Funny / My Cousin Vinny

• This exchange between the judge and Vinnie:
  "What is a 'yoot'?"
  [eyeroll] "Excuse me, Your Honor. Two youttthhhs."
• Anytime Vinny refers to grits in the singular as "a grit".
• The entire "mistaken for prison rape" conversation between Vinny and Stan.
• "Imagine you're a deer. You're prancing along; you get thirsty. You spot a brook. You put your little deer lips down to the cool, clear water... BAM! A fuckin' bullet rips off part of your head! Your brains are lying on the ground in little bloody pieces! Now I ask you: would you give a fuck what kind of pants the son of a bitch who shot you was wearing!?"
• During Trotter's opening statement, he defines verdict as "a word come down from old England and all our little old ancestors." Cut immediately to two of the Black people on the jury, one with mouth agape that the prosecutor would think that such a line would ingratiate him to a jury in a Southern town.
  • There's also the way he pronounces heinous, which sounds like he's saying hyenas.
• Vinny's opening statement after his little snooze.
  Vinny: Everything that guy just said is bullshit. Thank you.
  • Following that, Judge Haller striking everything but "Thank you" from the record.
• When Vinny is testing the eye sight of an elderly witness by holding his fingers up from across the courtroom.
  Judge: Let the record show the counsel is holding up two fingers.
  Vinny (in a 'what the hell?' voice): Your honor, please!
  Judge (realizing, embarrassed): Oh. Sorry.
  • "Now, Mrs. Reilly... and only Mrs. Reilly." Cue stink-eye from the judge.
    • From a meta-perspective, Joe Pesci's improvisation of the "and only Mrs. Reilly" aside.
• Everywhere Vinny tries to find lodgings, a loud noise wakes him up at five in the morning. The first motel he tries, he's woken up by a steam whistle from a local factory. The next motel is adjacent to a pig farm, and he's disturbed by the sounds of pigs being loaded onto trucks. The third motel is next to train tracks, and a freight train rolls by and shakes the whole room. The clerk assures him that it's rare for a freight train to come by at five in the morning, but the same thing happens again the next night. When Vinny complains to the clerk, the clerk clarifies that the train is supposed to go by at ten after four, not five. The district attorney then offers Vinny his hunting cabin in the woods, and he's driven crazy by a screech owl. He gives up and tries sleeping in his car - a convertible - and gets caught in a thunderstorm. Finally, he asks his Mona Lisa not to pay his bail for contempt of court, figuring that sleeping in the prison can't be any worse than any of the other places he's tried. In the very next scene, Vinny is in a prison cell sleeping perfectly to the background sound of alarms and a prison riot. Ah, the sounds of home...
  • On that note, his immediate reaction to the owl is freak the hell out ("What the FUCK was that?!"), throw open the cabin door, and start wildly firing off his pistol into the darkness. The owl looks back at him briefly as he does so, and then goes right back to screeching.
    • If you look, he actually put his leather jacket on before going out and shooting into the woods.
• The sheer surprise and borderline awe the judge shows Mona Lisa whenever she displays her vast knowledge of cars. The first time he just has this look on his face that's somewhere between "What the hell is this lady?" and "What the hell did all of that stuff she just said mean?"
• After Judge Haller is incensed that Vinny showed up at court improperly attired for the second time, Vinny's simple response is, "You was serious about that?" Cue Gilligan Cut to him heading to jail for contempt.
  • Followed up when circumstances force him to wear a c. 1920s era red tailcoat tuxedo, complete with bowtie, to court. Vinny (truthfully) explains in detail about the series of events leading to his current attire, concluding with:
    Vinny: It was either wear the leather jacket, which I know you hate, or this. So I wore this ridiculous thing for you.
    Haller: (beat) Are you on drugs?
    Vinny: Drugs? No. I don't take drugs.
    Haller: I don't like your attitude.
    Vinny: So, what else is new?
    Haller: I'm holding you in contempt of this court.
    Vinny: (Under his breath) Oh, there's a fuckin' surprise...
    Haller: What did you say?!?
    Vinny: What?
    Haller: What did you say!
    Vinny: What? What did I say?
• The public attorney's speech impediment, which is so bad it makes Porky Pig sound like the most eloquent character ever conceived, and his client gives him the boot.
  Stan: You're fired! (to Judge) I want [Vinny]!
  • Stan's Head Desk was actually because Mitchell Whitfield couldn't stop cracking up.
• Stan loudly babbling to Bill in the Sheriff's office about how corrupt, racist, and backward the people of the South supposedly are... while surrounded by the sheriff, his deputies, staff, and local residents there on business (all three categories include black people).
  Stan: The Klan's here! They're inbred! They sleep with their sisters!
  [Everyone in the room gives him unamused looks]
  Stan: Some of them do!
• The entire scene at the diner, beginning with Vinny and Lisa seeing there are only three items on the menu (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). After placing their order, the two see the cook slopping a large blob of lard onto the stove to cook with; Vinny asks the cook if the people of the South are aware of the ongoing cholesterol problem of the country, to which the cook just looks at him with a blank face before returning to his cooking. Finally, Vinny's inquiry about grits, much to Lisa's amusement.^note The cook explains what grits are and how they are made, another of those little details Vinny uses in the trial. You never know what's going to be important later in this picture!
• When Bill and Stan are locked in their cell for the first time.
  Stan: You know what happens in these places?
  Bill: Yeah, I know what happens in these places.
  Stan: There's always a big guy named Bubba, nobody wants to tangle with him, and he'll protect you, but then you gotta be his sex slave and do whatever he wants you to do.
  Bill: Stan? Shut up.
  Stan: Okay.
• When Vinny and Lisa arrive in Alabama, he points out how much she stands out in her leather jacket and short skirt (he's also dressed in leather).
  Lisa: "Me? What about you?"
  Vinny: "I fit in better than you do; at least I'm wearing cowboy boots."
  Lisa: "Yeah, you blend."
  • Also amusing that Vinny would think that cowboy boots would be appropriate attire for rural Alabama.
• Bill's Newhart Phonecall with his mother, telling her first that they've been arrested, and second that they're being charged with murder. Her reactions can only be imagined.
  • Honestly, Macchio did a phenomenal job with that conversation.
• This terrific exchange:
  Vinny: Your Honor, may I have permission to treat Ms. Vito as a hostile witness?
  Lisa: You think I'm hostile now, wait 'til you see me tonight.
  Haller: Do you two know each other?
  Vinny: Yeah, she's my fiancée.
  Haller: Well, that would certainly explain the hostility.
  • The judge's smirk is what sells it.
• After the judge approves Vinny for the trial, he finds out that there's no record of a "Vincent Gambini" at trial in New York, so Vinny bluffs that he had actually changed his name to Jerry Gallo — Jerry Gallo being a prominent, well-known attorney. In the next scene, Lisa points out that Jerry Gallo is dead; when the judge finds out, Vinny again bluffs his ass off that he actually said Jerry Callo.
  • The best part is when the judge calls Vinny into his chambers having found out this information, he's clearly planning to spring a trap on Vinny. However, Vinny has had been alerted to the fact that Gallo is deceased, so has been anticipating this conversation; so when the judge knowingly asks Vinny what Vinny thinks the judge found out after he inquired into the current dealings of Jerry Gallo, Vinny just casually replies "Jerry Gallo? He's dead!", thus completely stealing the judge's thunder.
• In an early scene, Vinny and Lisa get into an argument about the leaky faucet in their motel room seemingly apropos of nothing. Then Vinny starts actively challenging Lisa on her side of the argument, and she starts smirking. Then they passionately kiss aaannnd Fade to Black. The implication couldn't be plainer: these two are so amazingly Brooklyn Italian, they pick verbal fights with each other not just for fun, but as foreplay.
  • "Dead-on-balls accurate?" "It's an industry term."

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