Being an Aardman Animations film, The Pirates In An Adventure With Scientists is essentially 88 minutes of jokes strung together by a plot. The gag-per-second ratio is colossal. Some of the highlights are noted below.
- Let's get this started with a Freeze-Frame Bonus. If you look closely at the Pirate of the Year application, the highest level of shouting is BRIAN BLESSED.
- Who, of course, stars as the Pirate King himself in a One-Scene Wonder, replete with this glorious line:
(Confiscate)"Your pirate badge with googly eyes!"- The Pirate Captain even checks off this box.
- Section One of the questionnaire: Booty. How did you come by booty? The options are: Exciting Adventure, Beauty Contest and Premium Bonds.
- A sign in the Barnacle's Face points to the "Powder Room", and is illustrated by a barrel of gunpowder.
- "Hop Along Hawkins: Bespoke Crutches and Wooden Legs" (Complete with sign saying "Limp on in")
- Another shop called "Naopleon Blownapart", which sells dynamite, gunpowder and party poppers, has been conveniently hit with a cannonball.
- The Barnacle's Face bar prohibits "Lubbers". However, it does have live sports: Crab racing on Thursdays. And it serves Ham & Squid.
- The Salty Salad Bar: All You Can Eat for a Doubloon (Except Big Eric - He's Barred!)
- One wall has a sign for Cockney Baiting.
- The first shot of London comes complete with the standard time-and-place subtitle but it's a wooden sign on a stick. And as the camera pans out revealing the inside of the palace, you can see the man holding the sign just outside the window!
- The ship's figurehead is a curvaceous woman with Poseidon's head!
- The "adventure" with the librarians.
- The tattoo every crew member got. They all have one of the Pirate Captain's face. And one of them(presumably the Surprisingly Curvaceaous Pirate) has it on their butt!
- Another Freeze-Frame Bonus when the Pirate Captain's getting arrows pulled out of his rear. There's a flag hanging in his cabin that says "Welcome to Seycheeze!"
- When the Captain is looking for an empty room to take Polly out of her hiding place. The first room has a mad scientist looking over a glowing brain in a jar. The second room has someone who is more than a little irritated at trying to solve a Rubik's Cube.
- This line from a scientist regarding Polly."Makes that electricity thing look like a pile of crap!"
- "He's not a scientist! He's a girl guide!"
- "He's not a girl guide! He's a PIRATE!!!"
- Cue the executioner conveniently in Queen Victoria's room.
- Darwin denies that his ship has any gold, at which the Pirate Captain wields something gold at the end of his cutlass. Darwin informs him that is a baboon's kidney.
- The Pirate Captain's "WTF" expression when he realizes that Darwin is crushing on Queen Victoria.
- The use of "I'm Not Crying
" by Flight of the Conchords makes a sort-of sad scene hilarious. - The Pirate Captain's failed attempts at pillaging. Particularly on how he keeps losing steam with each worthless target. By the time he reaches the ghost ship, he's not even trying to sound tough."Pirate Captain blah blah blah blah blah gold."
- One of the ships is a plague boat, and a man says, "Gold? This is a plague boat, old man! I'd give my right arm for some gold". His left arm falls off and he adds, "Or my left." note
- One of the ships is a ship full of naturists.
- Another is a ship of kids and a teacher on a geography field trip.
- The last one is a ghost ship that literally vanishes beneath his feet.
- For some reason, it's really funny for the British to give Queen Victoria an Establishing Character Moment of her shrieking "I HATE PIRATES!"
- Mr. Bobo himself turns the entire film funny. He communicates via flash cards, which make for many a funny moment. This includes him letting out a flurry of cards when falling that spell out "AAAAHHH!" to spelling out "DUM! DUM! DUMMM!" with cards when Victoria is about to enter.
- The card for the third "DUMMM!" has the largest font size, and he wiggles it slightly to represent vibrato.
- Charles Darwin accuses him of shouting when he holds up a sign written in all caps.
- He "says", "Are you out of your (Symbol Swearing) mind?!".
- The DVD short, "So You Want To Be A Pirate!" is basically a 17 minute-long Funny Moment. Highlights include:
- The Pirate Captain vs. a weevil. Not to mention the trouble it causes for anyone unlucky enough to get between them.
- The Pirate With A Scarf's attempts to dig up treasure, going from a shovel and pickaxe to stuff you'd see in a Wil E. Coyote cartoon.
- The wind demonstration segment.
- Trying to get rid of an overeager pirate recruit via cannon.
- "I love long things that go bang."
- Everything the Pirate King does.
- "BIIIIIG BARNACLES!!!"
- Darwin enthusiastically dancing to the song at the end. If you listen closely to the audio, he actually starts to sing along just before the squid gets him.
- The giant fish pointed by the Pirate Captain on the map, Darwin points out that it's just there for decoration. Then at the end of the movie, it swallows then spits out the ship.
- Then there's how cheerful the Pirate Captain sounds at being proved right that the giant fish wasn't just there on the map for decoration.
Pirate Captain: You see? I told you! Didn't I tell you? "Just added on for decoration," my foot! - Charlie Darwin's introduction, writing in his diary:Darwin: "I discovered a new species of barnacle today." (beat) "I will never get a girlfriend. I am so unhappy."
- Followed by the pirates attacking, with Darwin sitting unfazed as multiple cannonballs fly through the walls.
- The Pirate with Gout has a Blue Peter badge on his hat.
- The Pirate Captain is wanted on a bounty of 12 Doubloons and a free pen.
- A painting showing the Pirate Captain arm wrestling a pig.
- A painting of the Pirate Captain holding a swan, titled "Why" (straight from the books).
- The list of Boat Rules.
- The Captain has a toy train set in his cabin.
- Cutlass Liz stabbing her neighbor when the winner is announced during the split-screen Oscar parody. (In one block, you see Liz grow angry and stab something offscreen; in another block, Peg-Leg Hastings is suddenly stabbed on-screen!)
- Albino Pirate excitedly riding on the prow as the figurehead.
- Blood Island is named as such because it's exactly the shape of some blood. Whatever that means.
- The crew consists of a guy with no name (the captain), his first mate, a woman disguised as a man, a fish in a hat, a wacky albino dude, a dodo, and a guy with a prosthetic hand, leg, and nose.
- What's the big guy's name? The one besides the captain and Number 2 who looks the most like a regular pirate? The Pirate who Loves Sunsets and Kittens obviously!
- The albino guy has odd habits, including throwing red things out the back to make the dotted red line on the map, sticking his head out the window like a dog, and claiming London smells like his grandmother.
- A bit of Black Comedy, one of the levels of applause enthusiasm is "ladies fainting."
- When Pirate Captain is fighting with Queen Victoria, he asks if she was bit by a pirate when she was a baby.
