Funny / Living Single

• From the season 1 episode, "Burglar In The House", after realizing they are being robbed, the three women each grab a weapon. While Khadijah has her trusty nunchucks, Regine grabs a large, thick book while Synclaire decides to arm herself with a houseshoe.
  Regine: What you gonna do, huh? *while hitting it* Beat him down with Isotoners?!
  Synclaire: Oh, yeah, well what you gonna do? Hit him with the Bible?
  Regine: Over and over again!
  • Also, there's Synclaire's "Doberman In A Can" (which is an airhorn attached to a aerosol can that features a dog barking.)
  • There's also this exchange:
  Regine: I'm scared. (whining) I don't wanna go back to my room. Can I sleep in here with you?
  Khadijah: Re, this is a queen-sized bed; that means there's just enough room for the queen. (loud cheers and laughter from the audience)
  Regine: Well, move over, your highness!
  • Even better, on the wall behind her, there's an actual Queen Latifah poster.
• Season 2 episode, "Singing The Blues", has Kyle and Max's Unresolved Sexual Tension / Slap-Slap-Kiss relationship on full display.
  • Also, when Kyle is giving a reminder (via a tape recorder) about a prominent journalist doing an interview with Khadijah:
  Kyle: Note to Sabrina: expect a call from Black Visionaries.
  Max: Note to Sabrina: there are several poisons that can't be traced! *as Kyle is wrestling the tape recorder from her* Think about it! Think about it!
  • While Kyle practices for his solo, Overton has this piece of advice:
  Overton: And if you're gonna sing that song, She's Out of My Life, don't choke up at the end; hell, everybody's gonna know it's phony.
  Kyle: Ahem! *begins to harmonize in a high-pitched*
  Max: *bursting through the front door* Okay! Everybody out! Fire alarm! Oh, I'm sorry, Kyle; I thought I heard a smoke alarm going off.
  • At the beginning of the aforementioned scene, Kyle was practicing scatting into the remote, only for Overton to take it away from him, citing the last time he did that he had recorded three hours of Korean home shopping.
  • Later in the episode, when Kyle finally does sing at the club, upon Max showing up in a very low-cut dress, he chokes and storms out.
  Max: Whoa! Check out Loser Vandross! *laughing*
  • The subplot has Khadijah being interviewed by a journalist, which brings up an embarrassing childhood incident where Regine lent her her grandmother's heels to wear at a school assembly that she had to greet her students at (a pair which she couldn't walk in) and she only managed to stutter out "P-p-p-principal H-h-h-hernandez and I would like to thank you all for coming..." before she fell out of her shoes and off of the stage. And Regine's grandmother was mad at her for scuffing up her favorite shoes.
• "Grumpy Young Man" has Kyle playing Twister at his retro-themed 30th birthday party.
  Kyle: I'm not so bad for an old fogey, huh? *his butt is right next to Overton*
  Overton: Yeah, but it would be a whole lot better if your butt wasn't all up in my face!
  • After falling down in the middle of the game:
  Kyle: *in a high-pitched, pained voice* Ooh! My back!
  *Khadijah comes out with his chocolate birthday cake which has numerous candles on it*
  Khadijah: *singing* Happy birthday to—*stops* What happened?
  Kyle: Ohh, I'm old.
  Khadijah: You don't have to tell me that; I could light up New York City with this cake. *lifts the cake over her head like The Statue of Liberty and smiles*
• The women's labels while appearing on the talk show Delia in "Talk Showdown" and appearing as the alleged "Roommates From Heaven":
  Khadijah: Saddled With Unwanted Roommate
  Synclaire: Most Likely To Need Post-Show Counseling
  Regine: Taken In As Charity Case
  Max: Proud Freeloader
  • Also, anytime Kyle spoke up and namely when he tried to defend Regine, he gets booed, but the moment he calls the audience members mindless sheep, they cheer him. Even better is the confused look on his face after they do.
  • Jenifer Lewis' portrayal of Delia in general! She is clearly having a great time in the role, from the way she rolls her "R"s whenever saying Regine's name, her alternating voice ranges from soft to loud ("SHE SAID THAT YOU BEGGED HER TO MOVE IN WITH YOU!!") to just her normal interactions and responses:
  Khadijah: Oh, Delia?
  Delia: Kha-dee-JAH?!
  • One of the other guests on the show was a then-unknown Will Ferrell. Plus the Noodle Incidents between him and his roommates (that they were apologizing for) where he put out a hit on his one roommate and she burned down his mother's house.
  • After arriving back home, the girls find that Regine's mother left a message on the answering machine:^note The secret that was spilled on the show was that Regine's mother asked Khadijah and her mother to take her daughter in since she couldn't keep a job and couldn't find a place to live, in case you were wondering.
  Laverne: *On the machine* Regine, honey? It's Mommy. You weren't supposed to find out about this until after I was dead. Way to keep a secret, Khadijah! *BEEP!*
  • Before appearing on the show, Regine is trying to be a consultant to the girls on how to dress and behave:
  Regine: Khadijah, keep your sarcasm and tedious work stories to a minimum. Synclaire, honey, try not to get that blank look on your face.
  *Synclaire turns around with the very same blank look on her face Regine warned her about*
  • At the beginning of the episode, Regine sees Khadijah using lotion and gets angry:
  Regine: Oh, I know that is not my cruelty-free, ozone-friendly, dolphin-safe Condor egg moisturizer!
• The sub-plot of "Trick or Trust" has the crew trying unsuccessfully to scare Max. One moment has Kyle and Overton walk into the ladies' apartment with a fake ax in Overton's head, leading Synclaire to fake scream in horror and Max to quip, "Right ax, wrong head."
  • Later on has the very serious moment when Overton falls down the stairs in the ladies' apartment and seriously injures himself, everyone springs into action:
  Kyle: Okay, Synclaire, I want you to call 911. Max, I want you to get a blanket and a pillow to prevent him from going into shock.
  Max: Blanket and a pillow, blanket and a pillow--
  Kyle: Go! *she then retrieves the items for Overton*
  Max: (panicked) Alright, okay man! Just tell me what you want me to do!
  *Just then, Overton sits up uninjured with a big smile on his face and declares:*
  Overton: I want you to represent, 'cuz I'm gonna sue somebody!
  • It gets even better later on, when Max learns they taped the entire ordeal and proceed to make fun of her for it.
• The ending of "Working Nine To Nine-Fifteen" has the Safe-T-Man (a dummy that a woman across the street had bought for protection when driving at night) singing an off-key rendition of the theme song, complete with "working" mouth.
• The actress that Max gave damaging career and personal advice to in "What's Next?" was leaving the room and accidentally got her hair caught in the coat rack. After being freed (and her whispering "Thank you" after being freed), the others give looks of Oh, Crap! about Max's misstep.
  • The ending of the episode has Kyle sleeping in the living room having gotten drunk. As he stretches and changes his position, we then see that Max is sleeping on the couch next to him underneath his arm. Soon after waking up and discovering each other, Kyle freaks out, Max screams at the top of her lungs and they look at each other, frozen in shock as we then hear Regine's ending narration:
  Aww, suki-suki, now! Be sure and come back and see what happens. Smooches!
• "There's Got To Be A Morning After" deals with the fallout of the previous episode, as Kyle and Maxine come to terms with the fact that they slept together. He initially believes it's All Just a Dream.
  Kyle: It's all right; God looks out for me. *Starts jumping up and down in order to "wake" himself up, yet he still sees Max staring up at him in disgust* Oh, man. You have to shake harder than that!...God must have blinked.
  • When they both fight over the cover and then look at the other one naked from underneath, they both are disgusted by what they see.
  • The Noodle Implements of him learning that he drank out of her shoe and then asking, "Why is there salt in my navel?" Then as Overton arrives home and Max wins over the cover, Kyle puts two couch pillows over himself as he walks in the door.
  • When on the balcony of the apartment for a party with the others, they both start singing the same song, "Tell Me Something Good" by Rufus, only to stop upon realizing that the other one is singing, too.
  • "I'm fine! I never felt better!" *with arms extended to the sides* "Oh, for the love of God! If you love me, push me!"
  • After they finally confess to what has occurred:
  Khadijah: *on the roof* You slept with Kyle?!
  Overton: *in the apartment* You clogged up the sink, again?!
• "Come Back Little Diva" has Regine moving out after the fallout from "Talk Showdown" into a one-bedroom apartment. She welcomes her mother, who is visiting.
  Regine: Welcome to my Pied-a-terre.
  Laverne: Well, I don't know what the hell that means, but this here is a dump.
  • The parallel versions of Regine's friends in the new complex, who are little more than exaggerated versions of the others, including a woman with an even bigger appetite than Max's and Carl, who's an even more vain version of Kyle.
  • Also, Regine's invitation to the "exclusive" apartment, which proclaims "No cameras, no children and no guests". Overton then correctly interprets as "No Kodaks, no kids, no Khadijahs"!
• The "Great Expectations" episode has the four women going to a club. For extra fun and as a way to keep themselves safe from any unwanted attention, they create fake names (except for Regine):
  Khadijah: *In a hoity-toity, soft-spoken voice* I'm "Alexis"...
  Max: *In a Bronx accent* I'm "Dominique", right? Right?
  Synclaire : Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! My name's gonna be "ShaQuan!"
  *The other girls look at her with confused looks on their faces*
  • Then later on:
  Goldie: *To Max* What's your name, beautiful?
  Max: ShaQuan.
  Synclaire: But that's—
  Max: Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
  • Then as Goldie calls the house at the end of the night:
  Khadijah: Hello? No, ShaQuan isn't here; this is her sister, Sabuda.
  • The fact that Goldie is played by Miguel A. Nunez, who also played "Pretty Ricky" Fontaine, Martin's high school rival in the "Really, Gina Is Not My Lover" episode.
  • Also, at the club, Regine finds three other women who are sporting the same dress she is. She manages to ruin two of the dresses, but in the process of trying for the third one, her own dress ends up getting ruined.
  • At one point in their own plot line, Kyle is singing "You Are Everything" by The Stylistics in the mirror to himself...but changes up the lyrics, singing "I am everything, and everything is me..." instead. And in a falsetto voice.
• "The Handyman Can" has Overton feeling guilty over a bookshelf he built collapsing and killing a vicious cat. At the funeral, Kyle, unsure on what to make of the scenario, begins singing a slow and quasi-melodramatic version of "What's New, Pussycat?", which the others join him in. To makes matters worse for poor Overton, the coffin he built for the cat collapses as well. Then Max shows up go the funeral, highly upset. When questioned about how much the death has affected her, she cries out "Freak the cat!" and explains that she's crying because she found out that she's allergic to chocolate. Even better, The Stinger has her trying to consume all the chocolate she can, with predictable results.
• "Reconcilable Differences" has Regine dating a man who's overly attached to his pet dog, to the point that he allows it to watch them having sex. She ends up breaking it off with him and recounts this to Max and Khadijah, leading to this exchange:
  Regine: I told him he had to choose between me or Kingston (the dog)...
  Max: ...and he chose the one who was housebroken! (laughs hysterially)
  Khadijah:(to Regine) You know she's holding a gun, and yet you still give her the bullets.
  • Later, Norton— the ex-boyfriend— shows up exclaiming that Kingston is in the hospital with chocolate poisoning and not knowing how it could have occurred; earlier, Regine had used a piece of chocolate to lure Kingston into the bathroom and lock him in. Regine is clearly thrilled at this and proceeds to console him over his impending loss when Max immediately launches into her attorney-at-law mode, asking such questions as who has been in Norton's apartment most recently, who was alone with Kingston last, etc. The panicked look on Regine's face at how close Norton gets to making the obvious deduction, coupled with the dirty looks Max and Khadijah shoot at her, is priceless.
• The episode where Max steals and wears a prop dress Regine is working on to a mayor's gathering despite being all but forbidden under pain of death to do more than look at it. Turns out, it was a rip-away dress for a fight scene, so Regine had designed it to literally come apart at the seams at the slightest tug. Max returns from the dance thoroughly embarrassed and extremely grateful that she "had decided to wear a bra" that night.
  • When Regine finds out what Max did, she panics and is about to try to stop her, then stops, gets a devilish grin on her face, and decides against it.
  • The way Max's calm reaction to learning that Regine basically set her up absolutely terrifies Synclaire.
  • Max later apologizes to Regine and accepts that what happened was her fault (despite learning that Regine could have warned her but didn't). When Synclaire congratulates her for invoking the Easily Forgiven trope, Max (with Regine out of earshot) lists every single thing she did to get back at her (slashing her tires, pouring sugar in her gas tank, removing her valve cap, having 2 dozen pizzas delivered in her name, cancelling her credit cards, and setting her up on a date with RuPaul.)
• The episode "Likes Father, Likes Son" has Regine dating a father and a son, who are played by real-life father and son actors-directors Mario (who plays Cole, a vain meteorologist) and Melvin Van Peebles (who plays Warner, an architect). As she discovers that they're related, she is not pleased:
  How is it only in New York that I wind up with a FATHER AND A SON?! This is so...(now intrigued and somewhat proud of herself) 90s.
  • When the men finally realize what's going on and come to the apartment to confront her, as the others are about to leave, Synclaire says "I think Regine wants to be alone with her date and his son. Oh, meant, her date and his father." Regine then screams at them to get out as they all express how awkward the situation is and once they finally do, Kyle begins to hum the theme of Sanford and Son.
  • When they force her to choose between them, she chooses Warner, who proceeds to straighten his tie in victory.
• "Her Cups Runneth Over" has Regine having to get a breast reduction. When she goes into the doctor's office for her consultation before the surgery, the doctor (played by Elayne Boosler) spares no details:
  Regine: (whilst sitting on the examination table) You know, just sitting here in your office, I suddenly feel as light as air!
  Dr. Sheridan: Well, before you fly away...let me check your back.
  [...]
  Regine: Why don't you just prescribe me a load of painkillers and I'll be out of your hair?
  Dr. Sheridan: Uh-huh, and after you get out of rehab, we can go ahead and schedule your surgery!
  • When Dr. Sheridan is taking the photos of Regine's breasts for her pre-op, she sports several annoyed facial expressions, until she requests "a little side to side motion" which leaves her shocked.
  • While with her friends right before being taking off to the operating room, Synclaire entertains her by singing "Accentuate The Positive" and when she expresses worry about receiving a third one, she quips that the third one is the charm, which leads to this exchange:
    Overton: You know, Buttercup, you can find a silver lining in every dark cloud...but sometimes, you outta just let it rain.
  • The side plot has Overton indirectly causing an ice cream truck driver to suffer a heart attack after asking to reach and get a peanutty buddy ice cream cone and the neighborhood children turning against him, even citing that "he's more hated than supermarket-brand sneakers". Then once he and one of the neighbor kids visit him, instead of the man being glad, he tries to blame him, only for him to justifiably counter "You are a little on the hefty side!" and the man's anger causes him another episode! The kid gets annoyed with Overton, but once he decides to treat him to an ice cream cake, all is forgiven.
• "The Naked Truth" has Kyle and Overton having a falling out over petty differences. In their arguments, Overton calls out his embarrassing secret of using baby wipes in stead of toilet paper in the bathroom and the latter defending himself by calling them "personal wipes" and states, "At least I have the decency to close the door when I'm done, Doctor Funk-en-stein!"
  • When the continue their argument upstairs in their own apartment, it ends with Kyle dropping Overton's tools down the dumbwaiter into the girls' apartment and Overton throwing Kyle's various Jacksons albums into the street (where he can even hear cars screeching and swerving in an attempt not to run them over, which they did anyway). It also leads to this exchange:
  Khadijah: Ooh, not those albums! You know how Kyle feels about them!
  Regine: Yeah, he'd mate with them albums if he could!
  Max: Lord knows he's tried!
  • The scene where Overton accidently walked in on Khadijah naked. As the two of them begin screaming in shock and horror just as it goes to commercial, it then goes back to Overton haphazardly covering his eyes with a bar of soap and a loofah while profusely apologizing, and this moment:
  Synclaire: Overton, what happened?
  Overton: I just saw Khadijah naked! I'm devastated!
  (Khadijah now has an annoyed look of "Gee, thanks!" on her face in response)
  • Kyle warning the girls about Overton's various "handyman songs" which includes him singing In the Style of Whitney Houston's "I'm Every Woman" ("I'm very handy...") and Barry Manilow's "Mandy" ("Oh, handy...")
• The series finale, "Let's Stay Together", has Maxine and Kyle horrified at Maxine ending up pregnant by Kyle via artificial insemination due to her going to a sperm bank that he contributed to after a near-death experience. They even share the same scream of terror after realizing it.
  • When it dawns on Khadijah what they did, she has a fun Call-Back to "Singing The Blues":
    (imitating Kyle's singing) My...funny Valentine...
  • Once Kyle meets up with Overton and he learns the truth, and he decides to gradually get drunk, he asks him what drink he'd like:
    Kyle: Rat poison would be my drink of choice right now!
    [...]
    Kyle: You know, right now, my child—a Barker—is trapped inside of the body of Maxine Shaw, being nutured with nachos, and snack cakes, and sides of beef! My child is gestating inside of a landfill!
  • Later on, when Khadijah decides to throw a snowball at Kyle to get his attention, Max tries to escape by jumping off of the roof:
    Max: Some friend you are! I better escape! (attempts to go towards the roof's door) No! He'll be coming up this way! I know! (starts to climb off the rooftop) If I jump off the roof and land on the soft top of that covertible, I can come off the ground rollin'!
    Khadijah: In your condition?
    Max: Damn! Kid's slowin' me down already! (Runs and hides behind some pipes)
  • Earlier on, Russell brings his homemade moonshine to the New Year's Eve party Khadijah is throwing, but he refuses to partake in any beforehand, citing how the last time he did, he wound up naked in Times Square and begging a policeman to take a ride on his horse.

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