Funny / Murder, She Wrote

The Murder of Sherlock Holmes

• Jessica's expression that speaks louder than words as she gets a spa facial mask for the first time in prep for a TV appearance in NYC.

A Dog's Life

• A few of the Spiteful Will quips, like how the family fortune should go to someone good-natured and good-hearted, which lets all of his relatives out.
• The dead man's son Spencer attacks the mental capacity not of his father, but of the dog while contesting the will.
• Simple Country Lawyer Marcus Boswell comments that his one consolation after buying some bad stock at Spencer Langley's recommendation is that Spencer bought even more of it himself.

My Johnny Lies Over the Ocean

• Jessica manages to trick the murderer into exposing themselves by pretending to be drunk during the confrontation. It also crosses into a Moment of Awesome when her niece and another passenger manage to help her expose them.

Murder Takes the Bus

• The college professor played by Larry Linville (best known as Major Frank Burns in M*A*S*H) admitting his alibi is playing an arcade game.
• The grouching of the passenger played by David Wayne from Ellery Queen about how it rains on every vacation he takes. The Professor tells him the Sahara desert is the place with the least statistical chance of rain and the man replies he never liked camels.

Footnote to Murder

• The police accidentally letting Horace go when he gets on the wrong elevator at the police station.
• When erotic novelist Lucinda Lark reveals that her alibi was a one night stand with the most romantic man she'd ever met.... and that it was Horace the police's current suspect. It then cuts to Horace in deep brooding that he got to sleep with Lucinda and can't even remember it.

Sudden Death

• The way that Jessica's presence keeps flustering one of the other players.

Armed Response

• Jessica's exasperated reactions to the Amoral Attorney of the episode, especially when he tries to represent the murderers at the end.

Murder in the Afternoon

• After Jessica reveals the evidence which can be used to take down the murderer (who has a suitable Oh, Crap! expression), the cops reveal that said evidence would have been thrown away already. The last lines of the episode are Jessica's reaction to that.
  Jessica: Oh. In that case I would get him to confess as quickly and as loudly as possible.

A Fashionable Way to Die

• Jessica asks the inspector if she can come when he interviews more suspects. She requests this in a totally professional tone, yet the inspector convinces himself she's captivated by him.
• At the end of the episode, the inspector makes a point of telling Jessica that he, like all Frenchmen, is a romantic deep down. Then he glances at the bill and informs her she's paying half.

Witness for the Defense

• "The name I use in Quebec...is... Fletcher" says respectable Mrs. Fletcher dramatically, implying that she's a shady character working for Mr. Quail. The conversation just gets sillier from there.

The Bottom Line is Murder

• The TV host being Instantly Proven Wrong as he waxes about the poor quality in the bulletproof vests, when his assistant goes over to inspect it and finds out it works.
• Jessica's interactions with maintenance man Burt Tanaka, who collects trash from various celebrities.
• The incompetent detective firmly defending the character of the murder victim, who'd used him as an expert on his show, while remaining blissfully oblivious to how the tape of him had been put out of context to make him look stupid.

If It's Thursday, It Must Be Beverly

• Sheriff Tupper wanders in on Jessica and Seth's dinner together for the second time in the episode. On the doctor's offer, he samples the food. Seth says it's escargot. He and Jessica are both clearly expecting a horrified reaction when Amos finds out what meat escargot contains.^note snails, if you're curious
• The episode in general is one of the funniest of the series, as the womanizing of Amos's deputy (who would sneak off to have affairs under the guise of responding to 9-11 calls from various middle-aged women, with an examination of his logbook uncovering how regularly he'd go to certain houses on pretexts like a missing dog) is gradually exposed.
  Seth: Now I know Jonathan was supposed to be servicing the town at night, but don't you think that's going a bit far?

  Amos: According to the logbook, if it's Thursday, it must be Beverly [Seth's nurse].

  Beverly: It was good clean sex once a week.

  Jonathan (after being caught with yet another woman/potential suspect): It isn't what you're thinking. I've never been to Corrine's apartment before. You can look it up in the logbook.

Steal Me a Story

• After being chewed out by his even slimier boss, a slimy TV producer turns to a cleaning lady and asks if she's ever dreamed of being a highly paid TV producer. Smiling, she replies, "No," and he dryly agrees that it isn't worth it.
• At one point, a sleazy TV producer who feels that plagiarizing is the best way to keep the audience's attention has this to say of a new script.
  Stone: It's clever, original, and who knows, it might even make a good episode.

Trouble in Eden

• Jessica decides to impersonate a friend who was nearly murdered after inheriting some property. Her reaction after arriving, and discovering that property is the local brothel, must be seen to be believed.

Indian Giver

• At the end, when Jessica notes how Seth was the only person to never lose his head over a Native American treaty threatening to tax everyone's land ownership, Seth makes a brief speech crediting his cool head - then admits it's because he rents his house.

Who Threw the Barbitals in Mrs. Fletcher's Chowder?

• Pretty much the entire episode.

Curse of the Daanav

• The Running Gag of the police officer investigating the case continually mistaking Jessica for a federal agent of some kind. Just as it looks like she might iron it out at the end, Seth sets him off again.

Benedict Arnold Slipped Here

• In one of the first times the Mystery Magnet status of Cabot Cove is lampshaded, when antique dealer Benny Tibbles is informed that an old woman he did business with died, his first reaction is to insist that he had nothing to do with it before being told it was of natural causes.
• Benny attempting to cheat the IRS out of their cut of his inheritance by bringing in another antique dealer, "Mr. Wilton from Boston," to appraise the goods he's inherited.
  Jessica: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember you have a brother named Wilton who sells antiques in Boston.
• How blatantly Wilton attempts to rip his brother off throughout the first half of the episode, and how Benny's not buying it.
• Amos's Patriotic Fervor outrage at the idea of Benedict Arnold being honored, especially after being told the British historian plans to have the house he stayed in turned into a shrine.
• The dead woman's Granola Girl grandniece admitting that she's burned all of her official identification in various protests while trying to prove she is who she says she is.
• After Benny is murdered, Wilton approaches his nephew Kevin about the antiques in the house, offering him a partnership; as he speaks, his assistant (who is showing signs of wanting to break away from Wilton) gives Kevin a good view of her legs, and he tells his uncle that he's "considering another offer."

A Little Night Work

• Just about everything with Jessica's somewhat shady potential new publisher Theo (played by Jamie Farr, better known as Klinger in M*A*S*H). A standout scene is his Hypocritical Humor in mocking a developer for talking business at dinner, and then racing off to try and secure a writer without an agent he sees nearby.
• Jessica's first meeting with Motor Mouth insurance investigator Shannon McBride, who Jessica almost calls the police on for showing up on her balcony.
• Dennis cheerfully admitting how his alibi is a lie.
• Jessica asking aspiring author Andy why he threatened the victim with a quote from William Shakespeare. He sheepishly replies that he wanted to sound more eloquent.
• Jessica asking Andy how he can accuse Weingard of stealing his book idea when he ripped it off from ''The Brothers Karamazov?
  Andy: I didn't steal it, I adapted it. And I thought of it first.
• Dennis pausing to tell Jessica he hopes she'll understand if he doesn't buy her next book after he exposes his jewel thefts to the police.

Mr. Penroy's Vacation

• Most of the Disposing of a Body comedy, coming from two old ladies. Especially when it's revealed that they didn't actually kill either victim but just were afraid of a scene.
• The way Lillian Appletree keeps Saying Too Much, like when she comments about Penroy's "last words" when he's supposed to be out of town, and then how the second missing man who's really dead is in "the same place as Mr. Penroy." Or when she protests there are no fingerprints on a piece of evidence because "Helen wore gloves."
• Seth wanting to give a bad tie Amos gave him for Christmas to Mr. Penroy as a birthday gift.
  • During the same scene, you can see that Jessica herself is wrapping one of her own books to give to Mr. Penroy!
• The Bait-and-Switch moment where (after Mr. Penroy's dead but no one's found his body yet) Metzger shows up at Jessica's house for the first time saying Amos Tupper told him to go to her if he ever needs help. Then it turns out he isn't there to ask for help solving a murder (yet) but just to help plan out the parking for a picnic.
• The introduction of Sheriff Metzger making it plain that he thinks Cabot Cove will be a peaceful town compared to his native New York.
• After the two old ladies find the loot from the hidden robbery. Helen excitedly says that that will certainly pay the electric bill, while Lillian has an odd idea of her own.
  Lillian: We'll run it through the washing machine like gangsters do on television.
• Sam's preoccupation with whether Mr. Penroy has registered to vote, pandering to him.
• Seth speculating that Metzger's wife got laryngitis, and theorizing it came from yelling at him for not being able to find the money and getting the reward for them.
• The final lines of the episode, as Seth and Jessica talk about how it's just as well that the Appletree Sisters weren't arrested for obstruction of justice and disposing of two bodies.
  Seth: Just a case of saving the taxpayer money. Any smart lawyer would have gotten 'em off easy due to diminished mental capacity.
  Jessica: You know, I suspect there's not much wrong with Lillian and Helen's mental capacity, Seth.
  Seth: I was talkin' about Metzger.

Something Borrowed, Someone Blue

• Donna's mother comes in dithering about something and asking why her husband is just sitting there with Jessica. He tells her to calm down before she burns a brain cell out on the bug light.
• The ambulance to take away the Victim of the Week is held up, so the body keeps getting stowed in different rooms and scaring the bejeebers out of wedding guests. It culminates in Donna getting thoroughly freaked out when she finds the body in her bathroom. Her mother is hilariously nonchalant about it at this point and only expresses relief because everyone was looking for the body, like Donna just found a lost wallet or something.
• Faced with a barrage of questions from the wedding caterers after her housekeeper disappears, Mrs. Mayberry angrily replies that she doesn't know where everything is. She just lives there.
• The wedding caterer is offended at the idea that he would commit murder just to keep from losing a wedding gig. "A bar mitzvah, maybe."
• Due to the kitchen being the crime scene, the wedding caterers have to set up next door, and mention to Donna's father that all they had to do was offer the neighbors a wedding invitation (and that they were pretty mad that they hadn't gotten one). Donna's father is furious, saying that his neighbors are his biggest competitors and will spend the rest of the wedding mingling with/trying to steal all of his clients in attendance, but the deal has already been made.
• Police Chief Slocum, played by Rick Hurst of The Dukes of Hazzard, arriving to investigate. The gate guard mistakes him for a wedding guest and asks to see his invitation. Slocum confidently replies that he's the chief of police, present on official business and doesn't need an invitation. Then he starts in, pauses, backs up and says to the guard that it was probably lost in the mail. Later, he sees that the former chief of police got invited and is clearly jealous.
• When Donna's father offers Grady a job, Donna tells Grady it's the same thankless job she just quit, and that the salary Grady was offered is $5,000 less than Mr. Mayberry paid Donna.
• One of Mr. Mayberry's clients recognizes him by hearing angry yelling.
• The wedding photographer is drafted into serving as the crime scene photographer and jokes that the dead woman won't want any copies.
• Mr. Mayberry asks for one good reason that the wedding has to be delayed. Chief Slocum tells him evidence could be destroyed, but Mr. Mayberry doesn't see that as a good reason.
• Mr. Mayberry's failed attempt to use Reverse Psychology to keep an imperious guest from demanding the police let her leave.
• Mrs. Mayberry's Bait-and-Switch Comment where she tearfully reminiscences about when Donna was a little girl, but only because her hips were still Donna's size back then.
• Donna's parents constantly going on about her idealized ex-boyfriend Wilfred, and how she should have married him instead, only for Wilfred to arrive at the wedding, having became a hippie since the last time they saw him, and proclaiming that he wouldn't have missed her wedding for a Grateful Dead concert.
  Mr. Mayberry: Why do people change? They just go away and change.
  Mrs. Mayberry: I'm so glad you took my advice and decided not to marry Wilfred.
• During the Summation Gathering:
  Chief Slocum: The way I've got it figured-
  The Murderer: Oh, be careful sir. Unless you relish a very expensive lawsuit.
  Chief Slocum: Actually, the way Mrs. Fletcher has it figured...
• After everything going wrong the entire episode, the minister finally pronounces Grady and Donna husband and wife. Jessica rolls her eyes skyward in relief as the credits start.

Fire Burn, Cauldron Bubble

• Sheriff Metzger & Deputy Floyd's interactions, first while conversing over the police radio, then later when they mess up their planned Good Cop/Bad Cop tactic to interview a murder suspect.
• Rick Rivers chews Gordon Fairchild out for messing up chances of good publicity by rudely brushing off Jessica, the local intellectual and celebrity. Fairchild tries to win her over, telling her he had no idea she was someone. Jessica tells him that in Cabot Cove, they like to respect nobodies too.
• At the end, Jessica suggests making an appointment with Seth about a neck ache Seth tells her, deadpan, that maybe she should save her money, because she is distantly related to one of the families Patience Terhune cursed, and the science of medicine can't do anything about a 300-year-old pain in the neck.
• The tail end of Seth's feud with the listing preacher urging them to Burn the Witch!. Seth shows delight at the man's possible arrests and snarking that maybe he'd mesmerized the witness providing his alibi.

Truck Stop

• The sheriff fuming about how often and how casually he gets insulted in the Dead Man Writing tape recording the killer left behind.

The Sins of Castle Cove

• Sheriff Metzger making sure to stress that the stupid sheriff in the Write Who You Know book slandering Cabot Cove is not based on him.
• Later, while Jessica and the bookstore owner are talking, he mentions that he misses the old dumb sheriff (Amos) from the book.
• Ideal Molloy buying several copies of Sybil's book, even though she's not in it, and saying she's mailing copies to all of her relatives, with the parts about Eve Simpson underlined.
• When reading that the beauty parlor in the book is described as a gossip center, the women there take offense, saying they never hear any gossip, just talk among good friends about other good friends who aren't there to defend themselves.
• Sybil claims that she "disguised" the characters in the book by making them shorter, taller, etc. Jessica unhappily notes that she got made older.
• Miriam's attempts to keep her husband finding out about the book (even hiding it in the refrigerator as he comes in from work), although this becomes a bit Harsher in Hindsight after she becomes the murder victim. At one point, when her friends assure her that not everyone will identify the character with her, Ideal Molloy has this to say.
  Ideal: That's true. The unfaithful wife in the book is a redhead.
• Miriam leaves, and they wonder if she's still having an affair with the butcher, like in the book (with one of the women protesting she hasn't gotten that far yet), and someone mentions to Eve that in the book she had a relationship with the butcher but broke it off because of his mother.
  Eve: I won't dignify that with an answer, but, uh, that mother of his is something else.
• There is then a Gilligan Cut to the butcher and his mother, with the mother mistaking Jessica for Miriam (or the woman in the book), asking her son if he knows any single women, and getting into a squabbling match with Miriam's husband before saying that the woman who seduced her son will be struck down as if by God. When Jessica admonishes her for this statement, she defends herself by saying that it was a line she borrowed from Sybil's book.
• After the murder (heavily based on the murder in Sybil's book, and with the same victim) happens, Mort's deputy is confident that he knows who the killer is, because he's gotten that far in the book, and believes it's a case of Life Imitates Art. Jessica is mortified to hear that Metzger arrested a guy essentially just because he acted like a character in a book.
• Eve Simpson's indignation upon discovering that Sybil found out all the information for her book through a spy in the beauty parlor.
• The Hypocritical Humor when Eve Simpson insists that the book should be banned despite her long-standing opposition to censorship, due to its portrayal of the "man-crazy real estate agent who makes a pass at every husband in town". When Jessica protests that isn't meant to be her, Eve's reply is golden.
  Eve: Well of course it's not me. It's nothing like me. Except for the description of my house, my office, and the birthmark on my fanny, which incidentally is on the wrong side.
• All the middle-aged beauty parlor regulars gushing about what they like in a book (one example being one where the man on the cover is bare-chested and the woman isn't).
• When the first copies of the book are being purchased, the bookstore owner calls Seth Dr. Valiant. Seth is confused, until the guy goes a corresponding page number that everyone holding the book flips to. The scene cuts to Seth, seething in Jessica's living room at the book calling him a cross between a curmudgeon and a leprechaun.
  Seth: I am much too tall to be called a leprechaun and too good-natured to be a curmudgeon.
• At the end of the book, everyone speculating who might play them in the potential film adaption of The Sins of Castle Cove.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

• Mort Metzger pointing out the obvious about Cabot Cove's high murder rate (remember, he came to Cabot Cove looking for the quiet life!):
  "I've been here a year, and this is my fifth murder! What is this, the death capital of Maine!? On a per capita basis this place makes the South Bronx look like Sunnybrook Farm! Is that why Tupper quit? He couldn't take it anymore? Someone really should have warned me, Mrs. Fletcher! Now perfect strangers are coming to Cabot Cove to die!”

Jack and Bill

• Most of the interactions between the private detective and the dog he ends up caring for, likely as a Whole-Plot Reference to Turner and Hooch.

Dead Letter

• At the end, Mayor Booth begins his dedication of the new fire truck with the comment that at times words fail a person trying to handle something. Dr. Hazlitt deadpans that he hopes this will be one of them.

Night of the Tarantula

• The whole zombie sequence.

Test of Wills

• Most of the Spiteful Will that the tycoon left behind, beginning with "To my weak and lazy son Jason, and his greedy and arrogant wife Valerie, I leave exactly what they deserve, my contempt."

Class Act

• After Lieutenant Ballinger is Reassigned to Antarctica teaching a criminology class at the college for keeping a politically sensitive operation open, he makes an opening speech designed to intimidate all of his students into dropping the class, so that he doesn't have to spend time teaching it and can continue his investigation. His exasperation when a few still show up the next day, and how he ends up putting them to work on the case, for hands on experience, make for some funny moments.
• Ballinger's cat refusing to touch his bad cooking.
• The way Ballinger tells his daughter that he is not tolerant or open minded about her and her boyfriend living together with no plans to get married.
• As Ballinger talks about politicians "groveling toadie," the camera happens to focus on his own over-eager student.

Town Father

• Jessica's Bait-and-Switch Comment interaction with one of her supposed fans in the party.
• Mayor Booth's campaign promise that if re-elected, he will do nothing, which he comes up with after Seth gives him a very smart-alecky speech when he tries to get his vote.
• Eve Simpson's attempt to run against him on the woman's vote (it's duly noted that she's already alienated women with husbands) nets her less than twenty votes.
• When one of Sam's rivals tries to frame him for having a secret family in Wyoming two other town councilmen visit Jessica begging her to run in Sam's place, noting she has no history of philandering. Then they pause, noting Seth is over having dinner with her like he does so often, and one asks, "Do you?"
• The way Eve is smiling as she insincerely calls a damaging rumor about Sam "disgusting."
• Ideal Malloy says if the accusations about Sam are true then he should at least resign from the committee picking the father of the year.
• Sam and Eve's opponent is paranoid that the claims will actually make Sam more popular.
• Sam's Digging Yourself Deeper moment after declaring when denying that he has a secret family right as his secretary (who fully believes the smear campaign) walks in and gives him a dirty look.
  Sam Booth: I hate children. I mean I love children but not my own. If I had children of my own, which I don't.
• Mayor Booth's smug "Morning, voters" as he bikes through town after being re-elected.
• When Seth reveals a stunning knowledge of the case's facts Jessica asks how he could have known that - before Corrine comes in on crutches, having been Seth's latest patient.
• The Running Gag of the beauty parlor crowd not wanting to be outright accused of gossip.

The Sicilian Encounter

• The Mafia repeatedly threatening threatening the new fiancé of their widowed cousin-in-law about what will happen if he disrespects her by not waiting until the wedding night to consummate their relationship.

Lines Of Excellence

• Jessica's conversation with Derek about what kind of computer she wants to buy.
  Derek St. James: Well, let's see what the basic requirements will be for your new computer system. Um, how much RAM, how much ROM, VGA, SVGA, 386, 486, 33, 25 Mhz. If you do a lot of research, you may want to get a CD-ROM or a WORM optical system. Do you have any offhand preferences?
  Jessica: Well, I-I was thinking of something in a nice beige.
  Derek St. James: In other words, I ought to be doing this in English?
  Jessica: That would be wonderful.
• The dialogue between the two detectives on the case could belong in a Buddy Cop Show. They keep using the phrase "point taken" when coming to an agreement or good-naturedly berating each other for missing clues.
• Jessica breaks the L key on her typewriter, which makes her lament her decision to name the characters in her new book Larry and Lola Lamont.

A Body to Die For

• Ben Devlin, the local newsman, hounds Eve for more on the story of Mr. Keppard's murder (the body was found in her bedroom). When she finally drives him away, Jessica races after him, claiming she needs a ride, and tells Eve that she'll be back shortly. Eve snaps that she should try to return alone.

The Taxman Cometh

• A lot of the lines of the Intimidating Revenue Service agent, such as when he insinuates he thinks Jessica is a tax cheat who hasn't been caught, a brief Adorkable moment when Jessica flatters him with comparisons to the accountants who nailed Al Capone, and when he comments that he doesn't trust a suspect after reading that the man has filed his tax returns early and never taken any deductibles.

Tainted Lady

• When a local calls Jessica's friend to harass her, Jessica shuts him down with a short speech that is equal parts awesome and funny. She tells him that if he's trying to shock them with his language, he's only showing how little he knows; they've both heard those words before, used much more creatively.
• Ellen worries about being considered "the Typhoid Mary of Murder" despite being cleared of charges for the second time, and Jessica tells Ellen she can't have that title; it belongs to her.

The Skinny According to Nick Cullhane

• Jessica and Harry start arguing about their differing interpretations of the case, ignoring Sheriff Metzger, who's standing off to the side demanding to know what manuscript, what kidnapping, and what on Earth they're talking about. Not until several minutes into the conversation does he manage to wrangle an explanation.

Programmed for Murder

• Jessica calls in a programmer friend of hers to help her "find" forty manuscript pages she lost in the system. Her friend tells her not to feel bad; she half-believes computers are programmed to make humans feel dumb.

The Wind around the Tower

• The local innkeeper mistakenly thinks that Jessica just shares the same name as the famous mystery writer and talking about how inconvenient that must be.

The Dead File

• Jessica's frustration about being sued for libel because a cartoon character based on her made some damaging accusations (as well as said cartoonist trying to explain why he based his character on her).

Killer Radio

• Jessica's verbal duel with Shock Jock Marcus Rule and her stealth insult when she says he reminds her of the main character in a work of classical literature, then a few lines later reveals that said book is The Idiot.

The Phantom Killer

• The Reveal of the Two Aliases, One Character when Jessica walks in on a mild-mannered writer making some brash comments into the phone in the persona of his own agent.

Portrait of Death

• Detectives Gelber and Henderson's preoccupation with finding their missing lottery ticket (which turns out to have been the wrong one).

The Trouble with SethAfter Jessica gets a murderer to confess with a note she supposedly dropped with her fingerprints on it at the crime scene.

Metzger: You get more mileage out of a blank sheet of paper than almost anyone I've ever met.

Twice Dead

• Lieutenant Gelber's preoccupation with having a good picture for his high school's Hall of Fame.

Something Foul in Flappieville

• A puppeteer on a Sesame Street-like show uses the puppets to conduct a mock trial for the boss he suspects of robbing him (said boss is absent at the time and isn't the Victim of the Week) and sentences him to two hundred years in the electric chair.