Funny / Murdoch Mysteries

• In "Still Waters," Murdoch is demonstrating a lie detector he's invented. When Dr. Ogden enters the room, her presence causes the fluid to fluctuate as Murdoch's blood pressure spikes. Higgins teasingly asks if Murdoch is in love at which point the fluid almost completely fills the tube.
• In "Belly Speaker," Murdoch suggests that a ventriloquist is Taking the Heat for the murder of his father (the only person he seemed to be remotely close to). Brackenried doubts that there's anyone he'd take the heat for and asks if Murdoch thinks differently. Murdoch frowns in deep thought, but the best Imagine Spot he can come up with is the suspect's ventriloquist dummy committing the murder while laughing wickedly.
  Murdoch: I have no relevant theory at the moment, sir.
• Most episodes featuring crimes that are seemingly linked to supernatural causes often involve comedic scenes of Crabtree coming up with wild theories about how these things could be at play, before being shut down by Murdoch and/or Brackenreid. One particular example is his fixation with vampires in "Bloodlust", where he gives his superiors a long-winded presentation proposing that the presumed deceased Daniel Irvin is a vampire; that he is actually the same man as his similar-looking grandfather, Alexander Tepes; and that his true identity is the famed supposed vampire Vlad the Impaler.
  • Crabtree spends the entirety of "Journey to the Centre of Toronto" obsessively pursuing the idea that mole men are behind the various underground robberies that have been occurring around town. Murdoch exasperatedly tells him that there are no such thing, much like vampires. Crabtree concedes that "there are no vampires....in North America."
  • In "Painted Ladies", Crabtree's latest wild theory is that the Roaring Rampage of Revenge of the Serial Killer they are trying to catch is inspired by The Ugly Duckling. He begins relaying the story, only to abruptly stop. Murdoch asks him to go on, able to see the connection. Crabtree apologizes and continues, admitting to Murdoch that he stopped because "you don't usually let me get this far".
• In an ironic twist, when a lake monster is believed to be the culprit in "Loch Ness Murdoch", Brackenreid, Julia and even Murdoch are convinced by its existence and investigate; meanwhile, Crabtree ends up becoming the skeptic doubting the idea of such a creature existing, leading to this exchange:
  Brackenreid: You don't believe in sea monsters?
  Crabtree: Obviously there are monsters in the sea, Sir. That's why they call them sea monsters. But I've never heard of any lake monsters. I just can't imagine anything so dastardly living in fresh water.
  Brackenreid: Crabtree, wait a minute! You're telling me that you believe in zombies, vampires, werewolves, Martians, Venusians, voodoo, curses, ghosts, and, apparently, sea monsters. But a creature in Lake Ontario that both I and Detective Murdoch have witnessed is beyond the scope of your otherwise vivid imagination. You're telling me that?
  Crabtree: Sir, I can't attest to what you witnessed. I'm afraid that I remain a skeptic.
• Also from "Bloodlust", Julia has a rather steamy fantasy moment about William, which is then interrupted by Darcy, her fiancé, entering the scene and asking her "Have you given it to the detective yet?" (referring to the wedding invitation), much to her initial confusion.
• In the episode "Invention Convention", when Brackenreid is going to the dentist, actually physically being coerced by his wife of all things, Crabtree comes by, gives him the report of the status of the case, then runs off with the apple Brackenreid was gonna have as a reward. Later comes the Call-Back from Brackenreid as he thanks Crabtree for him giving the report and running away from the dentist. Especially funny because he'd been expecting Constable Higgins, who he'd bribed/ordered to call him away due to a made-up emergency and get him out of having his tooth pulled.
• In the episode "Who Killed the Electric Carriage?", Inspector Brackenreid finds out that his wife (who's been giving him a hard time about his drinking) and other ladies from bloody Temperance League participate in bloody gambling, so he orders Constable Crabtree to arrest everybody in the bloody den. The following exchange has perfect comedic timing and is complete with hilariously ominous music.
  Constable Crabtree: Sir? What? Even your wife?
  Inspector Brackenreid: Especially the wife!
• Inspector Brackenreid comments on one boy's poetry in his letters, and casually asks Murdoch whether he ever wrote something like that. Murdoch says that he's not much of a poet, but he recalls composing and being proud of a rhyming couplet when he was a young boy... on their family dog. Inspector's face goes from mildly amused expression to an extremely excited one, and then he just gets visibly disappointed. Murdoch's one-liner after the beat is priceless: "He was a very well-behaved dog."
• Murdoch is explaining to constable Crabtree that he's using a liquid, testing whether there is blood on a bullet. If there is, the hemoglobin will cause the reaction. George nods and just repeats that yes, haemo-GOBLIN will do that. Oh, George...
• Murdoch nearly drowns in a room on a boat that is slowly filling up with water. He is saved by Dr. Ogden after she and Brackenreid drag him out of the water. The first thing he says? "I lost my hat." Brackenreid sees it conveniently floating by and fishes it out with a cane.
• In the epilogue of "Murdochophobia", Crabtree is delighted when a previously-thought-dead spider that he grew a liking to throughout the episode, comes back to life. Brackenreid proceeds to drop off some papers for Crabtree to go through. Right on the spider.
• In the episode "The Knockdown", the scene with the ferret as a bloodhound, especially when the ferret climbed up Murdoch's trouser leg.
• "The Filmed Adventures of Detective William Murdoch":
  • William and Julia have dinner with the actors playing them. William's actor envisions William all wrong ("but how does it affect you?"), while Julia's actress complains that William and Julia's friendship is not exciting enough for a "modern woman." Julia remarks that an actually modern woman shouldn't be defined by her relationship to a man.
  • The male actor's assumption that William must surely be haunted and angst-ridden about the ugly events his work exposes him to is also funny on a meta level, as it can be taken as a dis on film's (and television's) overuse of the Defective Detective trope. This, in an episode that loves mocking cheesy film tropes.
  • After his lead actor is injured by a bullet meant for him, ​Pendrick decides to cast Murdoch in the leading role. Murdoch agrees, but, on top of his Bad "Bad Acting", he annoys everyone on set with his attempts to act like a truthful detective and inability to remember lines or stick to the script, leading to Pendrick furiously firing him and replacing him with Crabtree.
• The entirety of "The Keystone Constables", though special mention should go to the ending, wherein Murdoch sets up Julia with a handmade whoopee cushion.
• In "The Curse of Beaton Manor" Murdoch goes to discuss a case with Julia and she complains that she hasn't even had her tea yet but allows him to draw her into a discussion about using puffer fish poison to fake your death. Julia comments that using it would probably result in brain damage because "The brain requires a constant flow of oxygen...or tea!"
• In "Marked Twain", Crabtree convinces Higgins to interview a suspect ten miles out of town, a task the recently superior Higgins wanted to delegate to Crabtree, by hinting that he can console himself by gazing at an attractive woman who lives nearby, to visitor Mark Twain's amusement.
  Mark Twain: Too bad you don't need a fence painted.
• In "24 Hours 'till Doomsday", Murdoch joins James Pendrink in flying to stop a missile using Pendrink's gliding suits. After returning to the ground, Murdoch is in total disbelief of what just happened, repeatedly exclaiming "I FLEW!", with a goofy grin on his face.
  • At the end of the episode, Terrence Meyers seemingly dies by accidentally locking himself in James Pendrick's experimental rocket and launching it. In "From Murdoch to Eternity", he miraculously turns up alive in Toronto after surviving the crash and being worshipped as a god by a tribe in Borneo for a while.​
• In "Brother's Keeper," Murdoch has Higgins help him reenact a suspect's account of a struggle over a gun. Higgins does... and knees Murdoch in the groin, which did not happen in the account. He flung up his hands in triumph and had a big grin on his face. When called on it, Higgins pointed out that the two men in question were fighting over a gun, and one of them would have tried the move. Brackenreid, much to his own surprise, acknowledges that Higgins is right.
• Murdoch building, in essence, a steampunk roomba in "Operation: Murder". He's pleased to see it works...until it turns and chases him.
• "The Final Curtain" may be one long episode of funny:
  • Almost every scene of the investigation occurring on the stage is presented as if it were a play, with sheer Ham-to-Ham Combat as all of the characters — even The Stoic Murdoch — present their lines as over the top and dramatically as possible.
  • The revelation that one suspect could not have had an altercation with the victim before their murder where Watts and Murdoch thought he was...because John Brackenreid was having a tryst with the victim — a married woman — at that particular time and place. While Murdoch hams it up on the stage presenting his theory in front of the others, John quietly whispers the truth to Watts, who interrupts Murdoch and relays it as well, leading Murdoch to backtrack on the theory. An impatient Brackenreid demands they explain why they've ruled out the suspect, and Watts and Murdoch each wordlessly argue with each other over who is going to tell him. When the beans are spilled John is embarrassed, Brackenreid seems absurdly pleased, and Mrs. Brackenreid faints and spends the rest of the episode in denial.
  • And the snickering between the two Brackenreids during the double entendre-riddled conversation between John, Brackenreid, and Murdoch that follows, over the fact that the victim's husband had not even consummated the marriage leading to the hookup. It's capped up with the two sharing a guffaw when a comment is made about the husband not being able to load the bullet which killed the victim into the prop gun.
  • When the older male lead of the play hamfistedly hits on Margaret, watch John's face as he eats his dinner with a "seriously WTF" face
• In "Murdoch on the Corner" Crabtree notes that after finding out about the Serial Killer the neighbourhood seems a lot more ominous, cue a montage of the characters around the square looking ominous and brandishing weapons...and the Pizza Pie guy offering a pizza in the same creepy tone.

• In "Murdoch Escape Room", Crabtree comes up with a theory about who has trapped them in the titular escape room: In the future, James Gillies' preserved brain was transplanted to another person, that person became Gillies, then built a time machine to go back in time and torment Murdoch.
  Brackenreid: Do you ever have a day off, Crabtree?!
  Crabtree: Alright. Well, if we make it out of here, at the very least, we're getting rid of that brain.
• The Newsomes outdo themselves in sheer buffoonery in "Dominion of New South Mimico": When the city committee won't let him build a dock for his yacht, Rupert legally declares the estate its own sovereign nation. There's a flag, official language, heads of state and everything. As Watts puts it, the whole thing is "the manifestation of a lunatic's untethered vanity". Most of the main cast spend the entire episode in awe of the Newsomes' stupidity and vanity.
• In the Canadian airing of "Confederate Treasure", Crabtree is arguing about the Ottawa hockey club's chances of winning the Stanley Cup with Constable Armstrong, who is played by then-prime minister Stephen Harper. They're interrupted by the arrival of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Prime Minister of Canada. Crabtree is shocked at the presence of the prime minister, whereas Armstrong is acting flippant towards him and utterly fails to recognize him.
  • Even funnier if one considers that Harper and Laurier hail from opposite sides of the aisle.^note albeit, Harper's Conservative Party of Canada is a twice-over successor of the Conservative Party from Laurier's day
  • Even in the international version of the scene, where Armstrong is replaced with the usual desk sergeant, Crabtree freeze mid-phrase when he realizes that he's faced with the prime minister... except he's so engrossed in his newspaper and sports talk that he fails to spot him until after everyone else at the front desk does, and only when Sir Wilfrid Laurier is standing right in front of him.
• The car chase in "Murdoch Takes Manhattan" seems to be a tribute to some of the early silent film slapstick comedies produced in the era the show is set in. Brackenreid, Dr. Grace and Constable Jackson pursue the killer and his prisoners Crabtree and Roger Newsome in a Low-Speed Chase, with Brackenreid and Dr. Grace getting a speed boost when Jackson jumps off their car. The comedic music only adds to the slapstick tone.
• In Seven 17's "Cool Million", following the disqualification of the titular horse and the runner-up, Diamond Duke, due to Violet Hart being an unregistered rider and Emmet Carmichael being arrested for murder, the winner is determined to be the third-place horse, Sunday Best. Murdoch Squees and geeks out upon realizing that this was the horse he bet on, after mathematically determining that it was the best horse for his money. He grows more ecstatic when he is told Sunday Best had fifty-to-one odds; bookie Eddie Crawford also stating that it will take some time for him to gather up his prize money. Murdoch walks away with glee, while Brackenreid, having watched the whole scene and blown $20 on Cool Million, can only collapse in defeat.
• In "The Christmas List", while taking Julia and his daughter to see a department store Santa Claus, Murdoch realizes that the recent murders are connected to the letters that are being left for said Santa. Hilarity Ensues when he decides to arrest and accidentally unmasks the Santa actor in front of a crowd of horrified, screaming children. One even goes so far as to kick him for assaulting Santa. Julia was not amused.
  • From the same episode, Higgins' subplot involves him learning from Murdoch that the killer is targeting men he deems "naughty". After flashing back to all the misdeeds he's committed recently—taking George's liver pie, knocking a ball away from some children playing, and stealing chestnuts from a girl handing them out on the street—he concludes that he might be next. He spends the rest of the episode acting nice and sucking up to everyone in an attempt to save himself from the killer.
• In Season 17's "Wheel Of Bad Fortune", Higgins visits a Phony Psychic who gives him a fake palm reading and claims that "nothing can harm him" and spends most of the episode believing himself to be invincible. While on patrol with Constable Worsley, he narrowly avoids having a pile of bricks fall on him. When the constables come upon an armed robbery, Higgins pursues the robber by himself, evading bullets thanks to the robber's terrible aim before clobbering the man with his truncheon. Later, Higgins catches the psychic giving the exact same "reading" to another sucker, and asks for "a word" with him. In the episode's last scene, the constables on patrol again. This time Worsley is the one who gets hit with bricks, although his helmet saves him from serious injury. He then wonders if some people are just Born Lucky. The episode ends with Higgins thinking to himself and smiling widely.
• "Spirits of the Night" shows Murdoch being flummoxed by a possible murderer using sleepwalking as a defense at trial, and the idea that both Julia and Effie are defending her. He tells George that, if rational minds prevail, she will be found guilty, before asking him about his own case. Crabtree tells him that he believes the ghost of Gladys Nutter is terrorizing her building's tenants. Murdoch spends the rest of the conversation looking like he's wishing for strength.
  Murdoch: The world has gone mad...
• In the Musical Episode "Why is Everybody Singing?" Brakenreid gets an entire song where he justifies his favourite phrase to Margaret. "Nothing rings the bell like 'bloody hell!'" Made even funnier by Murdoch's confusion that they are a) singing and b) discussing this instead of who shot him. And more so still with the reveal that when Murdoch hears singing, it's his subconcious interpreting what he hears from outside his coma, meaning the Brakenreids really did have an argument about Thomas's language over his bedside.

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