've got an excuse, you're Jewish, you don't know any better.
  Liz: Can't. We already used that one when we killed Jesus.
  • And:
    Bethany: You're saying I need to get filled?
    Liz: In more ways than one. You Need to Get Laid...You need a man, Bethany Sloane, if only for ten minutes.
    Bethany: It's been my experience that the average male is never a man, not even for ten minutes.
    Liz: Uh-oh – that sounds militant. You thinking of joining the other side?
    Bethany: Couldn’t do it. Women are insane.
    Liz: Then you need to go back to church and ask God for a third option.
    Bethany: I think that God is dead.
    Liz: The sign of a true Catholic.
    • Especially hysterical because the third option turns out to be God Him/Herself, who impregnates Bethany while healing her at the end of the movie.
• Liz saying "Holy shit, it's the Pope!" to distract the protesters outside the clinic.
  • Two of the protesters are none other than Steve-Dave Pulaski and Fanboy Grover.
  Steve-Dave: (to Liz) You're going to burn in Hell, you fucking baby killer!
  Fanboy: Yeah, tell her, Steve-Dave!
• The board meeting. Especially Bartleby and Loki bickering like a married couple, with the former getting increasingly annoyed by the latter's dramatic one-liners.
  Loki: But I do believe in this. (starts shooting the board members)
  Bartleby: (outside, reading a magazine) 'But I do believe in this!' What does that even mean?
  • Loki almost killing the one innocent person in the room, until Bartleby interrupts and tells him it's time to leave.
  Loki: But you didn't say 'God bless you' when I sneezed ...
  • Just as good as Bartleby's increasing irritation with Loki's "flair for the dramatic" is Loki's increasing irritation with Bartleby ruining the more overt attempts at drama, as well as the subtle implication that this kind of thing has gone down in this exact manner many many times before.
• The Metatron's retelling of how Loki and Bartleby got kicked out of heaven.
• Absolutely anything out of Metatron's mouth that isn't a Heartwarming Moment or Moment of Awesome.
  • "Good Lord. The little stoner's got a point."
  • "Anyone who isn't dead or from another plane of existence would do well to cover their ears...right about now."
  • "Tell someone you're the Metatron and they stare at you blankly. Mention something out of a Charlton Heston movie and suddenly everyone's a theology scholar."
  • "Oh, Bartleby, was Wisconsin really that bad?"
  • "Give over, I couldn't rape you even if I wanted to. Angels are ill-equipped—see? I'm as anatomically impaired as a Ken doll."
  • "I say we get drunk, 'cause I'm all out of ideas."
  • "I'm pissed off, is what I am! Do you go around drenching everybody that comes into your room with flame-retardant chemicals? No wonder you're single."
    • Thus starts Metatron's running gag of getting gunk all over his suit.
    Metatron: (after God cleans everything up after exploding Bartleby's head) You missed a bit. (brushes off suit)
  • "Metatron acts as the voice of God. Any documented occasion when some yahoo claims God has spoken to them, they're speaking to me. Or they're talking to themselves."
  • "We went through five Adams before we figured that one out."
  • During his entrance:
  Bethany: (brandishing a baseball bat) Get the fuck out of here! Now!
  Metatron: Or you'll do what, exactly? Hit me with that fish?
  (the baseball bat is now replaced with a fish, which Bethany drops)
  • Metatron trying to explain to Bethany who he is:
  Metatron: I am a Seraphim.
  (Bethany is confused)
  Metatron: The highest choir of angels!
  (Bethany groans in confusion)
  Metatron: You DO know what an angel is, don't you?
  (Bethany slowly nods)
  • Also special note goes to Metatron's entrance.
  Metatron: (enters as a ball of fire) Behold the Metatron, herald of the Almighty, and voice of the one true God. [...] Behold the Metatron, herald of the Almighty, and voice of the one true Go-
  (Bethany sprays him with fire extinguisher)
  Metatron: Sweet Jesus! Did you have to use the whole can?!
  • "One of the drawbacks to being a martyr is that you have to die."
• Bethany asking Silent Bob why he carries an odor-killing spray bottle. He points to Jay, who has just farted.
• Most of Bartleby and Loki, but a particularly good one is:
  Loki: Let it never be said that your anal-retentive attention to detail never yielded positive results.
  Bartleby: You can't be anal-retentive if you don't have an anus.
  • Uncomfortable Elevator Moment meets Funny Moment:
    Loki: Last four days on earth, huh? If I had a dick, I'd go get laid. But we can do the next best thing.
    Bartleby: What's that?
    Loki: Let's kill people.
    (Woman spit-takes her coffee.)
    Loki: Oh, no, not you.
  • The scene in the gun store where they argue about Biblical genocide, with the clerk sporting a "WTF?" expression. Even funnier when you realise that the clerk is Jeff Anderson, so Randall has a cousin who sells guns.
• Serendipity telling off Azrael: "So you were an artist, big deal! Elvis was an artist! But that didn't stop him from joining the service in time of war. That's why he's the King, and you're a schmuck!"
  • Her other reactions, like rolling her eyes, during his Motive Rant indicate she heard Azreal, or other fallen angels, spiel about the judgement before.
• Jay's Late to the Punchline moment.
  "Hahahaha, Holy Bartender, I get it! That's a great one!"
• "No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater than central air."
• “BEAUTIFUL, NAKED, BIG-TITTED WOMEN DON'T JUST FALL OUT OF THE SKY, YOU KNOW!”
• Silent Bob's Bond One-Liner:
  “No ticket.”
• Metatron and Bethany in the Mexican place:
  Metatron: I'm to charge you with a holy crusade.
  Bethany: Uh, for the record? I work in an abortion clinic.
  Metatron: Noah was a drunk, look what he accomplished. And no one's asking you to build an ark.
• Jay and Rufus:
  Rufus: You masturbate more than anyone on the planet!
  Jay: Everybody knows that. Tell me something nobody knows.
  Rufus: When you do it, you're thinking about guys.
  Silent Bob: (looks askance at Jay)
  Jay: Dude, not all the time!
• Jay's massive rant at the climax is side-splitting from start to end, but peaks with his angry shout of "WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THAT GUY'S HEAD?!" Witness it here (starts at 2:48).
  • And then the power of God's kiss overwhelms Jay so much that he passes out.
  • Jay's rant actually makes God take a step back.
• Loki's Establishing Character Moment in the opening when he tells a nun how Alice in Wonderland is responsible for his lack of faith in religion due to him seeing the story of the Walrus and the Carpenter as a commentary on the subject, the two representing the deities of the earth who fool the oysters into following them before they shuck and eat them. Funny because as ridiculous as it is, his explanation sorta makes sense — indeed, the idea of the poem as an attack by Lewis Carroll on religion is a common theory bandied about when the symbolism of the piece is discussed.
  • Especially the conversation that Bartleby and Loki have afterwards (paraphrased):
  Bartleby: You have been in God's presence. He has spoken to you personally. Yet I just heard you claim to be an atheist.
  Loki: I just like to fuck with the clergy.
• The diner conversation when Jay and Silent Bob think Bethany is going to sleep with them.
  Jay: So do you do anal? Is it true that chicks fart when you blast them in the ass?
• The Wheaties-like cereal Hosties in the background of the scene in Glick's office. It even has a picture of Jesus posing how athletes do on Wheaties boxes!
• Also from the office scene:
  Rufus: We were sent by Him who is called I Am!
  Glick: Cute. Playtime with the cardinal's over.
  Rufus: (stumped) Worked for Moses.
  Bethany: Stay out of it.
• After Jay accidentally makes Bethany realize that John Doe Jersey is really God, trapped in human form:
  Jay: (with his pants down) What am I supposed to do [to stall Bartleby]?
  Bethany: Think of something!
  Jay: I already did, but it takes two of us!
  • Also during the battle, Silent Bob randomly whacks Bartleby with a folding chair to try and stop him- obviously it's a No-Sell moment, and for a couple of seconds you can see Bartleby looking at Bob like "Really."
• George Carlin as a priest! Yes, really!
  • "The Buddy Christ!"
  • That weird, cartoonish expression he makes when he says "I beg your pardon?"
  • His fondness of golf is doubly when you know that Carlin despised golf in Real Life.
• Metatron beginning to wipe Bartleby's remains from his coat with a fold of God's dress and then stops, realizing what he is doing, all the while God just stares at him blankly.
• The scene where Azrael tells off the Stygian Triplets for failing to kill Bethany. The fact he doesn't even sound angry, just annoyed and disappointed, and the way the triplets react, makes it more like a dad telling off his kids for breaking a window while playing soccer. And, at the end of that scene, the way the triplets react when Azrael talks about summoning the Golgothan.
  • Also from Azrael, when he's talking to Bartleby & Loki in the discount store: "Because you're pissing people off, that's why!"
• With a touch of Fridge Brilliance and Shown Their Work, Rufus's "Christ told me the secrets of the resurrection once. I don't know, we at this wedding in Cana...and I got drunk and forgot it!"
• During Bartleby's Nightmare Fuel Jumping Off the Slippery Slope Villainous Breakdown, he starts ranting about "dispatching our would-be dispatcher." This prompts Loki, the angel of death to freak out and then ask "I mean, what about Jay and Bob? Those guys were all right!"
• During the bar scene: "Holy shit, Silent Bob's an instrument of God!?"
• Loki (and to a lesser degree, Bartleby) exacting vengeance on commandment breakers with glee.
  Loki: (after shooting an adulterer, winning a bet with Bartleby that he still had what it took to sniff out commandment breakers and deliver justice) Who's house? Run's house! I said who's house? Run's house!
• As Bethany talks to Metatron for the last time, Silent Bob fills Jay in on her, until then, heartbreaking Disney Death via very silly pantomime.
• Meta: doubling as a CMOA, the night that the movie premiered, a group stood outside a theater in Eatontown, NJ. Kevin Smith himself was part of the crowd, pretending to side with them.
• In a Funny Background Event, when Bartleby is informing Loki on exactly how they will get back into Heaven, the nun Loki made his Through The Looking-Glass justification to reject religion to is seen utterly drunk and apparently attempting to unsuccessfully steal a jug of beer.
• There is something darkly funny about a very drunk Loki's complete and utter detached way of describing how Bartleby went berserk to the point of picking random people up off the street and dropping them from a great height.
• Smith's regular response whenever he was accused of making a movie that was a serious attack on religion: "The movie has a rubber poop monster in it!"
• The extended DVD scene of Rufus revealing Jesus wasn't an only child is a good case of Crosses the Line Twice, since Bethany is shocked Mary and Joseph had a healthy sex life like any other married couple. "Believing in immaculate conception is one thing, but believing a married couple never got down? That's just plain gullibility!"
  Bethany: Mary and Joseph had sex?
  Rufus: All the time! Shit, she was a screamer! Jesus told me stories about hearing them through the walls when he was a kid.

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