Funny / Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

I don't think I'll have the dessert.

• Willie is charmed by the diamond Lao Che gave to Indy, and then Indy pokes her to make her give him the diamond:
  Willie: Oh, Lao— OW!
  Indy: (about to have a drink) To your very good health.
  [Willie stands up, bumping into Indy so that he spills the drink.]
  Willie: Lao, he put a hole — he put two holes in my dress from Paris!
  Lao Che: SIT! DOWN!
  (Willie sits away from Indy)
• Lao Che's reaction after Indy drank the poisoned champagne. His face all but screams "Holy shit, I can't believe that worked!" No wonder he grabs the Villain Ball and starts gloating.
  Lao Che: And now, you give me the diamond.
  Indy: Are you actually developing a sense of humor or am I going deaf?
• Indy punches a cigarette lady. Of course, the poison is starting to run through his system, impairing his vision. Not to mention the first person POV shot of a fist smashing Indy in the face.
• Willie tries to pick up the diamond, but people keep kicking it as they all run in panic.
• Indy passes his gun to Willie during the car chase, but it's so hot from being fired that she drops it out the window.
  Indy: Where's my gun?! WHERE'S MY GUN?!!
  Willie: I burned my fingers AND I CRACKED A NAIL!!!!
• "Nice try, Lao Che." [Closes the airplane door to reveal the logo on it: LAO CHE Air Freight.]
  • "Goodbye, Doctor Jones." (Lao Che and Kao Kan laugh themselves silly as he signals his pilots to deal with Indiana, Willie, and Short Round once out of China and they signal back to acknowledge his orders)
• Most of what Short Round says elevates him from being a mere Ethnic Scrappy to a funny-as-hell little kid. "Maybe he like...older women" and "Tell me later, what happen" stand out in particular.
  "He no nuts. He's CRAZY." (This is especially funny since he's been spending the majority of the film defending Indy whenever Willie calls him stupid or crazy. In this particular instance, Short completely agrees with her.)
• Right after the pilots abandoned Indy, Willie and Shorty to their deaths:
  Willie: (sees the cockpits empty) Oh no. Oh no! Mister! Mister! Oh mister, please wake up!
  Shorty: You call him Dr. Jones, doll.
  Willie: Dr. Jones! Dr. Jones! Please wake up!
  Indy: Are we there already? Oh, good.
  Willie: No, no. (drags Indy to the cockpits) No one's flying the plane!
  Indy: Oh boy.
  Willie: They're all gone! (Indy gets on one of the cockpits) You know how to fly, don't you?
  Indy: (Beat) No. Do you?
  Willie: Oh no. I'm gonna faint.
  Indy: How hard could it be?
• "A boat?! We're not sinking! WE'RE CRASHING!" Willie proceeds to scream as she bites down on her fist.
  • "Lady, I can't breathe!"
• "I hate the water! And I hate being wet! And I hate YOU!!!!!" "GOOD!"
• The villagers' dumbfounded expressions when Willie tries to get on an elephant. It's as if they're thinking "These are the people who are going to save our kids?!"
  Indy: Willie, quit monkeying around on that thing.
• Willie spends much of the campfire scene fending off the curious trunk of their elephant. The last time, however, it's not the elephant - it's a python. Indy tries to warn her, but he's panicking too much to actually say anything; meanwhile, Willie - who previously freaked out at every little bit of wildlife she encountered - simply grabs the snake and flings it off into the underbrush in exasperation without ever looking at it to realize what it is.
  Willie: I hate that elephant.
• Indy and Short Round arguing about who was the bigger cheat while Willie runs screaming from every little noise and creature.
  • To boot, it starts off in English before switching over into Chinese and then back into English without skipping a beat. So if you aren't laughing at Willie, you're watching a kid and a grown man engage in full on Ham-to-Ham Combat with Gratuitous Foreign Language.
  • The whole thing ends with Indy's childish "Oh fine, I quit." And then a few minutes later, he pays Shorty the ten cents that was at stake in their game.
• The whole dinner at the palace.
  • The Prime Minister, annoyed with Indy's claims, has some fun by mischievously bringing back an incident where the Sultan of Madagascar threatened Indy with some form of mutilation. He thinks it was Indy's head at risk, then his hands, until Indy admits the truth:
    Indy: No, it wasn't my hands, it was my...*looks down* my misunderstanding.
  • Short Round's dropped jaw at the "snake surprise" resulting in the olive in his mouth rolling out and making a DOING! noise as it hits something.
  • The look on Willie's face when they're serving chilled monkey brains (as shown in the page image).
  • Captain Blumburtt flicks a baby snake away as it screeches.
  • One of the dinner guests belches after eating a bug.
    Willie: (whispers to Shorty) Give me your hat.
    Short Round: (takes it off) Why?
    Willie: (grabs the hat) Cause I'm gonna puke on it!
    [Shorty pulls his hat out of Willie's grasp]
  • Pay attention to Chattar Lal when they're bringing out the plate of beetles. He's making this absolutely ridiculous buck-toothed grin.
• The bedroom scene in which Indiana is hunting for the secret passage while Willie has other things on her mind...
  Indy: Nobody's here.
  Willie: No, I'm here. [Indy shakes his head] Indy, you're acting awfully strange.
  • When Indy puts his hands on a statue's breasts (to push the statue, since it's part of a secret passage), Willie gestures to her own breasts and growls, "I'm right here!"
  • Prior to that, the scene in their bedrooms after their argument about their Belligerent Sexual Tension where we cut back and forth between them, each certain that the other is going to show up.
    Indy: "Palace slave"...
    Willie: "Nocturnal activities"...
    Indy: I'm a conceited ape?
    Willie: "I'll tell you in the morning"...
    Indy: I can't believe it.
    Willie: He's not coming.
    Indy: She's not coming. (pause) I can't believe I'm not going.
  • Even before that when they argue about who's gonna come begging for whom, Willie started to sound a bit like Indy when she called him a conceited ape, in both voice and attitude. And when she says, "I'm not that easy!" Indy replies, "I'm not that easy either," in a very non-convincing tone.
  • Willie tries to push another statue, even putting her hands on its breasts. But of course it won't budge.
  • And at the beginning of the scene, how does Indy convince her to let him in in the first place? He bites into an apple — Willie is famished because of the Foreign Queasine she refused to eat.
• The bug tunnel sequence. ALL OF IT. Not only is it the definition of terrifying for those who are afraid of insects, but it's also incredibly funny due to great editing and dialogue.
  • Short Round accidentally triggers the spike trap.
    Indy: Stop! Look, just stand up against the wall, will you?
    (Short Round stands against the wall, where he unknowingly leans into a wall switch that activates the trap, much to both their horror)
    Short Round: You said to stand against the wall! I just did what you say! It's not my fault!
  • Indy calling Willie for help.
    Indy: This is serious!
    Willie: THERE ARE TWO DEAD PEOPLE DOWN HERE!!!
    Indy: There are gonna be two dead people in here! Hurry!
    Willie: I've almost had enough of you two.
    Indy: (Trying to open the door with a dagger) Willie!
    Willie: (enters the bug tunnel) What's the rush?
    Indy: It's a long story, Willie. Hurry, or you won't get to hear it.
  • Willie walking into the bug tunnel, completely oblivious.
    Indy: (trying to hold the ceiling up) Hurry!
    Willie: (aggravated) ALRIIIGHT!! (suddenly looks at her hand) Ohhh I broke a nail.
    [Willie turns hand over — A GIANT BUG WAS HIDING IN HER PALM. Bugs at her feet. Bugs above her head.]
    Willie: (Screams Like a Little Girl)
    Shorty: (holding the ceiling up) Willie, hurry!
    Willie: THEY'RE IN MY HAAIIRR!!!
    Indy: (sticks a skull in a corner of the ceiling to slow it down) Aw, shut up, Willie!
    Willie: Indy, let me in!
    Shorty: No, let us out!
    Willie: Let me in!
    Shorty: Let us out!
    Indy: (still trying to slow the ceiling down) SHUT UP!!
  • Indy and Shorty are being crushed in the spike trap. Willie has to feel inside a hole for a lever to save them. Inside it is full of bugs.
    Indy: You can do it. Feel inside!
    (Willie looks inside and sees all the bugs)
    Willie: YOU FEEL INSIDE!
    (Indy's fist comes through the wall)
    Indy: Do it NOW!!!
    Willie: OKAAAAAAAAYYY!!!!
  • The ending crowns the work.
    Indy: Willie, WE... are going... to DIE!
    • Please note the most stone-cold serious :C face you could ever imagine.
  • The most serious Puppy-Dog Eyes ever. He could give Kim Possible a run for her money.
  • The Death Glare on his face after Willie deactivates the trap and the boulder rolls away could melt steel.
  • As Willie panics from all the bugs on her, she winds up activating the trap again.
    Short Round: It wasn't me! It's her!
    Willie: Huh?!!!
  • After quickly escaping the trap room before it locks itself, Indiana drops his hat after squeezing through the closing doorway, then quickly snatches his hat back before the door shuts itself. Some things are hard wired.
• Mola Ram might be the scariest villain in the entire franchise but you can tell his actor Amrish Puri was having a blast playing the role, and he comes off as both extremely sinister and a hilariously Laughably Evil Large Ham as a result. (He shaved his head for the role and decided to keep it that way for the rest of his career.) There's at least one scene where he has his headdress in his hands and he's petting it like a Bond villain cat.
• After Short Round wakes Indy out of Kali Ma's black sleep, he attacks the guards while trying to save Willie, at one point charging Mola Ram with a stone-tipped spear...only to have the Thuggee leader disappear through a trap door with a maniacal laugh; Indy's face is like, "Really?"
  Mola Ram: MUUUHAHAHAHAHAHA! [sic]
  • Before Indy even thinks of coming for him, Mola Ram takes off his ridiculous headdress and grins gleefully. On rewatch, his expression all but screams "Ooh! I finally get to use my secret exit!"
• Willie, despite being nearly half-dead from heat exhaustion after being lowered into the lava pit, still summons the strength to slap Indy in the face after he rescues her, either out of anger for his previous failure to help her, or still trying to snap him out of it.
• Indy tries to hit the taskmaster with a hammer who takes it, then he grabs it and throws it on the head of a random miner, with a hilarious 'boink!' sound and the miner just keeling straight over.
  • During the fight, Willie tries to hold Short Round back from jumping in to help Indy. Cut to the taskmaster punching Indy's gut so hard that he comically gasps for air.
    Willie: [nodding] Okay, save him.
  • Short Round "saves" Indy by hitting the taskmaster with a whip as he's carries Indy above his head ("Drop him down! I'll kill you! Drop him down!"). The taskmaster lifts Indy higher and drops him into a cart. Laughing, he then grabs Shorty and toss him aside, with Shorty screaming "WHOOOAAA!!".
  • Pay close attention to the dummy that gets chucked into the cart. You can see "Indy" slam his arm against the side as he flops in. Ow.
• Right before the giant Thugee guard is pulled into the rock crusher, he's about to drop a giant rock right on Indy's head, only Indy hits him first with a couple of buckets, causing the guard to drop the rock on his own head. The guard then looks so dazed, all that's missing are the chirping birds.
• Indy telling Short Round to "quit fooling around" with the maharajah.
• When Short Round is about to enter the mine cart and a Thuggee ambushes him from behind, Shorty just drops to the floor and lets the Thug trip over him, then gets up and climbs over the Thug's body into the mine cart.
• Indy using his foot to brake the mine car, causing it to smoke and Indy yelling "Water! Water!" as he and Willie try to put out the fire on his foot. Suddenly an oncoming deluge of water starts flooding down the tunnel and Indy yelling and pointing "WATER! WATER!"
• During the mine cart chase sequence, Indy uses a shovel to empty a dirt silo all over the heads of their pursuers. After this happens and they continue on, trailing dust, one of the Thugs can be heard making a very exaggerated "PWAAAAAAH!" noise. He sounds like he's annoyed at having flour poured over him in the shower as a prank.
• Indy runs into two Thugs with swords. He decides to just shoot them, but realized he lost his gun (thanks to Willie). He smiles nervously at them, and they attack.
  • Indy starts chasing one with a sword, screaming furiously. He suddenly stops at a close-up of his face. He sees something, his scream falters and turns into a nervous whimper, and he runs the other way. Suddenly, a whole army of screaming Thugs charge into the shot, chasing after him.
  • This is probably an Actor Allusion to when, in A New Hope Han Solo chases after a couple stormtroopers. He then runs back down the hallway, with more stormtroopers behind him. The remastered edition also shows a room full of about 50 stormtroopers before Han turns around.
• Willie screaming after escaping the mines and crossing the rickety bridge only to run into Mola Ram and several mooks... Who had to have already been standing there.
  Mola Ram: (grinning) Welcome.
• Especially when seeing the film in a theater again with an audience, hearing Indy say this gets chuckles, "Oh, shit."
• When Indy threatens to drop the stones Mola Ram is after off the bridge, Willie is briefly seen grinning smugly and raising her eyebrows at Mola Ram in the same way a sibling looks when their parent takes their side of an argument.
• Indy's exasperated "Jeez!" as, while he's in the midst of scaling the cliff after cutting the bridge, he realizes that the surviving Thugs on the other side are now shooting at him. He's having a really bad day. The Marvel Comics tie-in has a great line where Indy thinks to himself, "When this is over, I'm gonna sleep for a month!"
• From the DVD making-of special: the description of how one of the elephants ate part of Willie's very expensive dress, to which the film's costume designer actually had to put on the insurance form "eaten by elephant."
  Costume designer Anthony Powell: ...and it said "Reason for damage". And — and what could I put? All I could put was "dress eaten by an elephant".

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