Funny / The Court Jester

• In particular, the "vessel with the pestle" tongue twister.
  • "The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!"
    • Shortly afterwards: "The pellet with the poison is in the vessel with the plasle...the plasle with the plessle, er..."
  • And then they break the chalice from the palace, and bring out the flagon with the dragon...
    • The fact that both Griswold and Hawkins fail to remember the rhyme until the chalices are presented — and then Hawkins remembers it, holding the flagon with the dragon aloft triumphantly — despite ITS being the poisoned one. Griswold, at that point, just takes the vessel with the pestle, smugly reminding us that IT has "the brew that is true!".
    • The two of them muttering to themselves, trying to remember the rhyme, while Griswold's helmet keeps sticking to Hawkins' magnetized armor.
  • And the story that for the rest of Danny Kaye's life, people kept asking to do the routine in its entirety with him.
• The scene where Hawkins and Jean pose as a half-deaf old man and his mute granddaughter to sneak past a patrol. They do a good job of both fooling and frustrating the Mook Lieutenant questioning them. At one point, they make him repeat himself several times, until finally he's screaming at them.
  Captain of the Guard: Ask the girl if she's seen a group in the forest.
  Hawkins: Huh? What's that? What?
  Captain of the Guard: Ask the girl if she's seen a group in the forest.
  Hawkins: What do you... what?
  Captain of the Guard: ASK THE GIRL IF SHE'S SEEN A GROUP IN THE FOREST!
  Hawkins: There's no need to holler, sir, for I hear very well, indeed.
• The "Outfox the Fox" music number has some good gags in it, but the best of them is the Bait-and-Switch moment at the end where it turns out that Hawkins isn't the Black Fox, but is merely a low-ranking follower who borrowed the Black Fox's costume behind his back.
• When a guard is puzzled at how "Giacomo" (or rather Hawkins) can speak English so well, Hawkins persuades him using fake "French," "Italian" and "German" that sound plausible to someone who doesn't speak them.
  • The guard's reaction to Hawkins, especially when he speaks in "German"
• The rigged knighthood trials, all the way through. When Hawkins is required to climb a stone wall in full armor, the king's goons throw him over the wall. When he's required to fight a wild boar, they put him in a pit with a puny piglet.
  • the trial in between is to shoot a hawk in flight with an arrow. As soon as the hawk is released, they drop a different hawk with an arrow already stuck in it, leaving Hawkins to protest he hadn't even drawn the bow yet. He's still protesting about it when he's shoved into the pit with the "boar"
• "Yea verily yea!" Especially when they do the whole ceremony in every detail in double time!
  • And the fact that Hawkins has actually managed to sneak into the knighting ceremony in an attempt to flee from it; he keeps trying so earnestly to look like he's supposed to be there, unaware that he actually is supposed to be there.
• Or possibly the final sword-battle with its Implausible Fencing Powers, especially the Excuse Me While I Multi Task moment.
• When Griselda is hypnotizing Hawkins to make him a suave romancer, she starts listing off all the traits he will need to exhibit and with each one Hawkins immediately shifts into an appropriate pose. Until the very end, where she says that he needs to show passion, and he just stands there looking clueless. She repeats louder "PASSION!" and he immediately swoops her in his arms for a kiss.
  Griselda: Not me, you fool! The princess.
• The scene where Hawkins seduces Gwendolyn. His impossibly smooth seduction (which occasionally glitches — "I live for a sigh, I die for a kiss!"), his complete theatrical showiness, and the fact that he switches from brave and brazen to cowardly and timid with a snap just make a hilarious scene.
  • The sound of mattress springs as Hawkins jumps on the bed.
• "And a jester unemployed... is nobody's fool!"
• Hawkins is echoing whatever's just happened in song because otherwise he has no idea what to do, at which point he learns that he has been seducing the princess. It sounds like he snaps a string, and his voice goes up an octave as soon as he realizes what he's saying.
  Light up the oil, this man must boil, this man named Giacom-OH?!
  • Something similar happens earlier the first time we see Hawkins in his chambers. As he sings to himself, Fergus sneaks into the room behind him and Hawkins's voice goes high-pitched in surprise when he sees Fergus:
  King of jesters, and jester of KINGS!
• When Hawkins is getting into Giacomo's clothes, Jean does not tell him who their man inside the castle is.
  Hawkins: After months of waiting for this kind of action, what makes you think that anybody, anybody could force me to reveal the identity of my confederate?
  Jean: (without missing a beat) Because they'd put you on the rack, crack your every bone, scald you with hot oil, and remove the nails off your fingers with flaming hot pincers.
  Hawkins: ... I'd like to withdraw the question.
• Jean gets one with her You Don't Want to Catch This ploy. The king is so alarmed that he tries to avoid her for the rest of the film.

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