Funny / H.M.S. Pinafore

• Pinafore gets going with the irreverence early on, from the first spoken lines:
  Boatswain: Aye, Little Buttercup—and well called—for you’re the rosiest, the roundest, and the reddest beauty in all Spithead.
  Buttercup: Red, am I? and round—and rosy! May be, for I have dissembled well! But hark ye, my merry friend—hast ever thought that beneath a gay and frivolous exterior there may lurk a canker-worm which is slowly but surely eating its way into one’s very heart?
  Boatswain: No, my lass, I can’t say I’ve ever thought that.
• One version of "Never Mind the Why and Wherefore" has Josephine (who was several sheets to the wind by this point after all the toasts) replace one of the "And the tar who plows the water" with "And the tar who plows the daughter", causing spit-takes in Sir Joseph and Captain Corcoran.