Funny / The Dresden Files

The Dresden Files are what happen when a badass nerd with a stupid sense of humor narrates an Urban Fantasy/horror series. Or, to put it another way, Hilarity Ensues.

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• Storm Front (Dresden Files)
• Fool Moon
• Grave Peril
• Summer Knight
• Death Masks
• Blood Rites
• Dead Beat
• Proven Guilty
• White Night
• Small Favor
• Turn Coat
• Changes
• Ghost Story
• Cold Days
• Skin Game
• Peace Talks
• Battle Ground

General

• Any conversation between Harry and Bob. Especially when Bob comes into line of sight with any attractive women.
  • There's also Harry's (and later Thomas') never-ending bewilderment over Bob's skull performing things it shouldn't be able to, like whistle, clear the throat he doesn't have, and so on.
• There's also pretty much anything involving Toot-Toot.
  • When Harry promises to promote Toot-Toot to Major-General of the Guard in Turn Coat:
    If a glowing exclamation point had appeared above his head, it wouldn't have surprised me.
• Whenever Harry tries to say something in Latin. Goddamn Correspondence Course.
• invoked In both Summer Knight and Proven Guilty, Harry runs into moments where he knows he's about to get into major trouble regarding the opposite sex, and so he uses ice water to serve as a Mood Killer. The first time, he poured a cup of ice water directly onto his crotch to avert some seriously stupid decisions. The second time he managed to pour it on the woman in question, instead turning it into a surprisingly touching moment to help them both advance their relationship in the right direction.
• Harry consistently wonders if some of his enemies have read the Evil Overlord List.
  • According to Word of Jim "Gentleman" John Marcone would roll his eyes if he read the list.
• In the short story "Heorot", Harry watches Consummate Professional Sigurn Gard go all berserkergang on a grendelkin with the words "Enough talk!" This becomes the battlecry of his RPG barbarian character.
• According to Jim Butcher, when he submitted the final draft of Changes to his publishers (which ends with Harry getting shot and left to an Uncertain Doom), they immediately called him and were freaking out on him, resulting in the following conversation:
  Jim Butcher's Publishers: (panicking) Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, you killed him, you killed him!
  Jim Butcher: (excitedly) Yeah, yeah, I know! Now we get to do the cool stuff!
  • Additionally, Butcher has gone on record stating that he was "giggling maniacally" when writing the final scene in Changes. Truly, Harry lives but to suffer for Butcher's amusement.
• Jim's 2015 April Fool's prank, which justifies the following sentence:
  Brandon Sanderson was kind enough to hook me up with the xenobiologists who grew his hybrid army of alien writer clones, but until these pupae mature, I'm just one man.
  • Said prank involved very rationally explaining that he would be taking a hiatus to write all the remaining books at once and then releasing them one after another once he was done, six months apart. Oh, and the hiatus was going to take about twelve years. Fans were screaming "EEEEEVIIIIILLLL!!!" before and after they figured it out.
• The official trailer for Peace Talks is first released in mid-March 2020. On April 1st, an alternate cut is released showing Harry now wearing a hat. This refers to the continual joke that Harry is given a classic Private Investigator hat on all the covers but doesn't usually wear one in the story. However it's not just one hat. Every scene it changes to a different hat. A partial list includes the Indiana Jones famous hat, a sombrero, the Sorting Hat, a deerstalker, the Cat in the Hat's tall red-and-white striped hat, a fez, and lastly, one of the only hats he has worn in the books, a Burger King crown. The trailer ends with how "Peace Toques" and then "Hattle Ground" will be released later this year.

Short Stories - Side Jobs

Vignette

• This line from Bob after Harry dismisses the spirit's recommendations for Harry's new ad:
  Bob: (stares at Harry blankly) I have nightmares about Hell, where all I do is add up numbers and try to have conversations with people like you.
  • And this is after Bob repeatedly bonked his forehead against the shelf out of sheer frustration.

Something Borrowed

• Harry making it clear he's not going to be talked down to and insulted by Billy's stepmother-in-law Eve:
  "Though you obviously aren't Georgia's mother. Howsabout I call you trophy wife? (...) Bed warmer? Mistress made good? Mid-life crisis byproduct? When in doubt, go with the classics. Gold digger."
  • What makes the whole scene even funnier is how a despondent Billy is Facepalming behind her when Harry is cheerfully going off on her.
• And later:
  Murphy: What happens if he marries a faerie?
  Harry: Conservatives get real upset.
• And the part where Murphy and Bob finally meet, while looking at Billy and Georgia's trashed apartment.
  Bob: Hey, the cute blonde! Did you do her, Harry? (looks around at the destroyed apartment) Wow. You did! Way to go, stud!
  • Later, Bob finds a naked Georgia in Murphy's car.
    Bob: First you get demolition-level sex with the cop chick, and now a threesome, all in the same day! Harry, you have to write Penthouse about this!
• At the end of the story:
  Murphy: Not exactly a fairy-tale wedding.
  Harry: Sure it was. It had an evil stepmother and everything.

It's My Birthday, Too

• Molly cheerily trolling Harry when he starts to awkwardly stammer over why he's getting his White Court vampire ally Thomas a birthday gift when he doesn't get one for Michael or his other friends.
• Mouse running away from Harry and Molly after they walk into Harry's apartment covered in gunk from fighting a slime golem.
• Molly's disappointment when Harry elects to just call Thomas on the phone instead of using a tracking spell.
  • The resulting banter between Harry and Thomas over the phone is also hilarious:
    Thomas: (in his Camp Gay French persona) 'Allo.
    Harry: Hello, France? I found a dead mouse in my can of French roast coffee, and I've called to complain. I'm an American, and I refuse to stand for that kind of thing from you people.

Day Off

• The Cold Open, where it starts with an Arcanos game conducted by the Alphas with Harry interrupting the game to complain about how unrealistic the portrayed magic system is. Apparently, this isn't the first time he's done this, judging by everyone else's annoyance. What makes it all especially funny is that it's not until the second page or so that it becomes clear that what was essentially a D&D session was happening at all.
  Billy: (sighs in exasperation) Harry, repeat after me: It's only a game.
  Harry: I'm just saying, there's no reason the magic can't be portrayed at least a little more accurately, is there?
  Andi: Again with this discussion. (sighs) I mean, I know he's the actual wizard and all, but Christ.
  Kirby: (glumly nods) It's like taking a physicist to a Star Trek movie.
• Two words: Darth Wannabe.
  • Just the mere fact that Darth Wannabe's gang are wearing Slytherin scarves and have stenciled-on Dark Mark tattoos.
  • After Darth Wannabe boasts about how Harry defeated the hex he and his associates had placed upon the woman he'd just finished helping last week, Harry remarks in surprise that there was a curse at all. He then muses that he though the woman was just suffering from some bad feng shui and only did the ritual cleansing to make her feel better (though it's possible he was just trolling the guys).
  • This moment:
    "Apologies will do you no good, Wizard. Now!"
    He and his posse all raised their various accoutrements, sneering malevolently. "Defend yourself!"
    "Okay," I said, and pulled my trusty .44 out of my pocket.
    Darth Wannabe and his posse lost their sneers.
• Courtesy early in the morning:
  "Molly," I said politely, "I can't stand the sight of you. Please go away."
  • And when Harry gets up, wearing only his boxers and then sees Molly come in his apartment:
    "Hi, boss!" Molly chirped, giving my blasting rod and gun a passing glance but ignoring my almost-nudity.
    I felt old.
• Harry is trying to deal with two werewolves with psychic parasites flirting with/attacking him and Molly keeps distracting him by yelling increasingly alarming questions from the lab about fire extinguishers and acid while smoke billows out.
• Harry's petulance over Mouse getting angrier at Kirby and Andi going after Mister than when Mouse gets angry over people attacking him.
  • It's also worth noting that as Harry himself lampshades while looking over Kirby, Andi, and Mouse with his Sight, Mister is somehow the only creature he has ever encountered who looks the exact same as they normally do when put under the Sight.
• "But it's my day off!" - Which doubles as a Shout-Out to Clerks.
  • And the Anti-Climax when the grenade thrown into Harry's apartment turns out to just be a harmless smoke bomb (courtesy of Darth Wannabe).
    Bemused, I tugged one plastic cap off, and several little expended canisters fell out along with a note: The next time you interfere with me, more than smoke will interfere with you.
    More than smoke will interfere with you?
    Who talks like that?
• Anastasia walks in while Harry is trying to give CPR to Molly — who is topless at the time — and with Harry's apartment practically in ruins, complete with a bloodied Mouse sitting by the door, multicolored smoke and confetti drifting through the air, acidic fumes drifting up from the basement, and an embarrassed (and naked) Kirby & Andi standing in a magic circle. Harry then starts panicking and stammering that it is not what it looks like. Luccio simply looks around and promptly bursts into laughter, saying that she has no clue what it's even supposed to look like and simply must know how it happened.

Backup

• Thomas provides the best description of Harry in the history of ever.
  He's Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull.
• When Harry's complaining about how his latest case went to hell. Thomas, who actually knows what happened and was partially responsible for said case going to hell, somehow manages to keep a straight face.
  Harry: You know, Thomas, sometimes I feel completely unappreciated.
  Thomas: Wow. What's it like?
  • Less from actually knowing and causing the case to go to hell and more being told his little brother feels unappreciated when he just disguised himself as said hammy villain, took a rather painful blow from said brother and killed the true villain before she hurts Harry, all in order to protect him from harm and possibly deadly knowledge.
• After Thomas almost gets himself killed, and he reflects on how close he was to death:
  Harry had occasionally accused me of being reckless and overconfident—which is, believe me, hypocrisy of a staggering magnitude.
• While visiting Harry's apartment, Thomas notes that for some reason, Harry turned into a major neat freak several years ago but won't talk about why. Those who have read Summer Knight promptly cracked up.

The Warrior

• "Harry Dresden. Saving the world, one act of random destruction at a time."
  • And this is after Harry blew up a transformer to convince one of Michael's employees who was drunk to go home.
    Michael: (watching his employees go home) Though perhaps next time... you could just come tell me about it.
    Harry: (dismissively) That's not how I roll.
    Michael: (cracks a smile) "How you roll?"
    Harry: I heard Molly say it once. So it must be cool.
• Harry tries to cheer up a young girl named Kelly who feels personally responsible for the only two lost games of her softball team. Naturally, he resorts to Shout-Outs to do it.
  Harry: So, you gonna put your cap back on and play? Or do you want to wind up an old maid wandering around her house in the rotting remains of a wedding dress and thirty yards of bubble wrap, plotting heartlessly against some kid named Pip? There's really no middle ground.
  Kelly: Dear God, you've just made Dickens relevant to my life.
  Harry: Weird, right?
• When all is said and done, Harry wants someone to cover his fee.
  Uriel: You're... you're trying to bill the Lord God Almighty?
  Harry: Hel— uh, heck no. I'm billing you.
  • When the above refuses to pay up, Harry threatens that maybe he'll refuse to help next time. The other guy laughs, tells him that no, he won't, and disappears.

Last Call

• The Parody Magic Spell Dresden uses to scare the thug Caine into revealing what he knows: "Intimidatus Dorkus Maximus!"
• Harry tests a doorknob, "just in case," and is disappointed to find he doesn't have to bust the door down.
• At the story's climax, Meditrina the maenad is throttling Harry in the wreckage of a beer stand at the United Center, and he has just enough focus and energy left to break one of the bolts holding up a large wooden sign above them. It swings down, still hanging from the remaining bolt, and clonks her in the head.
  • And then, because of the whole fighting-in-the-wreckage-of-a-beer-stand thing, and because Harry's not in a position to explain what was actually going on, he (briefly) gets carted off to jail.

Aftermath

• Murphy explaining the basics of 'Martian' (It Makes Sense in Context).
  He grunted in Martian. Fuck off and die.
  It's an expressive language, Martian.
• A minor bit from when Murphy goes to visit John Marcone. After Murphy correctly deduces that the person that suggested she talk to Marcone is actually one of his informants, Hendricks looks at Gard, who rolls her eyes and passes him a $20 bill, which Hendricks pockets with a very smug smirk on his face. The mere fact that they were betting on Murphy pegging the informant or not is funny enough, but what makes it utterly hilarious is that Marcone never even noticed or looked behind him to see the whole thing happen.

Short Stories - Brief Cases

B is for Bigfoot

• Harry's reaction when he discovers that his client is, in fact, a Bigfoot.
• Harry bluntly asking Irwin's mother how she "got freaky" with River Shoulders.

I Was a Teenage Bigfoot

• Harry trolling the Bigfoot hunters.
• Harry literally saying "Hello, nurse!" when he first meets Nurse Jen, who is attending to Irwin. Cue her snarking that she can't think of anything more attractive than a grown man quoting Yakko and Wakko Warner at the drop of a hat.
• An incredibly brief but hilarious moment of narration is given when Harry offhandedly mentions that he's making "Bruce Lee noises" when using his force magic in conjunction with some martial arts to fight off a bunch of Jerkass campus security guards in service to Dr. Fabio.
• Harry commenting on how Dr. Fabio could have named the school "St. Mark's Academy for the Resourceful and Talented", thus making the acronym "SMART" instead of "SMAGT". And then proceeds to use said word to trash Fabio's shrine.
• Just the fact that Dr. Fabio was using black magic and leeching off Irwin's life force... just so he could grow some hair. To say that Harry is Disappointed by the Motive would be a massive Understatement.
  • The fact that an ex-Venator, someone who presumably knows exactly how strict the Wardens are about the Laws of Magic and moreover why they're in place to begin with, is willing to break the Laws just to regrow his hair is pretty hilarious in itself.

Curses

• Harry has spent too much time with the Fey:
  Donovan: My clients have authorized me to commission your services on this matter, if it can be done quickly—and with the utmost discretion.
  Harry: Mr. Donovan, no one does discretion like me.
• "Weregoats."

Even Hand

• Pretty much all of Gentleman John Marcone's narration, due to the man being an absolute Deadpan Snarker.
• Marcone's explanation for his choice in door materials.
  After a few visits from Dresden and his ilk, I had invested in cheap, light doors at dramatic (as opposed to tactical) entry points.
  • Preceded directly by this gem of a reaction to the destruction of said cheap door:
    For God's sake.
    At least the vampires would call for an appointment.
• Marcone's reaction to being told, essentially, to shut up or else:
  Is it so much to ask for civility?
• Furthermore, there's lots of sly references to Hendricks being much smarter than he looks, the suggestion that someone who works for a vampire should have "a bit more fortitude"...Marcone is just a fountain of both CMoAs and CMoFs.
  • For that matter, how he implies that Hendricks, who barely ever says a word in Harry's presence, actually talks on and on to a tiresome degree when he and his boss are in private ...yet Cujo still has very few lines in the short story.

Bigfoot On Campus

• The very first lines of dialogue, where Harry finds a kindred spirit:
  Officer Dean: Coffee?
  Harry: What flavor is it?
  Officer Dean: It's coffee-flavored coffee.
  Harry: No mocha?
  Officer Dean: Fuck mocha.
  Harry: Thank God. Black.
• Thanks to the narrative style, this story opens with Harry under arrest, shivering with cold, sipping a cup of coffee and being interrogated by a no-nonsense university police officer.
  Harry: Am I under arrest?
  Officer Dean: That's what we're going to talk about.
  Harry: Uh-huh.
  Officer Dean: Maybe you could explain to me why I found you in the middle of an orgy.
  Harry: Well, if you're going to be in an orgy, the middle is the best spot, isn't it.
  Officer Dean: Maybe you could explain why there was a car on the fourth floor of the dorm.
  Harry: Classic college prank.
  Officer Dean: Usually when that happens, it hasn't made big holes in the exterior wall.
  Harry: Someone was avoiding the cliché?
  Officer Dean: What about all the blood?
  Harry: There were no injuries, were there?
  Officer Dean: No.
  Harry: Then who cares? Some film student probably watched Carrie too many times.
  Officer Dean: Six separate calls in the past three hours with a Bigfoot sighting on campus. Bigfoot. What do you know about that?
  Harry: Well, kids these days, with their Internets and their video games and their iPods. Who knows what they thought they saw.
• Harry's take on football fans:
  In the Midwest, if you show up to a college town on a weekend, you risk running into a football game. In my experience, that resulted in universal problems with traffic, available hotel rooms, and drunken football hooligans.
  Or wait: Soccer is the one with hooligans. Drunken American football fans are just… drunks, I guess.
• Computer illiteracy and wizards:
  Harry: Uh. How [do you know about the supernatural]?
  Irwin: Wasn't hard. There's an Internet. And this organization called the 'Paranet' of all the cockamamie things, that got started a few years ago. Took me like ten minutes to find it online and start reading through their message boards. I can't believe everyone in the world doesn't see this stuff. It's not like anyone is trying very hard to keep it secret.
  Harry: People don't want to know the truth. That makes it simple to hide. Wow, ten minutes? Really? I guess I'm not really an Internetty person.
  Irwin: (visibly unimpressed) "Internetty." I guess you aren't.
• Yet another baddie fails to keep up with the times:
  Barrowill: I'll give you until midnight to leave the state. After that, you're gone. One way or another.
  Harry: [deadpan] Hang on, I'm terrified. Let me catch my breath.
  Barrowill: I react poorly to those who threaten my family's well-being, Dresden.
  Harry: Yeah. You're a regular Ozzie Nelson. John Walton. Ben Cartwright.
  Barrowill: Excuse me?
  Harry: Mr. Drummond? Charles... in Charge? No?
  Barrowill: What are you blabbering about?
  Harry: Hell's bells, man. Don't any of you White Court bozos ever watch television? I'm giving you pop reference gold, here. Gold.
• Dresden trying to be un-Dresden-like:
  Harry: [to himself] Don't be a moron, Harry. You came for the kid. He's safe. That's all you were obligated to do. Let it g— oh who am I kidding. There's a girl.
• The young White Court vampire Connie Barrowill is told what she is:
  Connie: Wait. A… what? Am I going to sparkle or something?
  Harry and Irwin: [in unison] God, no.

Bombshells

• This immortal exchange that shows just how much Molly takes after her mentor.
  Justine: This isn't going to work.
  Molly: It’s going to work. We'll breeze right in. The Rack will be with us.
  Justine: The Rack?
  Molly: The Rack is more than just boobs, Justine. It's an energy field created by all living boobs. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.
  Andi: You're insane.
  Molly: But functionally so.
  Molly: Just let go your conscious self and act on instinct.
  Justine: ...The Rack will be with us?
  Molly: Always.
• Early on, Lea asks Molly what she knows of the Svartalves, and Molly recites a Broad Strokes version of a Norse myth where Freya, to get her necklace back, had to kiss every Svartalf. Lea notes that the myths were Bowdlerised throughout the year, saying the Svartalves didn't settle for "a society-wide trip to first base." Molly then balks at the suggestion that she rescue Thomas by offering to schtup every one of them.
  • Of course, this is all a set-up for the resolution of that plot. When Molly demands Thomas's release, she learns it's unnecessary because he did offer to schtupp all of the lady Svartalves for the night.
• Molly's prayer to God when faced with a Wire Dilemma.
  ...but if you could just do me this one solid, it would be really awesome for a lot of people.

Cold Case

• Molly gets her first opportunity to kick in a door, and realizes why Harry does it so much — it feels awesome.
  • Not to mention that she does so while attacking a death cult by firing her One-Woman Rave Show...to the tune of “Everybody Dance Now”.

Jury Duty

• The US government somehow finding Harry and summoning him for jury duty, even after his death and resurrection. It turns out that it was actually Marcone's doing, which somehow makes it even funnier.
  Harry: Summons. It's a freaking command. They want to see what a real summoning is, I could show them.
• Harry is less than pleased about getting summoned for jury duty.
  Will: [The government] aren't the mob, Harry.
  Harry: Aren't they? Pay them money every year to protect you, and God help you if you don't.
• His description of the jury selection procedure:
  Then a guy in a black muumuu showed up and recounted the plot of My Cousin Vinny.
  Okay, it was a robe, and the guy was a judge, and he gave us a brief outline of the format of the trial system, but it's not nearly as entertaining to say it that way.
• Harry and Will need to watch over a busy Chicago street while the latter is in his large and intimidating wolf form. What does Harry do? He puts a service dog's jacket on the werewolf while he pretends to be a street performer playing his acoustic guitar for change.
• The bad guys retreat to a small nightclub closed for remodeling and Harry realizes that they just have set themselves up for a Dynamic Entry.
  The door was locked.
  It was also made of glass.
  I smiled.
• Tania Raith mocks Harry by saying that his speech about justice sounds like something right out of a cheesy comic book. He responds by cleaning the floor up with her highly trained Mooks while shouting "BAM!" and "POW!" after every other blow.
• Harry is a consummate Combat Pragmatist, but there are some lines even he doesn't cross on purpose:
  I hit him in the dark, somewhere more or less near his belly. His gun went off randomly as he was lifted off the floor and thrown ten feet back into a wall. He was trying to scream, breathlessly. I winced. I hadn't meant to hit him there, but those are the breaks.
• The fact that Lara Raith, much like Marcone who put Harry in jury duty in the first place, perfectly knew what to expect of her on-and-off enemy/ally and purposely sent the young succubus Tania on a mission that would cause her to cross paths with him, fully expecting her to lose the confrontation and be taken down a peg or two by the wizard is pretty amusing in its own Genre Savv-iry way.

Day One

• Butters gets his first call as a Knight of the Cross... in the form of a glowing yellow exclamation point floating over the head of someone he needs to talk to, just like a questgiver in a MMORPG.
• Speaking of the above, Butters weaponizing his love for polka to gain the courage to take on the baku baku.

Zoo Day

• Maggie, being young, makes hilarious metaphors:
  And then my dad's head shot up like Mouse's when he smells lighter fluid at the Carpenters' house...
• The final section of the narrative, from Mouse's POV. Under the one paw, he's a supernaturally intelligent, quasi-divine entity and the only one who knows the whole of what's going on... but under the other, he's still a Big Friendly Dog.
  • Dresden drops him and Maggie off in a café while he goes to check out something. Mouse wants to help Dresden, but is resolute that he must protect Maggie. And then the French fries arrive and Mouse is staring at them — just in case some evil creature is hiding in them, of course.
  • At one point, Mouse doesn't quite make a leap he tried for while pursuing one of his littermates. He then somewhat defensively points out that he's a Good Dog ("Everyone says so") and that means treats. He then somewhat sheepishly admits that maybe he should work out a little more after sorting out the current mess.
  • Then during his confrontation with his evil big brother, Mouse tries to sway him to join the good guys because he has great power, he could do a lot of good and there will be French fries.
• Harry's mental hiccup when he sees Maggie eating her fries with mustard. Not ketchup. What?
• There's a few times where it becomes extremely clear how much Harry has rubbed off on his dog and daughter. You have the 7-year-old's narration about how a minor-league nasty "learned the hard way" not to mess with her and Mouse, then her answering a haunt's taunts by telling it to go bother someone else or "things will get ugly." And Mouse saying he has no idea where he picked up a bad habit of snark.
  • Mouse also references The Dark Knight Rises at one point. Because of course Harry's dog knows the Batman movies.

Short Stories - Other

Christmas Eve

• Harry is trying to put Maggie's bike together based on a diagram...and Mouse has to show him which parts go together.
  • Furthermore, the bike has to be red because according to Maggie, "The red ones go faster!"
• Mouse gets more respect from Mab than Harry does when she visits them.
• Mab's gift to Maggie is a beautiful ring that, until noon, would grant Maggie powers like that of Elsa from Frozen. It will also play Elsa's signature song "Let it Go" to Harry's suffering.
• The wrapping paper to Harry's gift from Kringle has Mouse's grinning face on it as part of the pattern. It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context.
• Harry doesn't believe that he's on the Nice list. Kringle's response is golden. He winks and says:
  "Call Kris Kringle a liar on Christmas Eve one more time."
  • And for once, Harry is wise enough to actually shut up.

Monsters

• Marcone said why he won't go to a certain other contractor:
  Marcone: There's another person I could go to. But even if he believed me and agreed to the job, he would complicate it unbearably. We’d be at war with Canada within the week. Somehow.
• Even someone as deadpan as Goodman Grey can bring the hilarious one liners:
  Hey, you know how a nine-hundred-pound Bengal Tiger gets into a locked room? Any damned way it wants to.

Little Things

• The story is set approximately two weeks after the events of Battle Ground and the castle still has massive damage, some of which is just tarped over. The Little Folk think that the tarps are tapestries, and disdain their shoddy workmanship and plain design.
• Harry has explained to Toot-Toot that he can't order fresh pizzas because of the bad economy. Only Toot-Toot doesn't know what that is, so he thinks it's a monster called "e conomee".

The RPG

• Many, many of the margin comments written by Harry, Billy and Bob from the rulebooks. For the uninitiated: the RPG is presented as a project by one of the characters in-universe which he has sent to Harry Dresden for reviewing. Harry enlists Bob's help, and since Bob has an equally stupid sense of humor the margins are full of notes containing random commentary, bad puns, Shout Outs, and bickering between the people involved in the project. It's a lot of fun to read.
  How come most of the pictures of me show me beat to crap, Billy?
  Are you on a case right now, Harry?
  Yeah.
  Then you're beat to crap?
  Oh. Right.
  • Except for the more somber ones.
    • Heck, even some of those. For example, there's a section dealing with the idea that having Harry around could potentially interfere with storylines, and that in that case it might be easier to run the game if you kill him off in the background, with a list of ways this could have happened. Harry, naturally, is not amused, and his comments on the subject◊ are likely to induce slightly nervous, uncomfortable giggling. Crowning Moment of Mood Whiplash?
• Murphy very first margin note in the Paranet Papers:
  Murphy: Seriously? The Dresden Files?
  Will: Also known as the Dresdenverse.
  Murphy: Because Harry needs a bigger head and all.
• Also from Paranet Papers, under "The Philosophy of the Elements" is explained that the kind of evocation magic a wizard is good at is directly related to their personalities — the kind of emotions they more easily feel and how they experience them. For fire magic, well...
  TEXT: Wizards good at fire magic will tend to be emotional themselves, getting very easily invested in people and things, and experiencing every kind of emotion intensely and without restrain. Some might consider them constantly surrounded by personal drama or hopelessly irrational.
  Murphy: Yeah, I don't know anyone who fits that description at all...
  Butters: I have no idea what you're talking about.
  Will: Can't imagine why you'd even bring it up.
• But especially "Someone needs to explain to this guy that if you simultaneously carry a katana and wear a trenchcoat, you're a dork..." Hah. Take That! Sephiroth/ Connor McLeod of the Clan McLeod/ cliche World of Darkness and Shadowrun characters and also, the first time Harry met Sanya, he was wearing an overcoat, and wields a saber. It would be pretty easy to mistake it for a trenchcoat-katana combo.
• Or when Harry complains that if "Jim B." is his player in real life, he needs to roll better.
  • And in the start of the second book, when it credits Jim Butcher as the author, Harry has a minor freak out and asks who the hell this guy thinks he is.
• "Do not fight Happy Fun Merlin. Back away slowly."
  • Hell, the files for pretty much every powerful entity. Among other things, Billy leads off the notes on Nicodemus with "You lose.", lists the Erlking's Refresh Rate as "Ha!", and laughs at the idea of writing up definite stats for Satan.
• Harry complaining about the capricious dick of a GM he's got.
  I demand 23 retroactive Fate points.
• "I hate when you reduce my insecurities to game mechanics."
• Harry swearing he would needle Peabody about his grammatically incorrect German, and following through in the novels.
• One section concerning the Knights of the Cross and other people who use their Faith for power has a handful of passages blacked out entirely by Dresden, with the note that Billy should take them out because some people may not like them speculating on the nature of the big guy. If you copy and paste these lines, you find they are, in fact, Jim Butcher breaking character to tell you he's not going to open that can of worms just yet.
• Harry starts to notice that a lot of the illustrations (based on events from the book) involve half-naked villainesses attacking him, and wonders what this says about him. Bob approves of the pictures with some enthusiasm.
• During Arturo, the porn director's profile, Bob starts pestering Harry about getting him some videos for "research." Later on, in Lara's profile, near where it mentions she acted in porn, Bob starts asking Harry again why he never picked up the videos.
• In the description for "wolfweres", animals that can transform into humans:
  Powers: Thumbs!
• Harry, Billy, and Bob have awesome banter throughout both books. At one point, the text refers to "keep it simple, silly."
  Bob: Isn't it "Keep it simple, stupid?"
  Billy: Georgia... encouraged me not to address the reader as "stupid."
  Bob: Did she encourage you in the sack?
  Harry: Aaaaaaand you're done.
• Bob's opinions on what Skills scores Harry should have.
  Bob: (Regarding Burglary) William, Harry should have a decent score in this.
  Harry: Shut up, Bob.
  —
  Bob: (Regarding Deceit) Harry should have a low score in this.
  Harry: Shut UP, Bob.
  —
  Bob: (Regarding Intimidation) Also a skill for creepy PI wizards.
  Harry: Bob! Shut up!
  • The fact the first book actually has an index entry for "Shut up, Bob" is pretty hilarious in and of itself. And then you realize it's the longest listing in the index.
    • Another index entry with a surprising amount of listed pages? "Jerks". Lampshaded after Harry calls yet another person a jerk.
      Harry: Rudy's a jerk.
      Bob: You keep saying that about people.
      Harry: Well, I've met a lot of jerks.
  • Speaking of index jokes:
  Help! I’m Trapped in an Indexing Factory!: see: Recursion
  Recursion: see: Recursion
  Lenny’s “Boxers” Story: see: THE PAAAAIN!!!
  Werewolf?: (There, wolf. There, castle.)
  Who is Number One?: UR#6
• One picture of Murphy facepalming has Harry commenting, "I make her do this way too much."
• Harry's Comments on Mouse (in the Temple Dog section)
  As much as I complain about my Dogasaurus Rex, I'm glad Mouse stowed away in the Beetle. He's saved my life a bunch of times. And all he asks for in return is a little kibble
  Okay, a lot of kibble.
  Fine, a HUUUUGE amount of kibble.
• At one point when the text says "Life can't be all puppies and rainbows," Harry highlights it and margin-notes, "Why not?"
• On the page detailing the Supernatural Sense power, Harry's sidenote mentions that there's a guy in Pennsylvania who can see through drywall. JUST drywall.
• In the Paranet Papers supplement, Butters is surprised that a particular insane NPC isn't a conspiracy theorist.
  Murphy: There are several kinds of crazy in the world. He can't be all of them, right?
• An example of sponsored magic (magic provided by a powerful entity such as a god or mighty fae) affecting the spells empowered with it involves Harry calling on Hellfire to boost an earth-element evocation.
  The spell manifests as hellish pits opening up in the earth and swallowing the zombies, rather than the simple tremor he was aiming for.
  His friends look at him funny.
• On the subject of Leylines in the Dresden Files Accelerated splatbook:
  Only experienced, foolhardy, or the most desperate of individuals tap into ley lines to strengthen magic and, yes, Wizard Dresden has done so.

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