Funny / Klaus (2019)

Ass you can see, fighting against the Krums/Ellingboes can be a pain in the butt.

WARNING: Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies to Funny Moments pages. All spoilers will be unmarked!

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• Jesper's Establishing Character Moment: He loafs in a tent while a scarecrow of his likeness does his equestrian training.
• The montage of Jesper purposely failing at Postman school. The main highlight is how he handles fragile packages: by kicking them on the way down some stairs as though they were but pebbles on the sidewalk.
• Jesper trying to appeal to his father to not send him away by imitating "Little Jespie", complete with Puppy-Dog Eyes. From what the next scene indicates, it didn't work.
• As Jesper is forced into going to Smeerensburg, he hopes to be send in his dad's fancy coach with his coachman Burghard, only to him to move and reveal his actual less than fancy carriage, with the postman holding the horse unceremoniusly leaving Jesper upon seeing him.
• Jesper's father has a gentle moment where he firmly hopes that his Tough Love will one day lead to Jesper thanking him. We cut to Jesper "thanking" his father all the way to Smeerensburg.
• Nearly anything that Mogens says. It's clear Norm Macdonald had a blast getting to unleash his Deadpan Snarker prowess to its full potential in the role:
  Mogens: There she is. Smeerensburg. Charming, huh? Why, you should see it in the spring. That's when those grays really pop.
• The Running Gag of the Krum girl creepily holding a carrot and sticking it into snowmen. It doesn't get any less creepy even after Smeerensburg starts brightening up.
• Jesper loves his silk sheets. Rethink his priorities? Wrapped up in silk sheets. What does he prominently miss and whine about when he finally has to decide to get to work after arriving to Smeerensburg? Silk sheets! In fact, the silk sheets are the only thing that just barely gets the corner of his mouth to lift when he finally gets the chance to get off Smeerensburg near the climax of the movie! No, seriously. And when talking to Márgu, who still can't understand him:
  Jesper: Well, yeah, sure I'll miss it... (Reminiscing about home) The silk sheets- Oh, god, the silk sheets, can we change the subject?
• The Running Gag of some Ellingboe children messing with an old man rocking in his rocking chair. From pushing him off his porch so he sleds down the hill, to floating him out to sea on a bit of ice they sawed off with an ice saw, and even leaving him on top of a roof.
• The way the Krums and Ellingboes begin or stop fighting at the sound of the Battle Bell is almost Pavlovian.
  • Mrs. Krum and the others don't give an iota of care for Jesper's story and she's more concerned with getting back to fighting the Ellingboes again.
    Mrs. Krum: (beat) Where were we? Oh, right. Bell please!
• Apparently, five years in Smeerengsburg have not been so kind to Alva's social skills.
  Jesper: (noticing a picture of Alva's graduation) Holy moly! That's you? What happened?
  Alva: (loses patience) What happened was...
  Jesper: That's... that came out wrong.
  Alva: (Begins gesturing her knife around rather dangerously, whilst poor Jesper trips all over himself) ...I took a teaching job in place where people don't send their kids to school! Mingling with their sworn enemy's spawn? Oh no, we can't have that! So now, I'm reduced to doing this so I can get some money and start over fresh somewhere far, far away from here! Are! You going! To buy something?! (lowers her voice) Herring's on sale today. (Herring on her knife gives an appropriate Jaw Drop)
  • Even funnier is that Jesper asked if this was a school and where the children were at. Yes, it's still a school, just a school of fishes now.
• Jesper asking where he was really supposed to stay, with Mogens sarcastically whipping Jesper's earlier comment back at him.
  Mogens: (gleefully putting the door back) Are we starting to connect the dots?
• The montage of Jesper waking up to his first day in Smeerensburg.
  • The very instant he wakes up, a bank of snow falls on top of his bed.
  • The blanket-bound Jesper trying to take a precarious tightrope walk towards the bathroom whilst it's super windy.
  • While trying to prepare breakfast, Jesper rummages through the snow filled pantry to find what he needs. ...and grabs a live rat. It's the delayed reaction (for Jesper and the rat) that nails it!
• The montage where Jesper tries to find anybody in Smeerensburg who wants to deliver a letter. Given everybody in this town is feuding, that's easier said than done.
  Mogens: (notices Jesper crawling away from the violence) I guess that's why people call it "Snail Mail".
  • Special mention goes to band players from both the Krums and the Ellingboes trying to outdo each other at being noisy neighbors. And poor Jesper is trying to speak over them as he asks if they have any mail they want delivered.
• Jesper tries to weasel his way into tricking an innocent little Krum boy to mailing his misplaced drawing to himself as a letter. The funny part comes in when Jesper finds himself faced with the boy's unfriendly father and rather vicious hunting dogs. The little boy tells his father all about Jesper and the letter, unaware of the uncomfortable position Jesper is in right now. Jesper tries to placate the father by lying that the little boy is fibbing and it's all a mistake, but ends up chased by the dogs anyway.
  Mogens: And that must be the "Express Mail".
• Mogens coming to badger a hopelessly depressed Jesper after months of no mail.
  Mogens: Is this a bad time? I can see you're pretty swamped.
  Jesper: (sighs) Don't... you... have... a job... or something?
  Mogens: Why, sure I do. I'm here to pick up all the outgoing mail. So, where is it? Now, you're gonna have to help me with the heavier bags. Bad back, don't you know.
  Jesper: Man, I hate you...
  Mogens: I know!
• Jesper is forced to take Klaus to the home of the little Krum boy to deliver a present, and Klaus is so massive that Jesper is forced to sit cramped up next to him on his coach.
• Jesper trying to reassure himself that the package Klaus wants him to deliver to the little boy is not a severed head.
• When Klaus pulls a Stealth Hi/Bye on Jesper, the latter points out that the former moves so quietly for somebody his size and weight. Except he doesn't mention that last part, for fear of what this big, scary hooded man will do if he takes offense to it.
  • Becomes a Brick Joke when, upon the wagon reaching its weight capacity, Jesper suggests Klaus could use a diet cleanse before he nervously backpedals again.
• When Jesper believes the iron gates mean he won't be able to deliver the package, Klaus merely bends the bars whilst Jesper is distracted. To Jesper's surprise, Klaus merely plucks him up and gently places him through the bars.
  • When the dogs start charging at Jesper, he desperately begs for Klaus to let him out, even saying he could send a ransom note to his father for money. Klaus calmly looks at the chimney, lifts a leg, and stomps on a board that sends Jesper flying up into the air and falling down the chimney. Leaving Jesper only enough time to scream "WHYYYYYY?". And as he's flying, the dogs that were about to attack him come to a near immediate stop to watch him soar through the air, their confusion at what just happened being VERY apparent on their faces.
• Jesper trying to escape the household, only to come upon the door with an insane amount of locks. He spends the next few seconds desperately unlatching all of them at a rapid pace while muttering, "Keep it together, keep it together, you got this!"
• "The Great Mooning of '86!"
• Jesper going around to children asking if they wanted new toys... like he was a drug dealer.
• As Jesper returns to make a deal with Klaus, he watches him work, but thinks he's preparing to kill him. When Klaus hands him a noose-shaped rope, a scared Jesper resigns to his fate as he slowly and fearfully puts the noose around his head. Klaus then takes the noose off of him, attaches it to his new birdhouse, and throws the grapple up into the branches. Jesper lampshades that that wasn't creepy at all.
  • Jesper's sob stories about the deprived kids are progressively less believable, and he caps it by mentioning "And then Kristoff... Little, ugly Kristoff."
• The entire montage of Jesper mailing the toys to the children has touches of this. And not only the Amusing Injuries are funny.
  • One child describes to his friends that if you hang your stockings by the mantle, Klaus leaves toys in them. Jesper recalls how that lore came to be. We cut to Jesper meekly filling the aforementioned stocking one toy at a time as quickly as he can. ...before the numerous, sharp-fanged dogs sleeping throughout the room wake up.
  • At one point, Jesper plops down one chimney that's still lit. We cut to Jesper desperately jumping out an open window as his rump is burning and uses the snow to cool it whilst he muffles he screams of agony with more snow.
  • This following exchange between Jesper and Klaus is priceless.
    Klaus: What happene-
    Jesper: Not a word! You just sit there, be all magical and awesome.
    Klaus: (Beat) ..What?
• Alva lazily brushing her teeth before pausing and looking into her fish shop that is now filled with children. Cut to her angrily confronting Jesper and demanding to know not only what he was up to, but to also leave her out of it.
  • Her exact phrasing is hilarious, given the context.
    Alva: Telling children to go to school to learn to write? What is wrong with you?!
    Jesper: Yes! Uh, wh-what I meant to do was-
    Alva: (grabs Jesper roughly by the collar) Listen to me, postman. Whatever you're doing, leave me out of it! I've been rotting away here for five years and I am SO close to getting out, I am not about to let you mess it all up! You got it?!
    Jesper: These children, wasting away without a proper education? I mean... heh, forgive me, I'm kinda a dreamer but, isn't that why we do it? Hmm, hmm? Why you became a teacher? So you could make a difference?
    (Alva groans and throw Jesper against the wall before storming off)
  • Mogens takes a moment to tease Jesper about him and Alva being "young love".
    Mogens: Takes me back, you know. The intense looks, the palpitations of the heart. The whimpering and the soiling of the pants? No, I can't relate to so much.
• Annelisse learning to write her name on the chalkboard oh-so slowly as Ms. Alva impatiently glares at her.
• At one point, the wagon is holding so many presents that Jesper's horse can't pull it. Klaus gives us this gem:
  Klaus: (In a deadpan tone) Too heavy.
• The montage where Jesper attempts to catch reindeers, while Klaus simply lures the reindeer in with food.
  Jesper: (out of breath) Good. I wear them down, and you bring them in. Good team work.
• The two of them get caught up in the speed their new steeds grant them, and they look to each other with genuine excitement on their faces. But when they notice this, they immediately try to pretend to going back to being stoic.
  Jesper: That's right.
  Klaus: (muttering) Good call, reindeer.
  Jesper: This is good teamwork here. We're making good time.
  Klaus: (muttering) Reliable, strong, cooperative.
• Jesper making up the Naughty List with the little smirk on his face after he tells the Ellingboe bully, "You do not want to be on the Naughty List." Whilst he struts away, we hear a short rap song play called, "That's what you get when you mess with the Post Man", exaggerating Jesper's victory. Said rap song is so out of place, but it's because it's out of place that makes it comical.
• The montage where the children exact good deeds has its moments.
  • After one of the kids neighbors fell while trying to hammer up the hole in the fence, cut to the kids putting him on a sled and taking him back home to treat him. He's less than pleased.
    Old Man: Let go of me, you criminals! I'M BEING ATTACKED BY ELLINGBOES! HELP!!
  • Building on the above, there's Dramatic Irony that said-children thought their neighbor was yelling his head off because he was in pain from breaking his leg.
  • Some Ellingboe children picked berries for a Krum woman who is confused by the spontaneous kindness. Not to be outdone, she begrudgingly brings their mother several jars of berry jam and leaves in a huff, as though saying "There! I don't know what your children are up to, but that'll show you!"
  • Not long after this, the Ellingboe mother (also begrudgingly) brings the Krum woman a berry pie and gives the same huff, as though responding "There! That ought to show you!"
    • Although heartwarming, the fact that the Krum woman comes to bring jam to her Ellingboe neighbor on a friendly basis paints a picture of the two women trying to top each other at "fulfilling their obligation" to the other.
  • One Ellingboe boy helps clean his father's golden clarinet. The next time his father joins the other Ellingboes in being noisy to the Krums, he's so enraptured by his newly polished clarinet that he plays his heart out, causing the others to give pause.
  • Annelisse has an Apple for Teacher, which Alva graciously accepts - until she sees Jesper passing by, at which point she hastily chucks the apple and hustles the children inside, obviously still put out by his having referred them to her to start with.
  • We have the sledding Ellingboes about to sled down as they throw their spears as usual, when they are stopped in their tracks by an Ellingboe boy with a stop sign. The kid gives the okay for a Krum girl to help some Krum ladies cross the street. What makes this hilarious is that these are the same women who were carrying what's presumed to be a dead body. And under uncomfortable circumstances, the little girl is helping them cross the street whilst they carry yet another dead body!
    • It's the ladies' wide-eyed looks as they cross the street that puts the icing on the cake, as though thinking "We're not carrying the body of your dead comrade, honest!"
• During this one scene, it's Played for Drama when Klaus and Jesper's damaged wagon is sent flying through the air, leaving the two men screaming for dear life as they careen towards their supposed-death. Meanwhile, through the rose-tinted viewpoint of a little Ellingboe boy, he is awed by the fantastical sight of the reindeer magically flying through the air with natural ease.
  • When they land safely, we get this little gem:
    Klaus: (frazzled, dazed) Friends of yours, I take it?
    Jesper: (equally shaken) Uh...
    Klaus: (with a weak smile) They seem nice.
• When Klaus learns from Jesper how that Ellingboe boy thought he saw his reindeers fly, it's so ludicrous that it prompts his Signature Laugh.
  Klaus: (So loud that it scares the birds out of their houses) HO HO HO! HO HO HO HO!!
  Jesper: (bemused) Wait, wait, wait, time out. Really? That's how you laugh?
• When Mrs. Krum and Mr. Ellingboe make a truce to work together in their plot to stop Klaus and Jesper from bringing Christmas and both families cheered when the truce was made, the clan banner Pumpkin was holding onto was caught in the rope of the Battle Bell, ringing it. Silence ensues for a moment, and suddenly everyone except Mrs. Krum started fighting.
  Mrs. Krum: (facepalming while everyone else was fighting) This is gonna take a lot of work.
  • Earlier when rallying them, Mrs. Krum talks about the horrors of everyone else going to the horrors of cookouts and hayrides.
    Ellingboe man: And brunches! Don't forget about brunches!
    Krum woman: It was the book-club that took my poor Sven!
    Mrs. Krum: (...) They will all be at the cookouts, and the bookclubs-
    Ellingboe man: And the brunches! Don't forget about the brunches!
    Mrs. Krum: (trying not to facepalm) Yes, yes and the brunches.
• Jesper's Christmas pitch drawings has one when one such picture depicts the happy children with eyes exaggerated to look big, shiny and adorable. The funny part is, it's a Brick Joke to how Jesper imitated himself as a child in the beginning.
• When Mr. Ellingboe and Mrs. Krum find Jesper's chart marking how many letters he needs to leave Smeerensburg, the latter ominously remarks "Well, looks like somebody needs help mailing letters." Confused, Mr. Ellingboe wonders "Who?" This response from Mrs. Krum seals just how astounded she is that the Ellingboes' patriarch is such an idiotic man:
  Mrs. Krum: How have we never defeated you?!
• When the Saami people come by to repay Klaus and Jesper for their kindness towards Márgu, we have Márgu's mother walk past Klaus, say something in Saami, and give Klaus a pat on the cheek. Klaus' wide-eyed surprise at this reminds us that it's not everyday you see someone brave enough to pat an 8 foot tall man's face.
• Jesper tries to heroically save the presents by jumping onto the sleigh and driving off... only for the reins not to be attached, causing the sleigh to slide backwards.
  Jesper: Ha! Eat our snow you-! They're not attached. Why aren't they attached? I would never, in a million years have done what I just did if I didn't think these were attached.
  • Cue the mob just staring dumbfounded at the sleigh as it slowly slides away with a lot of amusing expressions.
• As the chase begins, Pumpkin repeated tries to grab a sled only to be interrupted by the other riders, and she has to make due with a very small sled.
• During the chase scene, we have Jesper trying to close up the torn bag full of presents when a couple of their Ellingboe-Krum antagonists attack them. Jesper asks Klaus for his help. With a roll of his eyes, Klaus steers the sleigh into a tunnel full of icicles, which hit everyone on the bag except Jesper. When Jesper asks in wonderment how Klaus knew he could do that without hitting the former, the latter shoots him a look that implies he intended it differently. Jesper drops the question.
• In the epilogue, there was a time Jesper was growing out a mustache. According to him, Alva didn't like it.
  • The look of confusion that so graces Klaus' smile when he first sees Jesper's mustache.
  • And then Jesper eventually drops the mustache prior to Klaus' death.

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