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"Was it bigger than Uranus?"
"You've just been waiting all your life to say that, ain't you Nobby. I bet you was born hoping that one day someone'd say 'That's a harp' so you could say 'lyre', on account of it being a pun or play on words. Well, har har."
Sergeant Colon, Soul Music

A character (especially a Pungeon Master) makes a pun, that is claimed to be so obvious or disgusting, that it makes listening characters wince, groan or even feel compelled to inflict violence on the punster — or, at least, bring a lawsuit against him for pun-itive damages. This can work both ways — rimshots and some form of celebration by the punster is completely optional.

Since puns are considered one of the lowest forms of humor by default, this claim can be made even if the pun in question is actually really, really funny.

The chief purpose of this trope seems to be to allow a writer to deploy an awful groaner and still dodge the blame for it by pointing the karmic retribution at the character, or to use this acknowledgment as a piece of Self-Deprecation, turning this lampshading into the joke's punchline, instead of just having the pun itself...not to mention allowing the audience to enjoy the other characters' exasperation in addition to the pun.

This is a subtrope of the Pun. For other puns that may or may not be bad, see Hurricane of Puns. For a character that always makes these, see Pungeon Master. For a work which is saturated with puns, see World of Pun. For an index of punny trope names, see Punny Trope Names.

Not to be confused with Stealth Pun, which refers to puns where the punchline is simply left to the readers or listeners as an exercise.

This may also warrant a Collective Groan or "Get Out!" or have most of the audience groaning, while one laughs. See also Visual Pun and Humor Dissonance. Compare High-Five Left Hanging. If the reaction is self-inflicted, it may overlap with Can't Believe I Said That.

Oh, and a lame reaction to a pun is rather (not excluding some possible overlap) the opposite of this trope.

In-Universe Examples Only!


Examples subpages:

Other examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • A Heinz ad for corn:
    Ad: One of our corn farmers has a saying: "You won't believe my ears!" We never said it was a good saying.
  • An Australian beer ad featured some stereotypically blokey blokes out on a drinking-lots-of-beer-and-fishing holiday, cooking some fish in a wheelbarrow because they forgot the frying pan.
    Bloke 1: What kind of fish is it anyway?
    Bloke 2: It's, ah... barra.
    Bloke 3: That's terrible.
    Bloke 2: Yeh, it is.
  • A GEICO commercial features two guys working at a pizza parlor, flipping dough:
    Man 1: Hey, you know I just saved a bunch of money by switching my insurance.
    Man 2: Great.
    Man 1: You know what that is?
    Man 2: [sighs] Yeah...
    Man 1: You know what that is?
    Man 2: Yeah, I do. Just don't...
    Man 1: That's a lot of dough!
  • Downplayed in a Raisin Bran with Bananas commercial set during a father-daughter camping trip. The father walks out of the RV wearing what the daughter calls an "aggressive yellow" jacket.
    Father: Pretty great, huh?
    Daughter: If you're a banana.
    Father: I find it very appealing.
    Daughter: [mildly amused] Mmmm.
  • One Ladbrokes ad campaign revolved around athlete Kriss Akabusi advertising their accumulator boost function, and then being asked whether it should be called an "acca-boost-i" as a pun on his name. One ad played it straight, with Akabusi hating the pun only for it to then be plastered everywhere; another subverted it by having Akabusi fall silent for a few seconds before cheering enthusiastically.

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Azumanga Daioh (the anime), Tomo makes a pun, though what that pun is depends on whether it's the dub, the sub (both based on "freedom"), or the original (based on "yoyuu"). The other girls groan and Chiyo says it was bad, while Tomo is flabbergasted at their response.
  • A Certain Magical Index: Accelerator meets Misaka WORST, a new clone who was designed to kill him, and then kill Last Order to take over the Misaka Network. After Accelerator beats her down and they become allies, he tells her to keep Last Order safe. She cheerily declares "That's what Misaka is worst at!" Accelerator groans.
  • Darker than Black: Kurosawa has spent two entire episodes littering his speech with very bad Gratuitous English on the mistaken impression that it'll help his client, a Scandinavian named Eelis Castinen, understand him. Then he crosses the Gratuitous English Event Horizon by making a Gratuitous English pun on "Castinen" ("cast it in"), and his Hypercompetent Sidekick, who has been wincing behind his back the whole time, gets annoyed.
    Kiko: I knew you were going to say that. It wasn't even funny.
  • Eden of the East's protagonist Akira Takizawa has one of these moments when he finds out why Mr. Outside is called that. His name is Ato Saizo. It's a pun.
  • Excel of Excel♡Saga draws a comparison between conquest (征 服, seifuku) and uniforms (制 服, also seifuku). Hyatt notes that this is just too obvious (and she usually plays Captain Obvious to explain the joke, so this is her way of calling it lame).
  • Tamahome throws one out in Fushigi Yuugi. In an attempt to cheer Miaka up, he tells her that after causing some trouble, Tasuki will probably be taken to task (in the Japanese version, the word used for the pun is tasukete, or "help" in English). He acknowledges the lameness of his pun himself and blames his Money Fetish for it.
  • In Gintama, once Gintoki and Hijikata switch bodies thanks to Hiraga's rice maker, Hiraga makes a joke that instead of making "Egg on rice", it made "Ego in the wrong device".(In the original Japanese version, he made a joke about "tama", or soul, being switched instead of "tamago", or egg. ) Both Gintoki and Hijikata attack him while yelling "That's not funny!".
  • Howdy from Hamtaro just loves to tell really bad jokes that nobody in the show finds funny at all.
  • At the start of the Steel Ball Run in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, the race's benefactor, Stephen Steel, announces the trophy for the winner has been buried in a block of ice dug up from Antarctica which will melt by the time the race is over. When he say that his comments have hopefully "broken the ice", everyone is astounded he would make such a horrible joke, except Stephen's wife, who claps.
  • In Kamichama Karin, Karin makes one of these ("Wait, a god [kami] just burned my hair [also kami]??") and then chastises herself for it.
  • March Comes in Like a Lion:
    • Hayashida, the teacher to the protagonist Rei, utters a bad Japanese pun involving pork cutlets (katsu) and winning (also pronounced katsu but written differently) during their lunch break as a way of encouraging Rei for his recent string of losses. Rei feels a chill (a Japanese visual cue for a pun that's found terrible) when he's told to "katsu" his battles while being given a pork cutlet.
    • Rei's almost driven insane by Takeshi Tsuji's onslaught of terrible, context-less puns during their shogi match.
  • In My-HiME, Haruka attempts to make a pun which is immediately followed by dead silence and staring.
    Haruka: What a hideous face. What is that?
    Yukino: I believe it's a kelp grouper, Haruka.
    Haruka: Really?
    Yukino: Yeah. It's good to serve at parties in a hot pot or sashimi.
    Haruka: No wonder it's called a grouper.
  • Ninja Nonsense has a truly horrible visual pun at the end of episode 9's first half. The ninja attempt to make a furo by rerouting a hot spring into their bath house, but it's not water that comes out of the pipe...
    Ninja: Permed hair!?
    Kaede: Afro?
    Shinobu: I guess...
    Onsokumaru: It's "a furo", therefore "afro".
    [everyone groans]
    Ninja: That was a lame joke.
  • Brook in One Piece makes these constantly in regards to his body. In just one scene, he does it three times with commentary for each. First two times? Franky starts to aim his Weapons Left and Robin tells him not to because he's already dead. The third one she just says 'go ahead and beat him up.' And he does.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • In the dubbed version of the fourth episode of Pokémon: The Original Series, the following happens. For reference, in the original Japanese, Kasumi (Misty) screams out "mushi" (bug), so Satoshi (Ash) pops up with "ushi" (cow).
      Misty: [screams] I think I see another bug! Gross!
      Ash: Maybe it's a... Cowterpie!
      Misty: [tree branch she's clinging to breaks] That's not funny!
    • Samson Oak in Sun and Moon tends to cause these with his Pokémon-related puns.
  • In The Prince of Tennis, on the team of Rokkaku, Amane "David" Hikaru is frequently kicked for making many lame puns. Many people know him as "that pun guy" instead of his real name.
  • One of the main characters from Shaman King, Chocolove, is rather famous for his puns so horribly obvious that the others tend to freeze in awe for a few seconds before continuing the conversation, often turning completely white in the process (in the anime, at least). Other times he just gets attacked by someone, usually Ren.
  • One Shugo Chara Chan! comic has the Guardian Characters wondering what the prince of flowers ("hana" in Japanese) looks like, and one of the princes is a nose (Also "hana" in Japanese). Ran says "That's not the right "hana" we're talking about!"
  • Fuuka of Yotsuba&! makes the occasional pun, though only Asagi attacks her for it (Koiwai and Jumbo merely tell her off). Her father, on the other hand, appreciates the humor value.
  • Jaden in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is quite fond of this trope. Here's a good example from the dub as shown below when he duels with Wheeler, a monkey duelist, to rescue fellow Duel Academy student Jasmine in the episode "Monkey See, Monkey Duel":
    Jaden: You saw my moves, now do yours! Hah! Get it? Monkey see, monkey DO?
    Jasmine: You make puns now, and not even good ones!

    Audio Plays 
  • One from the audiobook version of the Tintin adventure Secret of the Unicorn:
    Tintin: What did you say the name of the pickpocket was again?
    Thompson or Thomson: Aristides Silk.
    Tintin: Well I think it's time we "arrest-ided" him.
    [various noises of disgust]

    Card Games 
  • Because most character names in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic are made of normal words, puns are fairly inevitable. According to Diamond Mint's card in the Collectible Card Game, she apparently makes the "diamond in the rough" pun on her own name enough to annoy Lemony Gem into making an unspecified threat over it.

    Comic Books 
  • Amelia Rules!:
    • Rhonda Bleenie's fruit salad love story in The Tweenage Guide to not Being Unpopular is a hurricane of incredibly lame puns.
      Rhonda: "You're the APPLE of my eye", he stated with a PLUM. "Well, we do make quite a PEAR", she replied ...
      Amelia: ARGH! I HATE it when they serve FRUIT SALAD!
    • Later Amelia has this exchange with Count Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster (It Makes Sense in Context):
      Dracula: Psst... Amelia... look! [points to his sandwich] The Count's Monte Christo!
      Frankenstein's Monster: RRR... PUN BAD!
  • Archie Comics:
    • In the story "Ratman" (a parody of 1989 Batman), the Punster (Reggie) evades capture by telling the police or Ratman (Archie) an intentionally lame joke, then running away while they groan over the punchline. Ratman eventually outsmarts the Punster by putting on some earplugs, so that the puns can't distract him.
    • In one comic, Jughead cringes at an elevator operator's pun.
  • Asterix is known for its Woolseyisms and World of Pun, so this was bound to appear sooner or later. Of particular mention, in Asterix and Cleopatra, after a failed offensive by the Romans:
    Centurion: Hmm, that didn't work! Right, we'll attack from all sides at once. Advance!
    Legionnary 1: But we've only retreated!
    Legionnary 2: If we advance, we'll be driven into the Nile!
    Legionnary 3: We'll be an-nile-ated!
    Legionnary 4: One more pun like that and I desert!!
  • Batman's Robins have such a propensity to this, it's been suspected it's a tacit requirement to being Robin.
    Batman: You still haven't gotten over the puns?
    Nightwing: Oh shush. You love it.
    • Of course, not even Batman is immune to such things. In The Joker War, after Harley Quinn and Batman take care of Punchline, Bats needs to get in touch with the rest of the Bat-Family and pulls out a small device from his belt: a “bat-tery”. Harley can only groan “No, you $@$$&@ didn’t.”
  • In the adventure gamebook comic You Are Deadpool, the tutorial has Kieron Gillen as Deadpool's opponent to demonstrate the combat rules, armed with a large sandwich he'd made himself to use as a weapon. When he explains "I've made my attack roll" Deadpool comments that now he knows why they're fighting.
  • In the Don Rosa story "Return to Plain Awful," Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck visit the Lost World of Plain Awful, a Utopia where square things are prized, round things are illegal, and the people live "on good cheer" with no financial interests. Eventually, Scrooge does manage to interest the people in his money — but only aesthetically, and as a finishing touch, they chop their new stack of bills into two square halves. The story ends with Donald noting that now, Self-Made Man Scrooge has something in common with the Awfultonians:
    Donald: Well, they made their billion by being tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties! And you know what else?
    Scrooge: Oh, no, nephew! Don't say it! ...Please!
    Donald: That's right! They made it square!
  • In the 14th issue of John Byrne's run on Doom Patrol, where Robotman shifts through various alternate timelines, one of the timelines Cliff finds himself in is that of Superman & Batman: Generations. After this timeline's version of Elasti-Girl flicks the Brain off of his mechanized tank, Kid Flash makes a joke about the Brain's fate being how you "get ahead in the world", which causes Supergirl to groan at the bad pun Kid Flash made.
  • In Dylan Dog this is the standard reaction to pretty much anything Groucho (a Groucho Marx impersonator who got Lost in Character) says. He actually used it to save a life once: as Bloch lay in a coma after being shot with the doctors not expecting him to get through the night, Groucho arrived to his side and unleashed lame pun after lame pun until Bloch woke up screaming that someone dragged him away.
    • The story "Groucho-con" has what is possibly the most epic one in fiction, in that the one who's murdering the Groucho Marx impersonators at a convention the moment they fail his test and tell him a bad joke is the Anthropomorphic Personification of the Sense of Humour, so fed up by all the bad comedians he decided to kill them all starting from the ones at that con.
  • Marvel's all-humor special The Fantastic Four Roast (February, 1982) delivers this as Thor approaches the dias and presents the Thing with a proclamation from the kingdom of Asgard:
    Thing: Hey, Goldilocks, I can't read this!
    Thor: Of course not. It's in Norse code!
    Thing: [Groan...]
  • In Gaston Lagaffe, Prunelle once reacts to one of Lebrac's lame puns.
    Prunelle: They do really interesting experiments: it seems that rats respond to music.
    Lebrac: Indeed! Especially to ratpsodies.
    Prunelle: Rogntudju! That's the worst joke of the week!
  • MAD: In "Coma-Toast", their parody of the 1978 film adaptation of Coma, Dr. Wheeler attacks a man not only for chopping up her comatose friend for spare parts, but for making a tasteless pun about it ("That's her all over!")
  • The Madballs comic book published by Marvel Comics subsidiary Star Comics featured a villain called Colonel Corn, whose power was to debilitate the Madballs by making awful puns and jokes.
  • Marvel Adventures: The Avengers: In Issue #8, Loki and the other villains have a little Legion of Doom team-up and make their base out of a floating children's school. Giant-Girl picks up the school and they ambush her, causing her to drop the school and them to fall out of it. X-Ray then comments "Did we just drop out of school?"
    The Wrecker: Lame, X-Ray!
  • Mega Man (Archie Comics):
    • When Mega Man is first facing Cut Man, he spends the entire fight giving off puns involving cutting. So when he's defeated:
      Mega Man: Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Ha... that was lame.
    • In Issue #22, Mega Man does it again when he fails with Roll, Ice Man, and Quake Woman after they make "break the ice."
      Mega Man: I don't know what hurt worse the fall or the unintentional pun.
  • In the Mickey Mouse Comic Universe saga of Darkenblot, Phantom Blot has a subdued but devastating one when a boat arrives to his hideout somewhere in the North Atlantic (north enough everything's frozen) and the first thing the captain says is a pun about his name Bricco and the word "briccone" (an outdated Italian word for "villain"), reaction given through an order to his men:
    "Throw that clown in the sea and sink the boat."
  • Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter: Richard Dragon usually derides his allies puns, but when Lady Shiva and Ben Turner gang up on him with them he acts like they're physically painful.
  • Robin (1993): The Jury is a murderous Vigilante Militia that covers their faces and uses numbers to avoid being identified. While their leader, the foreman, starts lecturing Tim about why Tim's methods of crimefighting are wrong after the group blows up a purse snatcher #4 starts mumbling that he should be the foreman as its "only natural", to which #5 whispers shut up, while his gun is aimed at 4.
  • Scooby-Doo and the gang thwart a faceless phantom (from the Marvel comic story of the same name) and at the same time expose their client's time machine invention as a fraud. As Shaggy puts on the featureless mask:
    Daphne: Why did you put the mask on, Shaggy?
    Shaggy: That man tricked us. I have lost face.
    Scooby: [cringing] Ouch!
  • In one issue of The Simpsons, the cast parodies various Shakespeare plays including Romeo & Juliet, King Lear, Henry The 5th, and Titus Andronicus. During their parody of Julius Caesar (Portrayed by Mr. Burns), the senate (Portrayed by Homer, Mr. Smithers, and others) have accidentally stabbed each other because Mr. Burns/Caesar was too frail and thin to stab, which leads to a perplexing setup to a particularly awful pun.
    [the senate is dying on the floor, having accidentally stabbed each other while trying to stab Mr. Burns/Caesar]
    Mr. Burns/Caesar: Well well, some surprise party this is! Not even a cake!
    [Homer/Cassius produces a cake from his toga]
    Homer/Cassius: Here.
    Smithers/Brutus: ...Why do you have a cake on your person?
    Homer/Cassius: I always keep a cake on hand. Just in case.
    Mr. Burns/Caesar: Hold the phone there ...there are slices missing from it.
    Homer/Cassius: Well we were waiting around a really long time, and I got pretty hungry. I had the cake right there so I...
    Smithers/Brutus: DON'T SAY IT.
    Homer/Cassius: ...ate two, Brutus.
    [everybody groans]
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) Sonic is known for his many lame puns. Apart from the obvious Eggman jokes, he has also fought Knuckles when the latter was Enerjak, calling him Ener-Joke. This prompted Knuckles to yell, "Are you quite finished?!" Sonic, smug as ever, then said, "Actually... Jumping-jak. Ener-tube. Flap-jak. Ener-state. Ener-jak-in-the-box. And come to think of it... "Enerjak" sounds like some kind of sports drink. Now I'm finished." Knuckles threw him into a wall afterward.
  • In Supreme Power, toddler Hyperion is startled by his new pet dog and incinerates it with his heat vision. One of the two guards watching him over security camera remarks "I guess Spot was kind of the right name after all." His partner responds by slapping him and calling him a "prick" when asked what he did wrong, in a cross between this trope and Dude, Not Funny!.
  • In the comic book adaptation of the Wacky Races episode "Real Gone Ape", Dick Dastardly is sawing the posts off a bridge on which the racers are traveling.
    Dastardly: Muttley, I'll bet you never saw a meaner trick!
    Muttley: [thought balloon] No, but I've heard better puns!
  • In the X-Men comics, when the team was trying to come up with a codename for Kitty Pryde, someone eventually suggested "Sprite". Kitty liked it but added "I don't want to hear any jokes about pulling my Tab!" Professer X simply responds "Ouch!"
  • The 2015 run of Young Avengers features Loki's guilty conscience haunting him in the form of the ghost of his reborn younger self, who he killed and whose identity he's adopted. Kid Loki taunts him by comparing the "haunting" to Hamlet's and eventually comments, "Well, we can't make a Hamlet without breaking a few eggs." Loki, with a look of disgust, declares that the pun makes him glad he killed Kid Loki.

    Comic Strips 
  • David Lynch's comic The Angriest Dog in the World features terrible puns in some strips ("Pete has a police record." "What does he have a police record for?" "I guess he likes Sting and their music."), creating the impression that some of the dog's rage comes from hearing this sort of thing all day.
  • In Calvin and Hobbes:
    • How Hobbes usually reacts to Calvin's puns.
      Calvin: Hey Hobbes, want to see an antelope?
      Hobbes: An antelope?
      Calvin: Come on! [goes to an anthill] See, she's climbing down the ladder to her boyfriend's car. [beat] You're not laughing.
      Hobbes: It's not funny.
    • There is another one where Calvin takes a telephone into the woods to "make some bird calls" and ends up with the receiver in his mouth and the bulk of it tied to the back of his head.
    • Another has Hobbes simply deconstruct Calvin's attempt at a punny comic strip and leave him scowling with a Death Glare:
      Calvin: See, the snowman is sitting in his snow car and says "Darn it, the engine froze up!" Ha ha ha!
      Hobbes: ...But if the car were made of snow, the engine would melt if it wasn't frozen. Either way, it won't run.
    • And some strips have it reversed. In one, Calvin and Hobbes are playing pirates, when Hobbes hands Calvin an old shoe. When asked what it is, Hobbes cracks, "Our booty!" while Calvin makes a disgusted Aside Glance.
  • Early Dilbert strips loved their puns. One strip features Dogbert instructing the readers on finding a safe place out of range from which to deliver the punchline of the following pun:
    Dogbert: Tell me again about your uncle the famous biologist.
    Dilbert: Uncle Albert won many awards for his work on anemones...sadly he had little time for a social life.
    Dogbert: With anemones like that, who needs friends?
  • A Running Gag in Funky Winkerbean is one of the characters making a terrible pun and a character with no choice but to listen suggesting that this is some form of abuse. For instance, a student whose science teacher inflicts two jokes on them beginning "Ursa goes into a bar..." and ending with lame puns on "Major" and "Minor" asking "Is this bullying?"
  • How the Animals Do It by Larry Feign (NSFW... but not much) has a kangaroo talking to his buddy about a hot kangarette ("Sure'd like t'get into her pouch" etc., etc.). He promptly gets a fistful of Matilda from her — not for the sexist talk but for the lame puns.
  • Peanuts:
    • It has a strip where Linus made a snowman who is reading a book and tells Charlie Brown that he imagines the snowman is reading some poetry, but is at a loss for a poet a snowman would like. When Charlie Brown suggests Robert Frost, Linus responds, "You said it, I didn't."
    • There is also a Running Gag of Snoopy working on his novel and writing a scene involving an unnamed man telling his wife some lame pun.
      "I've bought you a St. Bernard. His name is Great Reluctance. Now when I go away, you shall know I am leaving you with Great Reluctance!"
      She hit him with a waffle iron.
  • Pearls Before Swine:
  • The Australian comic Snake has a lot of these, usually very violent and slapsticky. Snake himself has been trampled, crushed under his own rock, hurled into water with weights tied to him and so on, while the Flying Doc's are more likely to get his head slammed in the door to his surgery. Roo and the Aboriginal duo are the most frequent providers of this kind of pain.
  • In one Beau Peep strip, Egon tells Peep that his role in the military is just as dangeous and violent as anyone's; yesterday he was shelling peas. Peep's reaction is "I do like a chef with a sense of humour. We must get one."

    Fan Works 
  • Anger Management:
    • When Luan makes a joke about Lincoln "using his head" (i.e. headbutting Lori), her sisters groan.
    • Lincoln groans when Luan jokes about "a-salting" him with salt.
    • Zigzagged when Lincoln groans after Luan gets him with a water balloon and claims he's "wet behind the ears". It's hard to tell if he's groaning about the pun or about how she soaked him.
  • Beneath Boundless Skies:
    Charlie: Heyup, Harry. Was looking for you earlier, but word has it you were dead to the world. Again. It's a habit with you.
    Harry: That's appalling, Charlie.
    Charlie: I've been waiting hours to use it, thanks for the chance.
  • It's when Fishlegs makes an "edutainment" pun in The Dragon and the Butterfly: Whiteout does Karla feel a "shockwave of embarrassment through [her] bones," realizing that Camp Ingerman won't be as exciting as she wished.
    Karla: Ay Dios Mio... [slumps in her seat] Odin help me...
  • Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
    • This little gem when Krillin and Piccolo use multi-form:
      Krillin and Piccolo: Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!
      Nappa: Vegeta! I can't ... Believe it!
      [Beat]
      Vegeta: [angrished groan]
    • After Tien loses part of his arm:
      Vegeta: Looks like he's been, disarmed.
      [Tien stops screaming in pain over the pun, seconds later]
      Nappa: I get it.
    • After Krillin and Gohan knock Freeza's henchmen into the water:
      Krillin: Hah! Looks like they're all... washed up! [Gohan stares at him blankly] Yeaaaaaaaahhhhh... da da da dada, oh... [Krillin Owned Count: 11]
    • The prediction of a future one occurs in the second podcast episode (for the record, they only used it twice in the end.)
      KaiserNeko: You thought Freeza was cool. Huh? Huh?
      Lanipator: His brother's Cooler.
      [Taka groans and vomits]
      Lani: Get ready for that about twenty more times during that movie. We literally have that line in there twenty times, and we haven't even written it yet.
    • When Piccolo is telling Krillin, Vegeta, Tien and Trunks about Cell.
      Piccolo: ...So yeah, that's basically it in a nutshell.
      Krillin: You mean a nut-Cell.
      Everyone: Shut up.
  • In the franchise-spanning Mega Man crossover fanfic "Epilogue," Elec Man makes several electricity-based puns both before and after his fight with the heroes. Zero just grins and goes along with it, even firing back with some puns of his own, but X gets more and more irritated until he eventually snaps, decides "Pacifism be damned!," and has to be held back to stop him from tearing Elec Man limb from limb. Then Zero makes one more pun, and X's systems, already under severe stress from the recent battle, temporarily shut down in response.
  • Escape from the Moon: In the sequel The Mare From the Moon, after Pinkie makes an unwitting pun while Comically Missing the Point in chapter 12, there's a Collective Groan, then a chuckle from Rainbow Dash, who actually liked it.
  • The Family that Chooses You:
    Harry: How's N.E.W.T.s studying?
    Percy: Busy but well, thank you for asking. However, I am sure I will be more harried when the tests get closer.
    Harry: I'll be Harry-ied then too.
    Percy: That was dreadful, Harry. Simply terrible.
  • In Fireworks Hermione and her father groan when Harry comments that wizards have to register their Animagus forms because they'd make great cat-burglars otherwise.
  • Guys Being Dudes: Arlo groans whenever he sees Spark's Instagram, which he calls his "Instinctgram".
  • Halloween Unspectacular: During the climax of the Witch Ember arc in the first edition, Witch Ember turns Sandy into a plush animal, causing E350 to state that the heroes are "stuffed". Linkara is barely able to keep Zim from throwing him off the flying van in response.
  • In A Harmonious Beginning Hermione groans and her mother FacePalms when her father and Harry make toad puns after finding Neville's toad.
  • In Harry Goes on Holiday Hermione and her mother groan when her father jokes about "staying in the swing of things" by hitting some golf balls.
  • Harry Potter and the Big Black Dog:
    Hermione: Any technology, sufficiently advanced, appears to be magic. Wasn't that MIT&T's motto?
    George: What's a motto?
    Fred: Nothing. What's a motto with you?
    [Everyone else groans]
  • Harry Potter and the Slytherin Ice Queen:
    Sirius: So then, how are you two doing, still in the puppy love stage?
    Harry: Are you seriously interested, or are you just making dog puns?
    Sirius: I'm always Sirius.
    Harry: That was bad.
  • Invoked by Marinette in the Miraculous Ladybug fanfic i've been out on the ocean, sailing alone. In this fic she's the one who has to select Chat Noir and has been told about Plagg's love for puns, she decides to test her list of candidates (her classmates) by unleashing horrible puns on them, discarding the ones who have this reaction (and hoping she'll have an excuse to discard Adrien, as she doesn't want to have her crush as a partner). The biggest one, however, is Ivan's—-after one bug pun too many. he stormed out of the class... And came back as an akuma.
  • The Tumblr blog Joking Luna involves Princess Luna annoying her sister Princess Celestia with bad jokes, including a number of terrible puns (though Celestia finds a few of them are Actually Pretty Funny).
  • In Blazewing's Living in Equestria, Dave groans — sometimes only inwardly — at many of the city names and ponified book titles. Additionally, Lyra uses bad jokes and puns to break Bon Bon out of a funk. One early one has the side effect of making Dave briefly stop playing the piano because it "was worthy of a Face Palm".
  • In A Load of Bulk, Lana rolls her eyes when Luan sees her eating breakfast quickly and says, "I know it's called breakfast, but still!". Well, they don't give her much better responses in the source material either.
  • Lucy's Secret:
    • When Luan asks what's "goth" Lucy down, the rest of her family groans.
    • When Luan says she's "mort-itchin" for a good time with the goths, they all either groan or give her a blank stare.
  • Lovegood, Boobs Gooder:
    Mundungus: Tonks.
    Remus: But no Tonks. We've had enough, Tonk you very much.
    [Most of the room groans while Moody considers using his magical eye to hit Remus.]
  • Leviathan in Manehattan's Lone Guardian has one of these towards herself after using the expression "not looking a gift horse in the mouth" for the first time while in Equestria.
    "...Gift horse? Sigh... Well, I guess I had to use that one sooner or later."
  • Maybe the Last Archie Story: Salem, Sabrina's familiar cat, unfortunately and mistakenly believes he is funny. When he goes to Archie for help to rescue Sabrina...
    Salem: So, that's how it stands. Are you ready to round up a posse? I guess that'd make me a posse cat, but hey...
    Archie: [groaning] A talking cat that makes bad puns. Why me, Lord? Don't answer that.
  • The Merging:
    Tonks: I dunno, you could stand to laugh more, I suppose. I hate seeing you down, it gets me all moody.
    Harry: Nothing gets me more Moody than a peg leg and a magical eye.
    Tonks: That was awful. Did you seriously just say that?
  • Message In A Bottle Starscribe: "Dragon's Folly", when Lucky Break makes a joke about her own name, Lightning Dust finds it horrible:
    "Thanks, Mom. I'm Lucky to have you."
    Dust lifted her wing off the pony's back, glaring in mock disgust. "That was worse than the fabricator."
  • In My Huntsman Academia, Yang tends to get a chorus of groans whenever she puns along with a tongue-based Dope Slap from Tsuyu. Izuku is one of the few people who won't groan every time and gets similar treatment when he makes an Accidental Pun himself.
  • In The New Trio and the Chamber of Secrets Draco gives Harry a globe that shows the weather.
    Harry: This is such an awesome gift! Thank you so much, it means the world to me. Oh. Geddit? World!
    Draco: You know, you're becoming more and more like Sirius as time goes on. That was horrible, Harry.
  • Discussed in The Loud House fanfic The Nightmare House, where Luan is wondering why her puns aren't even provoking a groan; everyone is silent.
  • From None Piece: Luffy mentions that he doesn't want to get roped into anything stupid. Cue Nami tying him up with a rope.
    Luffy: Wow! I actually felt myself die a little inside!
  • The Path Least Taken:
    Hermione: Guys I'm serious!
    Pansy: No that's [Harley's] godfather.
    Draco: Oh god Pansy that was awful.
  • In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, this is the reaction of Pikachu and Yellow to Scott making a remark about Ash's Snivy being "a little green". He meant inexperienced, but seeing their expressions he quickly realizes how corny it sounded.
  • In The Power of Friendship (And This Gun I Found!), Rex and Joey are duelling when Joey makes a comment that Rex was into fossils "when they were still underground". Rex proceeds to chase Joey with a knife. According to the author, based on a true story.
  • In Pretty Kitty Snape tells the Order that Voldemort has started asking about cats and Kneazles after discovering that a botched Love Potion gave Harry feline attributes. Dumbledore comments that it's a "catastrophe" and receives several groans.
  • The Revelation of Harry Forrester:
    David laughed. "Wait — you asked me a question? Sorry, I don't do questions until I get to Purdue. Only they are allowed to ask me questions now."
    Harry turned to the group. "He always seemed pretty questionable to me."
    Groans and loose bits of crumpled paper came flying toward Harry.
  • Rise of the Golden Trio:
    Harry: Since when does the great Hermione Granger swear?
    Hermione: Because she's tired, Harry Prat-er.
    Harry: That was a horrible pun, I'm so proud.
  • RWBY: Epic of Remnant: When Lancelot introduces himself, Yang Xiao Long jokes that he must use a spear because he Lance-A-Lot. He says, "That pun... physically hurt me."
  • There's a series of comic strips about Sailor Venus making horrible space jokes and getting this reaction by everyone but Usagi (who actually likes them). They can be found in motion comic form here.
  • In the Jackie Chan Adventures/Teen Titans crossover fic A Shadow of the Titans, Jade has this attitude towards the Titan's one-liners.
  • Chin in the Hawaii Five-0 story Snow Bound, when he sees the headline with the sub-title "No Time for Play!"
    Chin: Kill me right now.
  • Solaere ssiun Hnaifv'daenn: Tovan asks Jaleh to dinner after she finishes her evening prayer, and Jaleh replicates some dates to break her Ramadan fast with and offers them to him.
    Tovan: That what this is? A date?
    Jaleh: Very funny. It's a kind of fruit.
  • Spooky: After Echo tells Claw and Tombstones that Komo no longer needs the magic cookie they went to a lot of effort to get, Komo tells them "that's the way the cookie crumbles". They respond by shoving the cookie in his mouth before leaving.
  • Sword and Shield:
    Sirius: That was the most polite I've ever seen [Kreacher] act towards anyone who wasn't my Mother or Brother, and I'm Sirius.
    Harry: I cannot believe you just said that!
  • Things I Am Not Allowed to Do at the PPC: Rule 558 bans bringing a Trojan into the Department of Sufficiently Advanced Technology; "Trojan" can either refer to a computer virus or a Greek warrior from Troy. The rule specifies that the Trojan in question is the latter kind and comments that the pun is a lousy one.
  • In the One Piece Self-Insert Fic This Bites!, when Bartolomeo makes his "lunatic" joke about Enel, Hina whacks him, and when he objects considering that they're under a truce, Goldenweek claims that he deserved it.
  • True Potential:
    • How Katsumi reacts towards Kanji's puns. Much to her chagrin, most people find them genuinely funny.
    • Also, how Naruto reacts when Yugito (the Two-Tailed Cat host) makes a cat pun. She takes offense when Naruto negatively compares it to Killer B's rapping.
  • In Type-2 Hero, the teens watch a cheesy remake of Die Hard starring talking monkeys. When one of them wonders what it took for the monkeys to play their roles, Mina replies they were probably paid peanuts. Everyone boos and flings popcorn at her.
  • Ultra Fast Pony, "The Pet Games":
    Dick Hardman: Looks like some of the racers have been caught in the thorns.
    Tom Watergate: Looks like they're having no trouble getting the point, don't you think so?
    Dick Harman: My lawyer has advised me not to answer that question.
  • A Running Gag in Waiting for the Trade's fancomics is Kitty Pryde booing in response to bad puns, often phasing through a wall to do so. In one case, she goes so far as to cross over into the DC universe to shame one of Nightwing's puns.
  • In The Wishing Candle Hermione, upset because her 17th birthday wish didn't come true, says she should've just wished for a pony like when she was five.
    Harry: But you never would've gotten a pony, you know, Hermione. The candle would have known that you couldn't take care of it properly. You wouldn't ever stop horsing around.
    Hermione: Oh, dear God, Harry, that was horrible.
  • In The Wizard and the Lonely Princess Harry decides to nickname Nightmare Moon "Nim".
    Luna: Nim? What does that have to do with the moon or her name?
    Harry: Her initials of course. Nightmare Moon, N-M-M. Nim. See?
    Luna: Huh. That's interesting. And she does have a secret or two.
    Nightmare Moon: That was bad Little Princess. Haven't I been punished enough as is? [Harry and Luna groan] Yes, I am a baa-d mare who should feel sheepish about it all.
  • The Wolf Lord:
    Morgan: Wow! There is so much food.
    Remus: Well then we should eat quickly so it doesn't go to waste. Though if we eat all of that it probably will go to waist.
    Veronica: Bad Remus bad. [Hits him with a newspaper.]

    Films — Animation 
  • In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Sam is ecstatic about Flynn making it snow ice cream, and says "I don't know how you're gonna top this!", to which Flynn replies "Maybe...with hot fudge?" He then proceeds to strike a dashing pose and let loose with a booming laugh - which withers under Sam's immediate transition from rapt admiration to stony Death Glare.
  • Hoodwinked!. When Detective Flippers wonders aloud about what "the fellow with the axe" was doing in the woods, officer Stork says "Maybe you should AXE him yourself!" then starts laughing uncontrollably at the pun until he sees Chief Grizzly giving him the Death Glare, at which point he sobers up and says "I'll bring him in."
  • The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure: When a pair of egg-stealing Struthiomimus arrive at the Great Valley after a long trek, one of them says that he's just "egg-xausted". His partner kicks him in the face in response.
  • Pocahontas: Grandmother Willow introduces herself to John Smith, and tells him not to be afraid. "My bark is worse than my bite." Two owls in her branches shoot a look at each other.
  • In the Rainbow Magic movie, the fairies react this way to Amber's bad puns.
  • Throughout Sausage Party, various characters often respond to Douche's use of various phrases under the impression he's talking about them (ex. Lightbulb reacts to him saying "Light bulb"). This gets on Douche's nerves until it culminates in this:
    Douche: Okay, so—
    Queso: Did somebody say queso?
    Douche: THAT'S A FUCKING STRETCH AND YOU KNOW IT, QUESO!!
  • In Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers, the wise-cracking Shrieko typically gets a Dope Slap from Freako whenever he delivers a bad pun. For example;
    Freako: [about the clue Shaggy is about to read] So, what's it say?
    Shrieko: It doesn't say anything! You gotta read it! Ho-ho, boy, am I sharp!
    Freako: [punches Shrieko's head pancake-shaped] Now yer' flat!
  • In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Bowser, a spiky-shelled turtle, wants to woo Princess Peach into marrying him. When he stops at the Mushroom Kingdom to do the proposal, he tells Peach that she "really makes a guy come out of his shell". Peach gives a confused look.
    Bowser: (to Kamek, who is right next to him) I told you that line wouldn't work!
    Kamek: (gives a thumbs up from off-screen) You're doing great!
  • Yellow Submarine is liberally sprinkled with puns.
    • One in particular, when the submarine's motor dies, falls into this category:
      John: Maybe we should call a road service?
      Paul: Can't, no road!
      Ringo: And we're not sub... scribers.
      John/Paul/George: [groaning] Subscribers, ohh...
    • Or this, as Ringo and Old Fred walk through a hall of displays:
      Old Fred: Say, what would your friends be doing here?
      Ringo: Displayin'.
      Old Fred: Displaying what?.
      Ringo: Displayin' around.
      [rimshot]

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In The Batman (2022), the Riddler leaves a clue for Batman consisting of his first victim's thumb connected to a zip drive.
    Batman: Thumb. Drive.
    Gordon: Oh, this guy's hilarious...
  • In one scene of the mockumentary Dark Side of the Moon, a rabbi tells a story that starts out serious but ends in a silly pun. In the scene, nobody acknowledges the pun, but the out-takes at the end include the actor playing the rabbi breaking character to complain about it.
  • Duck Soup: Chicolini's suggestion that Freedonia maintain a standing army, "because then we save money on chairs", provokes Firefly to give him the bum's rush from the room (and apparently worse, judging by the Offscreen Crash that follows). This is a pun so bad that Groucho, the man who once took pictures of the native girls and was waiting for them to develop, felt it necessary to chase Chico.
  • Flash Gordon (1980) has a terrible one. Flash asks a wounded ally if he's all right, and gets the reply "He only winged me!" The ally is a Hawkman, who was shown to be hit in the wing.
  • In Inspector Gadget (1999), Scolex is not amused by his mook Kramer's attempts at humor.
    Scolex: I deserve a dashing appellation.
    Kramer: "A dashing Appalachian". What is that? A hillbilly with a tuxedo?
    Scolex: No, you idiot! It's a nickname.
  • Jungle Cruise: As befitting the theme park ride that inspired this movie, Frank regales all his passengers with a barrage of terrible puns, while his passengers groan in pain. One child begs her mother to make him stop.
  • Lights of New York: In one scene a scene a bypasser asks a cop where's the other side of the Broadway, and, when shown, answers that it's strange: people there just told him this side was the other one. The policeman is not amused.
  • In Master and Commander, the Surprise's Command Roster is eating dinner, and Jack Aubrey sees a pair of weevils on the table. He asks Stephen Maturin which he would choose. After some deliberation Stephen chooses the right-hand weevil because it's bigger. (Actually, Jack pestering him to walk into the joke is almost as funny as the joke itself.)
    Jack: [slams the table] There! I've got you! You're completely dished. Do you not know that in the service, one must always choose the lesser of two weevils?
    [everyone at the table laughs uproariously]
    Stephen: [shaking his head] He who would pun would pick a pocket. Really, weevils...
  • In Mean Girls 2, this was the reaction to the "Anti-Plastics". Noted as such by Jo in voice-over.
  • The Muppet Movie:
    • A second appearance of the "Hare Krishna" joke leads Kermit to make an Aside Comment on it.
      Kermit: Geez, this guy's lost.
      El Sleezo Patron: Maybe he should try Hare Krishna!
      Kermit: [to the audience] Good grief, it's a Running Gag.
    • During the "Movin' Right Along" number, Kermit's response to seeing a literal fork in the road is to dryly remark "I don't believe that."
  • In The Muppets Take Manhattan, an amnesiac Kermit is told that he and Miss Piggy are in a relationship and proceeds to make a series of derisive puns about it, e.g. "going hog-wild". Piggy loses her temper and clobbers him which makes him get his memory back.
  • In The Muppets (2011), as Fozzie goes into his routine for the telethon, telling his old jokes with Jack Black serving as the straight man, reacting to the jokes as if he's in absolute agony over having to listen to them. Needless to say, the bit ends up having the audience in stitches.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), when Sonic talks with Tom about how he's going to have to hide on the Mushroom Planet after he gets his Rings back, Tom quips that at least Sonic won't be the only "fun guy" there. Sonic's response is an unamused "NO. Don't EVER do that again."
  • Whenever Curly of The Three Stooges makes a pun, you can expect Moe's reaction to be physical.
  • Werewolf by Night (2022): Following the animatronic Ulysses' "I'll be rotting for you!" is a shot of the monster hunters who look confused or disappointed.
  • In What's Up, Tiger Lily?, hero Phil Moskowitz and his girl assistant, tied up, think they've been abducted by bad guy Shepard Wong, but it turns out to be a second bad guy, Wing Fat, who introduces himself: "I am Wong's competitor." Phil quips, "Well...two Wongs don't make a wight!" Wing Fat smiles and says, "For that joke you should only drop dead."

    Literature 
  • Asimov's postcard Feghoot "About Nothing": a scientist discovers a black hole will destroy the Earth. All of humanity says their farewells, but then the same scientist looks closer and realises it's actually a black asteroid. He then announces his plan to write a play about it with the title "Much Adieux About Nothing", which leads to him being killed by an infuriated mob.
  • In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland the King of Hearts tries to make a joke about a poem not fitting the Queen of Hearts (because she never has fits). Nobody laughs... until he explains that its supposed to be a pun.
    • While we're at Lewis Carroll, a Snark (no, not that Snark) reacts very allergically to puns.
  • Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident: Artemis Fowl Sr sets up a deal to export soft drinks to Russia but the Russian Mafia ambush his freighter in the Bay of Kola and sink it. This leads to the following exchange between two of the Mafia enforcers:
    Lyubkhin: Tonight, we are truly on the Bay of Kola.
    Vassikin: Be warned. This weather is souring my temper. So no more terrible jokes.
  • Bruce Coville's Book of... Nightmares II: Late in Gone to Pieces, when Roy and Scott are being reassembled, they have to be glued and taped together. When Scott asks why they can't be sewn back up like Larry was, he says "Not unless you want to be the Ghost of Christmas Suture!" Cue groans from the two boys.
  • In Aunt Dimity's Death, When Lori asks Bill how he got the irises in the Willises' parlour in early April, he starts to reply, "Where there's a Willis—". Lori groans to cut him off.
  • In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, after George loses one of his ears, and says he feels "saint-like":
    George: You see... I'm holy. Holey. Fred, geddit?
    Fred: Pathetic. Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related humour before you, you go for Holey?
And that's when everybody knows George is okay!
  • Dave Barry is not fond of puns, and rarely uses them without heavyweight Lampshade Hanging.
    • Take, for example, this passage in Dave Barry Slept Here:
      But now he could sit back and relax as the reaper roared through as many as ten acres per hour, reaping the living hell out of everything that stood in its path, occasionally spitting out bits of mule fur or farmhand clothing, which could easily be reassembled thanks to the sewing machine, invented by Elias Howe. "Don't ask me Howe it works!" he used to say, over and over, until finally somebody, we think his wife, shot him in the head with a revolver, invented by Samuel Colt.
    • Or this passage in Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You Will Ever Need:
      The history of Ireland dates back a long time to the original inhabitants, the Picts, who were a fun-loving tribe known for their wit. "You sure Pict a winner that time!" is the kind of thing they were always saying, until finally a neighboring tribe called the Celtics got sick and tired of it and came in and, in 432 B.C. on October 8, defeated the Picts in the Battle of Defeating the Picts when John Havlicek sank two free throws in overtime.
  • Inverted by the characters in Spider Robinson's Callahan's Crosstime Saloon series, who are prolific with puns, to the point of competitions in which the worst/best pun of the evening gets his bar tab waived. They call it Punday Night. Normally, things are thrown at the offending punster, and fire extinguishers and seltzer bottles are also used for particularly outrageous puns. The bigger the response, the better they consider the pun.
    • The highest honor a pun can receive is when the audience reacts to a particularly wonderful/horrible pun by immediately fleeing the room, screaming and holding their nose.
    • The time traveler who tried to sell them 4 (fake) high tech gems on the 4th of July. Get it, 4th jewel lie. This was also incredibly cruel since one of the gems made a paralyzed man think he could walk.
  • The Cat Who... Series: Used a couple of times in book #17 (The Cat Who Blew the Whistle).
    • When Mildred Riker says that Yum Yum has had her "catciousness" raised, Qwill groans at the pun, Polly shudders and Arch says that was the worst pun he's ever heard.
    • Later, Qwill makes one about why his cats are sniffing Celia Robertson's purse (he claims they think her feline companion Wrigley is inside, and "want to let the cat out of the bag"), prompting a bout of hysterical laughter from her.
  • In City of Bones (2002), the main plot is kicked off when Harry Bosch gets a phone call from Sgt. Mankiewicz, the Hollywood Division watch commander, who sends Bosch to check out a bone that was found by a dog. Bosch is immediately skeptical because he's seen this before and it's usually animal bones. Mank assures Bosch that the caller is a doctor and not only identified the bone as human, but specifically a child's upper arm bone, complete with scarring from numerous injuries.
    Mank: The point is, this doctor says it was just a kid, Harry. So could you humor us and go check out this humerus?
    Bosch: .....
    Mank: Sorry, had to get that in.
    Bosch: Yeah, that was funny, Mank.
  • In one of the Colonization books, a toymaker named Jack has two horrified reactions to his subordinate's idea for a robot teddy bear. The first when building the prototype involves ripping the stuffing out of a regular teddy bear. The second...
    Goldfarb: What's the matter? Didn't know you were working alongside the Ripper, Jack?
  • In the SF "A Darkling Sea" by James Cambias we even have a case of preemptive troping. The woman interrupts the man already in the setup and threatens with sex deprivation.
  • One of the running jokes in Diary Of A Nobody is Charles Pooter's incredibly laboured puns and his family and friends reactions to them "I'm afraid these trousers are frayed"
  • The Discworld series is extremely fond of these, and not one is ever considered funny by the people hearing them.
    • In Soul Music, Fred Colon sees Imp y Celyn busking on the streets of Ankh-Morpork, and remarks on him playing a harp. His constant companion Nobby Nobbs quips "Lyre" (liar), and Fred is not amused when he gets the joke.
      "You've just been waiting all your life to say that, ain't you, Nobby," he said. "I bet you was born hoping that one day someone'd say 'That's a harp' so you could say 'lyre', on account of it being a pun or play on words. Well, har har."
    • Hogfather:
      • The Dean remarks that he knows what's good for a hangover: drinking heavily the previous night. When nobody else laughs, he defensively remarks that he thought it was "a good word joke".
      • Death — standing in for the Hogfather — says " Let's get out there and sleigh them." After a moment he asks Albert whether he noticed the pun; Albert responds "I'm laughing like hell deep down, sir."
    • The New Discworld Companion tells the story of Monsieur Jean-Paul Pune, founder of the Fool's Guild:
      "Q. When is a door not a door? A. When it is ajar (a jar)" — one of his early puns for which he was tarred and feathered and left for dead.
    • In Feet of Clay, Vimes is disgusted enough to learn that modern heraldry is mostly the art of punning. After hearing a few more of them, he says "Oh, the art of bad punning."note 
    • Even the Auditors of Reality get into it, with one wondering what would happen if gravity became personified — and had a crush on someone.
    • Colon is also unimpressed by Nobby saying "We'll be fez to fez, sarge" in Jingo.
    • In The Last Continent, when the wizards are examining the ship, the Dean keeps trying to raise the subject of the poop deck. Eventually Ridcully tells him that if he's planning any kind of pun here, he shouldn't.
  • Doctor Who Expanded Universe:
    • The Slow Empire has an instance of a character making a pun so lame even he gets embarrassed:
      "I'm Fitz. Just Fitz."
      "And it fits you admirably," said Jamon de la Rocasnote , "I have no doubt."
      For a moment everybody gazed up in the air and whistled, avoiding each other’s eyes at what could not even be dignified as a pun.
    • Later in the same novel, the Doctor manages a pretty crummy pun, which he's actually embarrassed to have even thought of, and a footnote reveals that the writer himself was embarrassed, particularly as it makes the whole novel look like the setup for a bad joke.
    • Lungbarrow has one for the Hand of Omega.
      The Other: Omega, despite his sacrifice, still had a hand in their affairs. It was a rather good joke he thought, but Rassilon didn't find it funny at all.
    • Back in Fitz's first appearance, the Doctor asks Sam "You're worried if our newcomer fits in?" and she replies "Stop dodging the issue with crappy puns."
  • In The Dresden Files novel Cold Days, Harry and Thomas are building a dock, which Pop-Cultured Badass Harry promptly dubs the Whatsup Dock. Thomas proceeds to throw him into the lake.
  • In the Einstein Anderson, Science Detective series, the titular character loves cracking jokes and puns every chance he gets. His family usually reacts to them by groaning or pinching their noses.
  • Isaac Asimov's "The Evitable Conflict": Dr Calvin suggests that the Cold War ended through a deus ex machina, and Byerley points out that he's never heard her pun before. (In this 1950s story, it ended due to the economic proliferation of robots, instead of a clear military victory.)
  • Flashman: In the first book, Flashman sees a cartoon in Punch of himself fighting off a group of Afghan warriors, captioned "A Flash(ing) Blade". He finds it utterly groanworthy.
  • The Guns of the South: Robert E. Lee has one to his son Custis as they're discussing hiring black people to spy on the AWB.
    Custis: I promise, Father, I shan't be niggardly.
    Lee: Good, for mostly being poor, they are — you young scamp!
    Custis: I'm sorry, sir. I couldn't resist.
    Lee: You might have tried.
  • In the Royal Navy novel HMS Leviathan, the officers on board ship are demoralised to discover that for the second time in a row, not one officer on the ship has been promoted. The Chaplain makes a bad joke about it being almost Easter and knowing the true meaning now of Passover. The groaning reaction at this Pun helps restore good humour.
  • InCryptid: In the short story "Target Practice", Enid comments on her husband Alexander's bad mood following another argument with Jonathan about Alice:
    Enid: Are you planning to be like this through dinner tonight? Because I was going to roast the chicken, but I suppose there’s room for both of us to stew.
    Alexander: [after a long pause] That pun was horrific.
    Enid: I know.
    Alexander: There should be a law.
    Enid: There probably is. But look: you're speaking to me. So if you choose to turn me over to the authorities, I'll go quietly, and feel that I have earned my punishment.
  • Kitty Norville:
    • In "Kitty's Big Trouble", Kitty is investigating rumors of Wyatt Earp being a vampire hunter in Dodge City with Ben and Cormac. She then meets two werewolves who want her to leave, leading to this passage.
      “Look, seriously, I’m really sorry if we freaked you out,” I said. “We have rooms in a hotel on the other side of town, but if you don’t want us here, say so, and we’ll just … we’ll just…” Oh God. I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “Get the hell out of Dodge?” Dan said, raising his eyebrows. I shrugged. Ben was holding his forehead like he had a headache.
    • In "Kitty Steals the Show", Kitty is slated to soon give a speech in London. A caller on her show wants her to confirm that is indeed where she will be. She notes he sounds like he is stoned and is trying to suppress a giggle as he utters "So that would make you an American werewolf in-." Before he can finish she cuts him off, saying she must have lost the call.
  • In Sutherland Neill's "The Last Man Alive", the children are building robots (it's a looong story). The question whether a specific specimen is a police robot ("?" "Because of the long arms!" "??" "The long arm of the law!") gets the questioner thrown the book at. No, wait, it was the inkstand.
  • Lord Peter Wimsey: In ''Murder Must Advertise", during the cricket match, Ingleby is out for zero (called out for a duck).
    Lord Peter: Quack quack.
    [Ingleby chucks his bat at Lord Peter]
  • The Marvelous Land of Oz, the second Oz book, sees H.M. Wogglebug T.E. make a joke about the Sawhorse, noting that if he rode him, it would be a "horse-and-buggie". Jack Pumpkinhead covers up his permanently-smiling mouth, and the Tin Woodsman threatens the Wogglebug with his axe.
    • When the protagonists are flying on the gump, Mr. Wogglebug tells Jack Pumpkinhead that if his head fell off now, it would no longer be a pumpkin, but a squash. Tip scolds him about his unfeeling puns.
  • Meg Langslow Mysteries: During chapter twenty of Owl Be Home For Christmas, Dr Lindquist was telling owl jokes. His audience did not enjoy the jokes, and laughed more when someone else revealed they had already heard it from a couple of kids.
    "Okay, here's another," Lindquist said. "What kind of books do owls like to read?"
    "Hoo-dunnets," I said.
    "You already heard it?" Dr. Lindquist looked crushed.
    "From my middle-school twin boys," I said.
    Dr. Lindquist's audience seemed to find this funnier than the joke.
  • In Les Misérables, Tholomyés makes a pun at the dinner table, and his friends are less than impressed, killing the conversation. He immediately launches into an elaborate speech in defense of puns, regaining his popularity.
  • Stephen Manes' The Obnoxious Jerks:
    "When you get into the corporate world," Mom said, "you'll discover you have to go along with the rules."
    "Well, maybe I won't get into the corporate world," I said. "Maybe I'll do something different."
    "Garbageman," Jenny said.
    "Why not?" I said. "Their business is always picking up."
    Everybody at the table groaned. "That is so old, it has whiskers on it," Mom said.
  • Isaac Asimov's Opus 100: Dr Asimov relates an anecdote where he suggested a baby name for his friends, Mr and Mrs Mamber. He told them that if they had a daughter, named "Rebekah", then she'd inevitably get the nickname "Ree", and become known as "Ree Mamber". According to Dr Asimov, they refused to associate with him for the rest of the night.
  • In Jim C. Hines' The Princess Series novel The Snow Queen's Shadow, Talia tells a story about the time, many years ago, when Snow made it rain urine in Prince Armand's room for more than an hour. When Queen Beatrice asked Snow why she did it, Snow said that "she wanted him to know what it felt like to be a peon". Talia said that she told Bea that whatever Snow's punishment was going to be, it ought to be doubled just for that pun.
  • In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, (and subesquently the TV version, but not the original radio series), when Zaphod says he thinks someone said something important shortly after Arthur described the restaurant as "not so much an afterlife, more a sort of après-vie" (a play on "après-ski"), Arthur starts "I said it was a sort of après..." only to be interrupted with "Yeah, and don't you wish you hadn't?"
  • The Ship Who... Sang: When Kira looks at the hooded Alioth cultists who're supposedly donating fertilized embryos to relieve another colony's Sterility Plague, she jokes that their babies are going to be born with a cowl. Helva asks if she means born with a caul, and Kira "threatens" her with her guitar.
  • In Starfighters of Adumar, Red Flight meets regularly with a reporter who wears a recording unit on her shoulder that looks like the head of a protocol droid, making her appear to have two heads. Once, she complained that it was malfunctioning and she couldn't seem to fix the problem.
    Janson grinned at her. "Some days make you just want to beat your heads against a wall, don't they?"
    Hobbie said, "Maybe not. The young lady might not have her heads on straight, after all."
    Tycho said, "Still, I think she ought to get her heads examined."
    Wedge looked at them, appalled.
  • An implicit, somewhat slyly-given example in Star Trek: Ex Machina. Two crewmen - an Eeiauoan and a Caitian - are mentioned to have started fighting. Given that both races are feline, we have a literal Cat Fight. They’re told to “groom and make up”.
  • The Stormlight Archive:
    • Words of Radiance: When Shallan and Kaladin are lost in the chasms (after they stop actively hating each other), they start making terrible puns. It starts with Shallan saying that executioners have an easy time of getting ahead, and it gets worse from there.
      Kaladin: [calling for help] Hey, up there? Anyone? We're down here, and we're making bad puns. Please save us from ourselves!
    • They continue the habit in Oathbringer.
      Shallan: I had a splinter once. It eventually got out of hand.
      Kaladin: You... you did not just say that.
  • In James Joyce's Ulysses, one character poses a riddle: What opera is like a railwayline?
    - The Rose of Castile. See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel. Gee!
    (...)Mr O'Madden Burke fell back with grace on his umbrella, feining a gasp.
    - Help! he sighed. I feel a strong weakness.
  • Vicky Peterwald: Rebel:
    Vicky: Look on the bright side, guys. If we all hang together, it will be one hell of a date.
    Mannie Artamus: Only if you go up the scaffold stairs first. And in a short dress.
    Vicky: No doubt, my stepmother would be only too happy to oblige you. But I live by the old saying, no noose is good noose. [cue collective groan]
  • In Piers Anthony's Xanth, the titular realm is described in-universe as being made of "mostly puns and dragons". Puns feature in the names of places, the wildlife, the characters, and the magic. For example, a Xanth mango is a human-shaped fruit that makes you urinate. Despite their ubiquitous nature, most of the characters dislike the puns — particularly Karia, who starts floating helplessly away whenever she hears her name.

    Music 
  • In a novelty-record Image Song dedicated to The Riddler of the 1966 Batman TV show, the backup singers play along with the Riddler's "riddles" until...
    Riddler: Riddle me this! What did the chick say to the other chick when the hen laid an orange instead of an egg?
    Singers: What did the chick say to the other chick when the hen laid an orange, not an egg?
    Riddler: The chick said, "Look at the orange Marma laid!"
    [music stops]
    Singers: ...oh, come on, Riddler!
  • That Was the Year That Was: Tom Lehrer lampshaded his own pun in his song "Whatever Became of Hubert?", about Vice President Hubert Humphrey and his lack of impact in the Lyndon Johnson administration:
    We must protest this treatment, Hubert
    Says each newspaper reader
    As someone once remarked to Schubert:
    Take us to your lieder! (Sorry about that)
  • "Cows With Guns" by Dana Lyons has a lampshaded one:
    Cows gathered around 'cause the steaks were so high. *guitar strumming* Bad cow pun.
  • Kate Micucci's song "Dear Deer" has one of these. 'Some say Pennsylvania's sunny, but I prefer to say it's gunny.' Lampshaded immediately with 'Ok maybe that's not funny, but either way it's way too punny.'
  • Owl City's song, "Rugs From Me to You" is full of puns. One of them he apologizes for in-song. He sings, "Excuse the pun, but it's hair today, gone tomorrow."
  • Rose and the Arrangement's novelty song "The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati" includes some noises of disapproval from the backup singers/"audience" after the line "I thought Ben looked a little bit ratty...", and the singer apologizes.
  • Eminem uses this in some of his late-career material, usually so he can complain about the audience not getting it. "Discombobulated" contains a short passage where he drops into a conversational flow to explain a particularly contrived pun he just did based on the word "au jus" before groaning and going "ah, fuck you!".

    Podcasts 
  • Andy Zaltzman's terrible puns in The Bugle frequently lead to John Oliver begging for mercy. On at least one occasion, the show's producer has resigned (and then been re-hired to find out some obscure piece of trivia).
  • Happens frequently on Escape from Vault Disney!:
    • In the discussion of Disney's Doug, Charlie segues into watching the episode saying "Without further a-Doug."
      Haley: Sit in the corner.
      Charlie: I am in the corner.
    • In the same episode, while discussing COPPA, Haley boos Charlie after he says he has the "COPPA Feels".
    • For the "What's the Attraction?" segment for Jack (1996), Tony proposes an attraction where the Genie selects a bunch of kids and has a contest over who can act the most like a grown-up Robin Williams. It will be called the Jack-Off. The others three people let out a collective groan.
    • In the Prep & Landing episode, Tony wonders if the character of Wayne was based on John Lasseter, who got "MeToo'd.", theorizing this:
      Tony: He got Me Yuled.
      Others: Boooo!
      Tony: I accept your boos and I'm proud of them.
  • In Jemjammer, DM Kit makes Jylliana and Aelfgifu take psychic damage if they make a bad pun. Cacophony is exempt because she's a bard and it's expected of her.
  • During RiffTrax live performance riff of House on Haunted Hill (1959), Kevin Murphy makes the joke "Ghost parties; Those things are dead!" which disgusts Mike Nelson and Bill Corbett to the point where they fire him on the spot and hire Paul F. Tompkins to replace him. note 
  • In Season Three of Wooden Overcoats, one episode's shenanigans stem from Antigone and Reverend Wavering writing an erotic novel under a shared pseudonym, "Octavia Blimp." Things quickly get out of hand and they realize they need to put a stop to Octavia's infamy by "killing" her. Then Georgie chimes in in.
    Georgie: We need to Hindenburg this Blimp.
    Antigone, Wavering, and Rudyard: [several seconds of unamused, stony silence]

    Puppet Shows 
  • The Muppet Show likes these.
    • For starters, when Kermit asks Animal if he likes his drums more than food...
      Animal: They are food! Eat drums, eat cymbals!
      Kermit: How cymbalic.
      Animal: Bad pun!
    • In the John Denver episode, Denver starts singing "Nobody Knows The Truffles I've Seen" to a gang of sentient mushrooms and gets attacked for it.
    • A less aggressive one took place in the Roy Clark episode, after making a terrible pun about ducks:
      Roy Clark: Uh, you have any soup to go with these quackers?
      [Kermit grimaces.]
      Roy Clark: You know what kind of joke we call that in Virginia?
      Kermit: Bad?
    • And during a Veterinarian's Hospital sketch, after Rowlf makes a particularly bad joke;
      Miss Piggy: If Florence Nightingale had to put up with this, she would've been a waitress.
    • Milton Berle didn't even wait for the pun to be delivered to react during the "Top Banana" number.
      [Berle walks in carrying a coat hanger.]
      Fozzie: Hey, hey, hey! What happened in court?
      Berle: You wanna know... Stop the music! Do we have to do this joke?
      Fozzie: We gotta do it.
      Berle: Oh, it's an oldie, pal.
      Fozzie: I know, I know.
      Berle: You got a lotta guts, pal, I'll tell you that...
      Fozzie: Good, go do it!
      Berle: Feed me once more, feed me, please.
      Fozzie: Uh... hey, what happened in court?
      Berle: You ready? ...I lost the suit!
    • In the Leo Sayer episode, Kermit comments that they don't often get good rock (music) on the show, only to have an actual rock turn up to complain. When Kermit says they've been taking them for granite, he earns a headbutt for his trouble.
  • In the first episode of Muppets Tonight, one of the first acts is the Dancing Cheeses.
    Clifford: This better be gouda!
    Rizzo: Ugh.
    Clifford: What, too cheesy?
    [Rizzo looks away and shakes his head]
  • Sesame Street:
    • Elmo & Oscar:
      Elmo: Does a trash heap have a nose?
      Oscar: No, but it smells...terrible.
      Elmo: So does that joke, Oscar.
    • During a "News Flash" segment riffing on the nursery rhyme "Old King Cole", Kermit averts the obvious pun:
      King Cole: Bring me my royal pipe, and step on it!
      Kermit: [to camera] At this point you might think we're going for the cheap joke, but we're not going to.

    Radio 
  • Dan LeBatard, of Highly Questionable fame, has fellow Miami Herald writer and Pungeon Master Greg Cote as an occasional guest host of his radio show. Cote's frequent bad puns are generally met with the losing trombone sound from The Price Is Right.
  • A few of the puns on The Debaters have been bad enough for host Steve Patterson to apologize of behalf of the entire production team.
  • The skits the teams perform for the Sound Charades round in I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue frequently provoke this from the opposing team, especially when Graeme and Barry get into an Overly Prepared Gag with the Hamish and Dougal characters. After an elaborate description of an episode of Teletubbies in which Po couldn't be seen from the front or the back (The Po-Side-On Adventure) Stephen Fry began his answer with "I can't believe you're doing this to us!" On another occasion, when Dougal urged Hamish to ignore the fact his roosters made a buzzer noise instead of crowing (for Never Mind the Buzzcocks), Tim suggested the answer was We Hope It's All Over. He also once commented "The trouble is, you get as far as 'Ah, Hamish!' and I switch off."
  • I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again was a pun-storm all of its own. As Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie gleefully threw puns around for minutes at a time, John Cleese would stand back from the mike, fold his arms in disdain, refuse to join in and can be heard repeating "easy. Easy. Too easy".
  • John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme:
    • In season 7 episode 1, John says he wrote one sketch because he'd just learned the "g" in "gnu" is supposed to be silent, and he wanted to get this information known. He uses the phrase "spreading the gnus", and then immediately tries to pretend he hasn't.
    • In season 7 episode 6, the Interview Sketch features a lecturer in applied linguistics, explaining why experts in interviews now start all their answers with "So..." (and, of course, doing so in all his answers). It ended like this:
      Dr Channing: So, generally, it takes an influential innovator to start doing it and they bring imitators along behind them.
      Patsy Straightwoman: Can you give me a visual metaphor for that?
      Dr Channing: So, a needle pulling thread.
      Patsy Straightwoman: Go away!
  • The Kevin and Bean Show: When a host makes a bad pun, another host will usually shout "File!" to have it filed away and added to the next recurring "Would You Like to Take That Back?" segment, in which bad puns and jokes made by the hosts are replayed and the offender is given the option of "taking it back."
  • On a 1937 episode of the Kraft Music Hall Bing Crosby and Zazu Pitts played King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in a sketch, with sidekick Bob Burns as Columbus. Crosby asked Pitts for a fancy egg dish for breakfast.
    Pitts: You'd better take them scrambled, they always come out that way anyhow. We Bourbons never could seem to hold an egg together.
    Crosby: I dunno, bourbon holds an eggnog together pretty well.
    [Pitts and Burns groan]
  • The live-recording of folksinger/historian Utah Phillip's spoken-word piece Moose Turd Pie starts with this moment:
    Phillips: ..Went down and got a job with the rural electrification in the Navajo Indian reservation, running electric power lines into all the Navajo outhouses. Was one of the first people to wire a head for a reservation!
    Audience: [laughs, groans]
  • On Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, host Peter Sagal occasionally pulls this on his own puns. Specifically, the pun with which he introduces the Listener Limerick Challenge (e.g. "In just a minute, Carl tells us about his favorite Transformer, Optimus Rhyme.") seems to get lamer every week. At one point, he followed it with, "Look, if you got better ones, send 'em in, OK?"

    Tabletop Games 
  • GURPS 4th Edition lists "constantly makes bad puns" as a moderate negative social trait. By comparison, offensive body odor is only a mild negative trait.

    Theatre 
  • The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged) anticipates this as an audience reaction when John the Baptist tries to lead an Audience Participation sequence, threatening to "baptize" them with a spray bottle when they display insufficient enthusiasm:
    JTB: Now let's try this again. And this time, do not deny your faith! Denial is not just a river in Egypt! I said— [somebody groans] I heard that! [he squirts the groaner] Everybody's a critic.
  • The Complete History Of America Abridged has many instances of this:
    • The Lewis and Clark scene is filled with bad puns, which the script notes audiences will generally react negatively to. The worst is when Lewis's actor, after confusing "Netherlands" with "nether regions," asks, "So I shouldn't put my finger in a dyke?" Even the other actors react disgustedly to that one.
    • Private detective Spade Diamond is being grilled by two toughs on what Lucy Ricardo was doing on the day of JFK's assassination (this Makes Just as Much Sense in Context). The alibi he gives is that she was with him, but wasn't seen with him because she was disguised. One of the toughs snaps back, "So, Lucy was disguised with Diamond." All three then do an Aside Glance as the audience groans. ("I should've seen that coming," Spade confides to the fourth wall.)
  • Gilbert and Sullivan, The Grand Duke:
    Notary: When exigence of rhyme compels,
    Orthography forgoes her spells,
    And "ghost" is rhymed with "goest".
    All: With what an emphasis he dwells
    Upon "orthography" and "spells"!
    That kind of fun's the lowest.
  • In RENT Roger and Mark are burning old concert posters and screenplays to keep warm and as they are burning them they sing:
    Mark: The music ignites the night with passionate fire!
    Roger: The narration crackles and pops with incendiary wit!
  • Six: The Musical: Judging from her awkward laugh afterward, even Jane realizes her "Royalling Stones" joke is pretty bad.
  • From Spamalot, after Arthur and the Knights are given the quest for the Holy Grail, he has to explain to them why they were given the quest.
    Arthur: It's a symbol! [cymbal crash; Arthur glares at orchestra pit]

    Video Games 
  • Animal Crossing will make your character crack a bad joke whenever he/she catches a fish or bug and this is occasionally lampshaded:
    You: "I caught a sea bass! See? BASS! (Why do I keep saying things like that?)"
  • The various Artix Entertainment games (AdventureQuest, DragonFable, MechQuest...) are crammed so full of puns that this sort of lampshading is inevitable on occasion. An example: at one point in the "Archknight" storyline of DragonFable, main character Ash Dragonblade is facing a necromancer who specializes in evil trees called Deadwoods. He makes so many terrible tree-related puns that the necromancer flips out and attacks him out of sheer annoyance.
  • In the Japanese version of Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica, Infel has a penchant for these, with Croix reacting appropriately after every single one. This is completely lost in the English version of the game as it seems Infel's text was translated word-for-word, and Japanese puns normally don't work in other languages. Croix still reels after each joke, confusing many English-speaking players.
  • Early in Banjo-Tooie you must shoot down a few pesky flies that are eating through an anthropomorphic cow's crops. Upon completion of the task she exclaims, "A-maizing! I corn hardly believe it! You wheatly sorted those flies out!", to which Kazooie quips that she's had enough of the "crop jokes".
  • Borderlands 2:
    • In a side-quest, Back-Alley Doctor Dr. Zed has you pick up a shipment from an "arms dealer". Said shipment turns out to be actual severed human arms. The flavor text after you complete the quest says that the pun may have been more painful than all the injuries you've sustained so far in your quest.
    • Also, during a side-quest to sabotage some heaters in a bandit camp, Claptrap keeps making bad jokes about getting the bandits to "chill out" and the like. He interprets the stunned silence from the Vault Hunters as them not getting the joke, and proceeds to excessively explain why it was supposed to be funny.
    • Claptrap gets another one in the Tiny Tina DLC, where after Tina went through the effort to make a fart joke, Claptrap ruins it for her. She simply tells him that he ruins everything in a bitter tone.
  • In Brütal Legend, the Guardian of Metal will react to you looking at the Ace of Hades paint job for your car with "I hate puns."
  • Creature Crunch has Wesley complain whenever Brian makes a pun.
    Brian: Hey, don't leaf me here!
    Wesley: I will if you don't stop making real bad puns.
  • A Running Gag in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Chief among them would be Cassandra who is disgusted with a number of lame puns, with the odd one she finds Actually Pretty Funny. Most of the other characters get in on the act as well. For example:
    • The Iron Bull is the resident Pungeon Master, and thus gets this reaction frequently, such as when he sees a giant owl statue.
      Iron Bull: So, owl you doing?
      Dorian: Ugh.
    • One scene allows passing judgment on a bear. One of the possible options of accepting is to say you don't want things to become unbearable and even the bear groans.
    • Quickly followed by a possible quest that is, to phrase who came up with it, too grizzly to bear. One outcome has your spymaster chime in wondering if it was a roaring success.
      NO.
  • The talking possessed tree from Dragon Age: Origins also gets one. It speaks only in rhyme, and asks at one point "Does that make me a poet-tree?"note  One possible response from the Player Character is "It'll make you dead if you keep up the puns."
    • This exchange from the Witch Hunt expansion also qualifies.
      Finn: Dog! What is that in which a tree is covered?
      Dog: [Bark!]
      Arianne: [groans]
  • The Fairly OddParents: Shadow Showdown has a memorable example in "Get a Clue" when Timmy makes his second wish, a magic clue-detecting magnifying glass.
    Cosmo: We...hahaha... we should call this... hahaha... a magic-fying glass! Ahaha, get it?
    Timmy: ...no. No, we shouldn't.
    Wanda: I don't think so either. Mention that again, and I'll turn you into a candelabra, then light all your heads.
  • In Fallout 2, there's Frog Morton...
    Chosen One: Why do they call him Frog Morton?
    Sheriff Marion: His name's Morton, and they call him Frog 'cause he croaks people. Ready to go get 'im?
    Chosen One: Ohhhh. Ouch. That's terrible. The pain, the pain!
    Sheriff Marion: Hey, I didn't make that one up — he did. With puns that bad, I'd say that gives you just one more reason to kill 'im.
  • In Fallout: New Vegas, there is the failed barter check for asking Mr. House for higher payment for recovering the Platinum Chip:
    The Courier: Raise your price, or... or, uh... you're "chip outta luck."
    Mr. House: [dryly] Was that an attempt at... humor?
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Final Fantasy V has a few. Most notably, when the protagonists are hanging on a ship mast:
      Xezat: I'm coming! Hang in there!
      Galuf: That pun is so bad, I'm gonna fall on purpose...
    • Final Fantasy XIII: when the group is being chased through the air by a monster on Pulse:
      Fang: He thinks we're lunch.
      Sazh: Like a L'Cie food buffet.
      Light: "Cie Food", cute...note 
    • Final Fantasy XV has a moment when the group explores a labyrinth.
      Prompto: This place is a-mazing, huh?
      Gladiolus: I'd laugh if we weren't lost.
      Noctis: Say no more. I'll leave the pathfinding to you from now on.
      Prompto: Nah. I'm more the "ask for directions" type.
  • This happens in response to Alois's jokes a few times in Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes.
    • In his and Shamir's paralogue in Three Houses, he makes a pun about traders "trading blows." Shamir and Byleth just stare at him in silence before he awkwardly moves on.
    • Early in Three Hopes, Jeritza groans in annoyance in response to one of Alois's puns.
    • Subverted in the prologue of Three Hopes. Shez attempts to tell Alois how terrible his puns are, only for Arval to cut them off, since the truth would be "too painful to bear."
  • Lilia of Hero & Daughter lost her last job because she accidentally burned down the house. One conversation reveals that she's risking the same fate, as Ralph warns her not to play with fire near the alcohol. His reaction to her following pun is called "a good one" by Lilia.
    Lilia: [amused] Or else I'll get... fired?
    Ralph: Puns like those are similarly incendiary.
  • Hi-Fi RUSH: Both Peppermint and Korsika only deal with Chai's puns reluctantly, often pointing out how bad they are or just groaning. And then the bad guys get in on it.
    Roquefort: Protect Finance at all costs! (Heh, I said "costs".)
    Peppermint: [frustrated groan]
  • In an ancient email found in Horizon Zero Dawn a soldier-in-training receives a package and a note from her girlfriend, who she'd been fighting with. It's a toy armadillo and the note says "I'm sorry, hon. Arma dilling with some personal issues." The soldier breaks up with her. Using a lame pun to brush over a major fight seems to have been a last straw.
  • Icewind Dale II has an enemy boss utilizing trained war bears. Before fighting him, if asked how his own bears don't tear him to shreds, he points out the magical collars they 'bear'. The main character Deadpan Snarker is quick to point out the slip up, at which point the boss essentially disowns the pun with embarrassment claiming it unintentional.
  • Kid Icarus: Uprising gives us these:
    • Palutena: That Great Reaper has quite the evil eye!
      Pit: How could you be making puns at a time like this?!
      Palutena: I guess I just don't SEE the problem with a little levity.
      Pit: Agh! You're killing me here!
    • Pit: That's right, you tentafool!
      Palutena: Tentafool? Uh, nice one, Pit.
  • Kingdom of Loathing is chock full of references and puns, occasionally even the narrator recognizes how terrible some of them are.
    • For example:
      "This is a dairy goat. Insert a pun on "udderly" and "utterly", if you're the kind of guy who doesn't get punched in the face enough."
    • Then, later in the fight:
      "She swings her udder at you, but misses. She's an udder failure. Yeah, go ahead and punch me in the face."
    • There's also the baseball bat monster, "a bat with the body of a baseball. And the heart of a bad pun."
  • In Kings Quest (2015), Gwendolyn responds this way to most of Graham's puns, although she confesses she's warming up to them by the end of the episode, and even makes a couple of her own.
  • In the clown-dunking game in Learning Voyage: Sand Trapped!, Arno makes several puns, and sarcastic rimshots sound after each one (with Blip face-palming in the background). Realizing the puns are no good, Arno says "All right, I'll leave the humor to the clown."
    • In the "Ants in the Plants" game, ZZ makes a joke about leaf-cutter ants, and a trumpet goes "Wah-wah-wah-wahhhhhhhh" in response.
  • One of the achievements in Legendary: The Box is a pun called "Dou-Bull Trou-Bull", which you get for defeating 2 Minotaurs who are fighting you at the same time. Right after you get that achievement, though, you get another achievement titled "I owe you an apology", where the lead designer apologizes for making such a lame pun.
  • Love & Pies:
    Joe: I thought this waffle maker would be WAFFLEY GOOD for the cafe!
    Yuka: That joke was so bad that I'm going to leave. See you later!
  • In Madworld, Kreese has to endure his co-commentator Howard making lame puns throughout the contest's duration.
    [when Jack throws an enemy into a spiked wall]
    Howard: That's a clever solution to a thorny problem!
    Kreese: Wow. The shit you say sometimes makes me wanna smack you.
  • Mass Effect:
    • Here is a random conversation bit taken from an ERCS Guard in a bug-ridden research lab. His laugh sound as though he's on the verge of failing a SAN check:
      ERCS Guard: Science pukes. Should just bug out and leave 'em to die. All their fault anyway. [Beat] Heh. "Bug out." Heh. Heh.
    • In the sequel, the player can launch probes to discover missions and distress signals on planets. One of the planets you can probe is Uranus. EDI is not amused by this at all.
  • Minecraft: Story Mode: If Petra gets left behind in Episode 1, she loses both her memory and her sense of humour upon rejoining the party in Episode 4. After the heroes escape a deadly maze in the Far Lands, Petra describes the experience as "a-maze-ing". Lukas is less than impressed.
    Petra: That was amazing. Get it? A-maze-ing?
    [Beat]
    Lukas: ...I'm just amazed you thought that was funny.
  • Mortal Kombat X:
    • The game provides this interaction between Johnny Cage and Triborg.
      Triborg: I am Triborg.
      Johnny Cage: More like Failborg.
      Triborg: Pun detected. Eradicate.
    • There is one between the cages.
      Cassie Cage: Cage Match!
      Johnny: You didn't just say that.
      Cassie: I am your daughter.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000 Presents "Detective" does this twice.
    • The first comes after the player visits a music store:
      Tom: So, was that man behind the counter the STAFF of the music store? Staff? Get it?
      Mike & Crow: [groan]
    • The second comes after the game itself ends:
      Crow: So, do you think this game was hard-boiled, like Dr. Forrester said?
      Tom: No, I personally thought it was over-easy!
      Mike: D'OH!!
      Crow: Lemme at him, Mike! Lemme at him!
      [Crow tries to attack Tom, but Mike stops him]
  • Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon: At the end of the Gourmet Submarine Castle, the heroes confront Poron and Kitty Lily only for them to be interrupted by Spring Breeze Dancin'. When Lily ask him what's he doing here, Dancin' muses he hasn't appeared in a lot of scenes and feels the need to clear out that the word "scenes" has nothing with his name because he isn't called "Dan-scenes". Cue Collective Groan and a VERY angry Lily at Dancing' for irrupting into her scene just to tell that awful joke.
  • In Namco × Capcom, there's a stage where EVERYONE starts making these in the Japanese version. It even highlights in red what the pun is supposed to be. To the characters, it gets old really fast.
  • One early sidequest in Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir has the player find a parrot for Volothamp Geddarm. Turns out the parrot's prior owner taught it a wide variety of useful Dwarven expletives. Cue Volo remarking on the bird's "fowl language"note , and the player characters calling him on it. One dialog option goes something like "Make another 'foul'-to-'fowl' pun and I'll break your neck."
  • Persona:
    • There is an optional scene in Persona 3 where Akihiko, trying to get over his shyness around girls, practices his pick-up lines in secret. Reading that a sense of humor is vital, he makes an utterly horrid pun ("Want to go to that Beef Bowl place?... I hope I 'meat' you there!"), then promptly chastises himself:
      Akihiko: Who am I, the Chairman?!?
    • In Persona 4, Yukiko Amagi is known for her rather... Whimsical ways of thinking, and for breaking into fits of laughter that can last several minutes. So, the first time she hears one of Teddie's un-Bear-ably bad puns, everyone braces themselves for another giggle fit. Except...
      [Beat]
      Yukiko: I'm sorry. Was I supposed to laugh?
      [team continues on while Teddie falls over in defeat]]
    • In the second to last dungeon of Persona 5, there are statues that turn the characters into mice in certain rooms. When it first happens, Yusuke, of all people, starts making puns about it, much to Futaba's ire.
      Yusuke: This is prepawsterous! ...Or something like that.
      Futaba: Ugh, go to hell Inari.
      [later]
      Yusuke: My ad-mice would be to pro-squeak cautiously.
      Futaba: .....
      Yusuke: Oracle, my ad-mice would be—
      Haru: I believe she heard you the first time.
  • There's an implied one in Ratchet: Deadlocked, likely Juanita, his co-commentator giving him one of these.
    Dallas: The zombie team just flew in from Catacrom Four, and boy, are they DEAD tired! Hahahahahahaha! Hahahahahahaha! Hahaha-what?!
  • Sacrifice brings us this little gem, aimed at a servant of the god of earth who's made of living rock:
    Zyzyx: Now Grakkus here is none too quick on his feet. It may be because he leads such a... sedimentary lifestyle!
    Eldred: ...Never Say That Again.
  • In the original version of the first-ever Resident Evil game, one scene involves Rebecca rescuing stalwart hero Chris from a giant, bloodsucking plant. After killing the plant, Chris quips to Rebecca that "we got to the root of the problem!", to which her response is... several beats of silence and a shake of her head before she instantly changes the subject.
  • Science Girls!: When encountering an alien grass bridge, a pun on Hive Mind is made, Nicole winces, due to Suckiness Is Painful:
    Nicole: Are you saying that the grass is a single giant creature?
    Missy: A sort of chive mind!
    Nicole winces at the pun.
  • In The Sexy Brutale, Clay Rockridge plays card games against a robotic dealer built by Reginald Sixpence, which has card-themed puns programmed into its dialogue.
    Dealer: YOU ARE...BUST! WILL YOU "CUT" YOUR LOSSES? OR "SHUFFLE" BACK FOR ANOTHER ROUND?
    Clay: (Goes to get a drink) Bloody hell, Reggie. That's what passes for zippy banter in your mind?
  • Before the final boss of Sonic Colors, Sonic comments on Eggman's repeated amusement park puns.
    Eggman: Leaving so soon? There are no lines, and I've saved the best rides for last! At least let me STAMP your hand so you can come back in.
    Sonic: I know you're trying to be clever with this whole amusement park pun thing, but it's just coming off lame. Say you're going to destroy us and stop embarrassing yourself.
    Eggman: Curse you, Sonic! Not only do you foil my plans, but you foil my speeches as well! I work hard on them!
  • In Splatoon, this can happen when the Inkopolis News presenters are commenting on Port Mackerel.
    Callie: Holy mackerel!
    Marie: Sigh...
  • Tales of Monkey Island:
    • Chapter 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal: Guybrush, on meeting treasure hunter Joaquin D'Oro, has the opportunity to make a pun so bad even his Evil Hand feels the need to upbraid him for it:
      Guybrush: Can I call you "D'Oro the Explorer?" (Punches himself)
      D'Oro: (unamused) No.
    • Amazingly, he manages to top himself in the very next episode, The Siege of Spinner Cay, after receiving a book of 101 Fish Jokes from the Vaycaylian Tetra:
      Guybrush: I hope it doesn't keep me in stitches or I might need a ... Sturgeon!
      (beat)
      Tetra: I hate you now.
  • Tenebrae from Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World absolutely loves groan-inducing puns. At one going, he made one that was so bad that Raine and Genis didn't groan, but instead unloaded on him with their ultimate unison attack from the previous game.
    [Emil, Marta, Genis and Raine sigh]
    Tenebrae: Too small for me, I'm afraid.
    Emil/Marta/Genis/Raine: Huh?
    Tenebrae: A "sighs four," that is. [laughs]
    Genis: Raine!
    Raine: Ready when you are!
    Genis/Raine: Prismic Stars!
    Tenebrae: Aaaahhh!!!
  • Jude and company are looking for the legendary weapons known as the devil's arms in Tales of Xillia. They defeat the last beast guarding the weapons, and Jude complains about how difficult the creatures were to find.
    Jude: I guess the devils were in the details!
    Leia: Jude. Seriously?
  • In Telepath Tactics, Gavrielle usually elicits this reaction.
    Umber: Wait! Please, spare me. I don't deserve to die like this! Just...take the damned map!
    Gavrielle: Ya know, for a "Coria Dog," you sure lack cur-age.
    Emma: ...Really, Gavrielle?
    Umber: I've changed my mind. Kill me.
    Gavrielle: Hey! Come on, it wasn't that bad!
  • During Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, there's an achievement for jumping into the pool at the top of the Nepal hotel. If you do, Nathan (who is attempting to retrace Marco Polo's discovery of Shangri-La) will yell out "Marco!" Chloe will be left utterly dumbstruck.
  • Undertale:
    • Papyrus often has this kind of reaction to his brother Sans' puns, even when he actually likes them. Upon meeting Toriel in the True Pacifist ending, Papyrus declares that it's the best day of his life. After one bad skeleton joke from her, he decides it's now the worst day of his life instead. However, there are times when Sans points out that he's smiling, and in some of his phone calls, he makes his own puns.
    • The player has the option to heckle Snowdrake, who makes bad ice puns while he attacks. (His dad doesn't approve, either.)
    • During a segment taking place on television, interacting with a certain object will cause Mettaton to make a pun...that he immediately decides should be cut in post.
  • Warframe has Ordis give one to himself:
    Ordis: Everything in Ordis, Operator? — Is that a Pun?! — Hmm... I will attempt to bypass this fault.

    Visual Novels 
  • One occurs in Ikemen Sengoku on Shingen's route:
    Yukimura: You get one dessert a day and you decided you wanted it at breakfast.
    Shingen: That barely qualified as a treat. Come on, would you really... desert me now?
    MC: [thinking] Even from a man as attractive as Shingen, that pun is unforgivable.
  • The protagonist of Melody has a strong interest in music, which naturally attracts a lot of lame puns. Since Melody hears these all the time, especially from guys who give her unwanted attention, she seems almost tired with how she reacts.
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney:
    • Justice For All has this attempt at humor from the main character in case 3: 'Why am I, Phoenix Wright, such a good lawyer? Because I'm "Wright" all the time!' Maya is unimpressed, but warms up to it eventually.
    • In the DLC case for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, Phoenix is less than impressed by Sasha Buckler's fish puns.
      Phoenix: ("Minnow?" "Blowfish"? Those puns floundered a bit...)

    Web Animation 
  • In a Season 6 episode of Arby 'n' the Chief, A surprising considering the main characters are a Deadpan Snarker, and an Extremely Volatile Halo Fanboy.
    Arbiter: (...) I saw this great movie the other night. I streamed it on the Xbox. You oughta check it out. I really think you'd dig it.
    Chief: wat m00v33
    Arbiter: Footloose.
    Chief: go 2 hell
    Arbiter: Hahaha.
    Chief: at l33st i dusnt l00k liek i just had a sleepovar @ peter north's house
    Arbiter: What's that supposed to mean?
    Chief: l00ks liek sum dude drained his balls in ur helmet b4 u put it on lmao
    Arbiter: It's glue!
  • Brain POP has an episode of "Mysteries of Life" on the hiccups, which ends with a play on the vagus nerve that Tim calls "quite possibly the worst joke we've ever done."
  • As they were practicing for the group-wide 2022 Mario Kart 8 New Year's tournament, hololive members Kiara and Ina notice a couple of racers named with puns based off of Kiara's name and phoenix/chicken motif. Ever the Pungeon Master, Ina comes up with a joke right before a race starts.
    Ina: What do you call a rooster that lays eggs?
    Kiara: [several seconds of thought] ...a hen?
    Ina: Hen desu ne.note 
    Kiara: [stunned silence] That was so bad it made me fail my boost. [said right after that indeed happened when the race started]
  • Homestar Runner:
    • In the Strong Bad Email "lackey", an Easter egg has Puppet Homestar Runner starring in a variety show with Doreauxgard, the cantaloupe puppet Strong Bad created. When Homestar offers Doreauxgard the position of "produce-er", Doreauxgard quips "Forget you, Whitey, I'm going solo!" and walks away.
    • In the email "local news", the Cheat is unimpressed by Strong Bad's attempts at newscaster humor.
      Strong Bad: [after a report on a "traffic jam" at Bubs' Concession Stand] I guess those roads should not be rode upon, eh?
      The Cheat: [subtitled] Not funny... I didn't even mention... any roads.
      • This previous reaction from The Cheat doesn't stop Strong Bad from trying again later in the broadcast after Strong Mad's sports corner...
        Strong Bad: Thank you, Strong Mad! Well The Cheat; looks like our sportscaster isn't being a very good sport, eh?
        The Cheat: [subtitled] ...Pathetic.
    • The 2010 cartoon "Which Ween Costumes?" was made to make up for the lack of a Halloween cartoon that year by providing a Decembeween version of the traditional costume round-up. It featured the gang dressed in holiday-themed costumes, including characters from famous Christmas specials and movies... and Coach Z as a giant sheet of paper. When Strong Bad reluctantly asked what Coach Z was supposed to be, he stated he was (w)rapping paper. Cue Collective Groan from the rest of the cast.
  • In one of Puffin Forest's videos, he was the Dungeon Master for a wacky Dungeons & Dragons adventure that involved a booze kraken. When the players were preparing to fight the kraken, this happened:
    Player: All right, guys, let's get... krakin'. [grins widely]
    [long, dead silence from everyone else who glares at him; including the kraken]
    Ben: Hmm. Okay. Well, the kraken grabs you and drags you down and no one tries to help you and you're hideously killed and your lifeless body is never seen again, and everyone's okay with this. ...You know what, that's not fair. The kraken comes in here, kills the player, grabs you off, and I just leave the character alive.
    Player: But I'm still here.
    Ben: I meant, you're dead to us metaphorically.
  • Red vs. Blue: The Reds try to make themself pass as Freelancers by adapting their Location Theme Naming.
    Simmons: And I'll be Agent Denial. Yehehit's, because a state of denial, like the saying? You know, it's like a, I was, you know, the whole State/state thing? You know, it's a joke.
    Grif: No, dude, jokes are funny.
  • RWBY:
    • In the first episode of Season 2, after Ruby expresses a desire to "Start the semester off with a BANG!", Yang replies "I always start my semester off with a YANG!" Everyone else silently shakes their heads or Face Palms, while Nora throws a tomato at Yang's face from offscreen while booing her.
    • Near the end of "Painting the Town", Weiss attempts a Quip to Black based on Neapolitan's leaving glass statues of herself and Torchwick behind as decoys (which Yang shatters with a Megaton Punch). Yang isn't impressed with the joke's quality.
      Weiss: Yeah, I guess she really made our plans... fall apart?
      Yang: No. Just... no.
      Weiss: What? But you do it.
      Yang: There's a time and a place for jokes.
      Weiss: Is this not it?
      Yang: No, it just... wasn't very good.
    • In "New Challengers", Team SSSN scrapes through to the double's round via some last minute use of electricity by Neptune. Port asks Oobleck to guess what he's calling that victory. Oobleck goes for the pun and suggests "Shocking". Port thinks that response is stupid and states he was thinking the victory was well-earned.
      Port: You know what I call that victory?
      Oobleck: Shocking?
      Port: No. Well-earned. What you said is stupid!
  • RWBY Chibi: In the "Punished" skit (Episode 4, Season 3), Yang and Taiyang unleash a list of terrible puns that cause Blake to jump out of the window and Weiss to Head Desk.
  • Zero Punctuation:
    • In the review of Mass Effect. "You only get to see like one second of bare ass anyways, so it will hardly make your Mass Erect!" Later, in the end credits he admits that "Yeah this whole review was leading up to that horrible pun at the end"
    • The review of Metro: Last Light ends with the words: "When Art Yom eats food does he go om yom yom (Oh for fuck's sake)"

    Webcomics 
  • 8-Bit Theater:
    • King Astos reveals himself as the major antagonist in the Elfland subplot. The heroes are warming up for a Final Battle, and Red Mage decides to hit Astos with a Pre Ass Kicking One Liner. It's so lame that that the heroes apologize and ask for a chance to try another one. Black Mage then busts out another one-liner. It's so bad it kills Astos on the spot. (Not the only Anti-Climax by this Trolling Creator.)
    • Also, when it finally sinks into Fighter's thick skull that Thief is actually the Prince of Elfland:
      Fighter: Wait, let me get this straight. So Thief is the elf formerly known as Prince?
      Black Mage: Killing you is going to be the greatest moment of my life.
  • In Agents of the Realm, when Kendall enters her first fight, she immediately establishes herself as a Pungeon Master, eliciting groans of exasperation from Norah.
  • At the end of Apricot Cookie(s)! chapter 4, Apricot tells an awful joke that makes a pun on "horse"/"hoarse". Starlet's reaction isn't just to kick her out, but to draw Apricot getting hit by a bus in her manga.
  • From Blade Bunny Book 12, Page 29:
    Bunny: Nothing personal, cutie, but I have to end this now... with an ax.
    Elite Mook: You mean cut this short?
    Bunny: [beat panel] SHUT UP! [swings the ax]
  • Bob and George:
    • Mega Man managed to make a broom wince in pain when he explains the Rule of Funny and dubs it the "gag reflex."
    • Bright Man (who has a lightbulb for a head) having an idea prompted Kalinka Cossack to collapse to the ground, protesting to her father that "I thought you loved me!"
    • This shows up a lot in Bob and George, usually with a Beat panel right beforehand. In the fight against Knight Man, Mega Man makes an especially excruciating one, followed up by getting his head caved in again.
  • Bobwhite. Marlene's Jewish bluegrass band is trying to come up with a new name for the band. Something that will get people to take them seriously.
    Fiddle player: Sheriff Yeehaw's Mazel Tov Jewboree!
    Marlene: You're out of the band.
  • Casey and Andy features the (extremely lethal) Pun Police. In one strip a villain successfully kills Andy by inducing him to make a bad pun.
    • In one case, Stan, the devil of an alternate universe, provides a genuinely hideous pun. Mari, whose life's work was to become legally entitled to kill anyone punning in her presence, reacts with physical pain — from thousands of miles away.
  • Cyanide and Happiness:
  • This happens in Darths & Droids #1232 where Annie (Playing Princess Leia) reacts to Corey's (Who plays Luke) bone related pun.
  • The titular character in Dominic Deegan is a frequent offender, as are the rest of his family, and anyone else who spends too much time with them.
    • In one case, Siggy does this on purpose to elicit groans from hiding thieves and give away their position.
    • In another, Dominic's father uses this to incapacitate Jacob's Quilt Man.
  • This page of DOUBLE K. In the words of the writer: "KAMINA just pissed away every cool point he earned over the last 25 pages, way to go buddy".
  • In Faulty Logic, Jalyss tends to react to Fox's puns with violence, but in this one, she is helpless to stop the lamest pun of all time.
  • Friendship is Dragons #31 has Pinkie Pie making a joke about throwing a party with her adventuring party (minus Twilight, who went upstairs to try to get some peace and quiet), prompting Rarity to remark on just how painful it was:
    "If this was my game, everyone would take 1d4 damage from that pun."
  • In Homestuck, Jack Noir/Spades Slick in all of his incarnations is rather fond of puns. Unfortunately, he's pretty terrible at them.
    He says the Prince flew the coop. And the girl's gone... You say gone what. Rogue? After a little while he says AWOL. The guy doesn't really take a shining to puns and you can't say you blame him.
  • In Irregular Webcomic!, "PunGuard 2.1" reacts to a bad pun in #967 by displaying a dialog box. This is also a Stealth Pun, as the dialog box blocks the pun.
  • In Jailhouse Blues the character of Bean Man has puns so bad, or at least so undignified, that his creator forbids him from using them. He does anyway and earns himself a rather painful death in the process.
  • Lighter Than Heir: Page 351 is basically comprised entirely of Roth and Hurtz making puns while one of the captive Zamoran Guards begs them to stop.
  • In one issue of Li'l Gotham, Katana and Damien team up for an investigation, and every pun Damien makes gets a disapproving reaction from Katana.
  • In morphE Tyler is stared down and made to feel ashamed of himself for trying to joke that Adrestia destroyed a training dummy with her "bear hands"
  • In Orbit, this is Mars' reaction to Earth making a pun about Moon's disappearance.
    Mars: Moon. He was just there, but now he's gone.
    Earth: Oh. I'm sure he'll turn up lunar or later.
    [Beat while Mars silently stares Earth down]
    Earth: I should go look for him.
  • The Order of the Stick:
    • In #366, when talking about Durkon defeating a bunch of monstrous trees;
    Durkon: It's like me grandpappy always used ta say: Speak softly and beware of big sticks.
    Belkar: Of course. I respect you for one nanosecond, and what do I get for my trouble? A dwarf pun. Moron.
    • Elan's "Dashing Swordsman" prestige class gives him actual combat boosts based on puns. To the annoyance of those around him, they don't need to be good to be effective.
      Elan: C'mon, Nale, don't be a sword loser!
      Nale: Ugh, that was horrible! I swear, I'm going to kill you, then pay a cleric to raise you, and kill you again, just to make you pay for the puns!
    • In this strip, Vaarsuvius has sworn not to interfere in the battle except in self-defense... or if Elan's puns drive them crazy.
      Vaarsuvius: Protecting my brain still constitutes self-defense.
    • The battle between dwarves and vampires implies that painful wordplay is just part of the Bard class;
    Thirden: I guess this battle is starting to ramp up!
    Jana: Ha ha, I'm inclined to agree, Master Squeaky!
    Kandro: At least on tha road, ye dinnae hafta hear bard jokes once a week.
    Durkon: Let's just... keep movin', aye?

  • In this comic of Our Little Adventure, the male Wight makes a pun when talking to Julie about what kind of undead they are. This earns him a smack upside the head from the female Wight he's with.
  • Paranatural:
    • This exchange in chapter 4:
      Johnny: [it'll get better] over time!! What are you? An out-of-work doctor?! Have some patients!
      Ollie: Johnny I just lost a lot of respect for you.
    • Elsewhere in chapter 4:
      Spender: Watch your step, kids.
      Ed: [smirking] I don't have any.
      Isabel: [creates a box out of spectral energy with JAIL written on it and drops it over Ed's head]
  • Claire in Questionable Content gets the "silent disapproval" reaction to almost all of her puns, to her great aggravation. Or on one occasion being ejected from the coffee shop.
  • In Rusty and Co., the team meets a ghostly knight in the woods.
    Mimic: Yoiks! Who're you?! We don' wanna hurt youse!
    Ghost knight: I... was once... the White Knight. [Beat Panel] But now, I am... the Night Wight.
    Mimic: A'ight, well, now we wanna hurt youse.
  • And in Scary Go Round, "You were wrong. Puns don't help."
  • In Schlock Mercenary, the eponymous amorph winds up with more than two eyes, which he finds to be a tad disconcerting. So he hides two of those eyes inside himself.
    Schlock: Besides, this way I can watch what I eat.
    Legs: Puns are not supposed to be that gross. Please don't do that again.
  • This Shortpacked! strip not only features one but implies they're so common in-store they keep a running count.
  • Shot and Chaser: When Tre is photographing a client he tells her a knock knock joke that she gives a thumbs down, before telling her a pun that gets her laughing out loud and saying she needs to share it with her niece. When Tre says its a shame he can't take credit for it she comes back with, "or the blame", considering it a painful pun even though she found it hilarious due to its unexpectedness.
  • In Skin Horse, when Unity is protesting to her colleagues that they're berating her for something that is her disembodied hand's fault, she says "Talk to the hand!" They're both horrified, and she apologises.
  • Sleepless Domain: Chapter 19 contains an arc in which Kokoro is temporarily Trapped on the Astral Plane by a monster, worrying her girlfriend Undine immensely. In a non-canon Crimmus outtake, she reveals to Undine that the monster had actually turned her into a ghost — a ghost of Crimmus Present! She promptly gets a jet of water to the face in response.
  • Sluggy Freelance:
    • In "K'Z'K": When Torg needs to inflict pain on the demon K'Z'K to exorcise him, he and Riff manage this by doing a Hurricane of Puns.
    • In "Meanwhile in the Dimension of Pain":
      Demon King: Nothing toughens a demon up more than possessing the soul of a mortal, while other mortals are trying to drive you out using holy rituals... I'm putting you all on a strict exorcise program!
      Demons: GROAN!
      Demon King: Thought that would get you where it hurt!
      Horribus: Actually, sire, it was that pun...
      Demon King: That's what I meant!
    • In "Phoenix Rising": "Argh! I'm stabbed! Less painful than that pun!"
  • Starslip:
    Cutter: Honking our horn ain't enough. I say we flash them our hi-beams.
    Vanderbeam: How would we do that?
    Cutter: Say hi, Beams.
    Vanderbeam: Guh.
  • xkcd has these in several strips:
  • (x, why?) has an incorrigible punster, to the dismay of his girlfriend as seen here and here and here.

    Web Original 
  • Comment sections and forums will usually have the punner doing a Stock Joke that follows the rimshot: "Thank you! I'll be here all week!" (common addends are *Mic Drop*, "try the veal" and "remember to tip your servers")
  • In the middle of a serious discussion on a guy getting limbs blown off by a bomb, somebody drops in with "In Soviet Russia, bomb disarms YOU!" This got a Dude, Not Funny! response.
  • The web fiction serial Dimension Heroes is notorious for bad puns, which usually lead to whoever says them getting smacked.
  • In Dr. Destructo's Let's Play of Trials of Mana:
    Game Text: Snow City Elrand
    Doran Blackdawn: Snow City Elrond. "Take the hobbits to Ice-engard."
    Dr. Destructo: Did you just say "Ice-engard"?
    Doran Blackdawn: Yes.
    Dr. Destructo: 'Cause I think that's grounds for a beating.
    Doran Blackdawn: [chuckles] See, 'cause we're in a frost place—
    Dr. Destructo: [irritated] Yeah, I--I get it.
    Doran Blackdawn: [laughs] Oh, you're so angry when I let out the puns.
    Dr. Destructo: Painful, painful puns.
    Doran Blackdawn: Puns fill you with a burning rage, just like Streets of Rage 2.
    Dr. Destructo: I know. Except I'm not making a stand for peace.
  • Protectors of the Plot Continuum: During a mission to a fic based on Undertale, a Normal-Sized Temmie gets a tummy-ache from eating the agents' charge list... or, as Backslash puts it, a Temmie-ache. The Temmie, whose dialogue is usually filled with strange capitalization and punctuation, glares at him and switches to proper English to tell him to shut up.
  • The Usenet acronym "IGMC" is used by punsters to pre-empt this. It stands for "I'll get my coat", meaning "You don't need to tell me to Get Out!, I'm already going".
  • Whateley Universe: Chaka's lame pun at the end of "Ayla and the Networks" gets her severely pummeled by pillows, beanbag chairs, etc. And her pun at the end of "It's All In The Timing" gets her magically thrown into a snowdrift.

    Websites 
  • A popular series of images on Know Your Meme has the elevator fight in Captain America: The Winter Soldier break out because Captain America told an awful dad joke.
  • Neopets: In the Year 21 Neopies, one nominee for "Best Prize Pool Update" is the Qasalan Expellibox, the description for which reads:
    The Qasalan officials have offered some splendid new rewards for expelling those pesky Scarabs this year. Were they cast far enough away, though? One pesky journalist described the problem as 'unde-scarab-le'... She was almost fired for it.
  • SCP Foundation:
    • There is a kind of tomato that reacts violently to lame puns, sometimes resulting in death. The suckiness of the pun is directly proportional to how fast the tomato throws itself at the source of the lame pun; particularly bad ones can cause the tomato to break the sound barrier.
    • For a never-ending barrage of this, check the discussion to SCP-649-2568-j, where the reactions range from "Take this upvote and go away" to "Puns like these make me want to give the pun maker a smack up the head."
    • Articles involving dado are almost universally built around two facts. The first is that dado is a small business capitalist who will do anything his customers ask, and the second is that he will inevitably misunderstand what that customer is asking and so creates a horrifying object based upon a lame pun of what he thinks is being asked for.
  • Seanbaby: His Cracked article "4 'Geek Humor' Books by Authors Who Understand Neither" has him mocking humor books whose style of comedy consists entirely of blatantly half-assed attempts at wordplay, such as Mirthful Kombat: Jokes with BYTE! by John M. Byrne.
    Byrne: According to the Bible, Metheusalah lived for hundreds of years. How did he keep his Gameboy working properly?
    Long life batteries.
    Seanbaby: If the Special Olympics had a comedy writing event, this would be the only entry that didn't win a hug. John M. Byrne is so tragic that breast cancer walks to end him.

    Web Videos 
  • Robby Motz used to do this A LOT in =3 after telling a bad pun. The reactions varied from mass groans, "Worst Pun Ever Record" caption, "New Worst Pun Ever Record" caption and flat out punch to the face.
  • Bad Movie Beatdown:
    • Film Brain likes to make puns, but it's only a problem for Linkara when he joins FB to review The Spirit:
      Linkara: Holy crap, Frank Miller makes worse puns than you, Film Brain!
      Film Brain: I never thought such a thing could be accomplished.
    • Not that's he's blameless either:
      Film Brain: Did he just break the fourth wall?
      Linkara: Don't worry — we're atop it!
      Audience: [collective groan]
      Caption: Channel Awesome would like to apologize for that pun. The writer has been flogged for his sins.
  • CollegeHumor: "Font Conference", a skit featuring anthropomorphic personifications of Microsoft fonts:
    Broadway: [singing] Comic Sans... the boldest of them all!
    Arial Narrow: I hate you so much.
  • Fate/Cero has Berserker's (Lancelot) reaction to Lancer's (Diarmuid) pun.
    Lancer: Hey Berserker, bet I can Lance-A-Lot more than you.
    Berserker: That pun... physically hurt me.
    Lancer: U mad?
    Berserker: ALL THE TIME!!
  • Filthy Frank makes the mistake of making a pun when Mr. Negi wouldn't accept the spaghetti he and Red Dick made for him (technically, Red Dick did all the work). Frank then mocks Mr. Negi about the leek along with the aformentioned pun:
    Frank: You know what this guy needs to do? If he likes leeks so much... this guy needs to take a leek. [he and Red Dick laughs] Hilarious. He needs to take a leek.
    [the camera focuses on Mr. Negi, then quickly moves to Frank, where Mr. Negi suddenly appears behind him, holding a leek to his throat]
    Frank: How did you do that?
    Mr. Negi: Don't talk shit about leeks... nigga.
    [Mr. Negi whacks Frank in the back of the head with the leek, causing him to moan in pain]
  • The Freelance Astronauts can fall into this, depending on the game. Usually whoever makes the lamest puns gets punched for his troubles.
  • Self-inflicted one in Freeman's Mind, in which Gordon comments about the ceiling, with "What's up with the ceiling?" after which he realizes that he just made an Accidental Pun and groans.
  • In LawrenceFriday's Let's Play of Dante's Inferno:
    [Dante is in Gluttony, fighting Gluttony Minions]
    LawrenceFriday: Now these guys... they just keep coming. Perhaps because they are a... glutton for punishment!note 
    Jo(h)n Murdoc(k): Kill yourself.
    TehWarsmith: Put the sunglasses on. Put the sunglasses on.
    LawrenceFriday: It doesn't deserve sunglass.
  • Mike Stoklasa of RedLetterMedia fame loves making lame puns, to the annoyance of his coworkers. One such example is after positively reviewing The Hunger Games, Mike says he's "hungry for more Hunger Games." Then he vomits.
  • LoadingReadyRun:
    • Several appear throughout Phailhaüs series, one of which resulted in Matt being banned from Phailhaüs for a year.
    • In addition, any Crap Shot entitled "The Punishment" is essentially Alex making a bad pun, followed by Graham dishing out Cool and Unusual Punishment for it.
  • Jake in Midnight Screenings does a lot of Comical Overreacting to puns, even making them his Berserk Button.
  • In The Nostalgia Chick's Pocahontas review, putting words in John Smith's mouth:
    Chick: ...and by that I mean I'd like to poke-your-hontas, heh. [cringes from rightful booing and catcalls]
  • Andy Farrant of Outside Xbox is prone to yelling "BOOOO" from offscreen when someone else (usually Ellen) makes a pun during a video. Somehow this doesn't stop him being a key part of a channel that specializes in list videos where every entry brings a fresh caption pun.
  • Rooster Teeth:
    • Barbara Dunkelman is so full of puns, she almost always gets a boo from someone, normally Jack. She even has not one, not two, but FOUR different RT animated adventures about her, dubbing her "Barbara Pun-kelman".
      Gus: I've been playing Ni No Kuni, it's fucking good, man.
      Barbara: I don't need no kuni!
      Jack: BOOOOOO!!
    • Another common response is "Goddammit Barb!"
  • Happens frequently in The Runaway Guys whenever one of them, usually Chuggaaconroy, makes a bad pun.
  • Screen Rant Pitch Meetings:
    • While discussing The Suicide Squad, the Screenwriter says he wants John Cena for the role of Peacemaker, which prompts this exchange:
      Producer: Oh, you know what? I can't see him in that role. [Beat as the Screenwriter looks unimpressed] Because of his catchphrase.
      Screenwriter: I understand the joke, sir, I just hate it.
      Producer: That's fair.
    • In the Cocaine Bear pitch meeting, the Screenwriter plays with his catchphrase:
      Screenwriter: And so then everyone's going to end up at this cliff with, like, a waterfall, and it's dark, and Cocaine Bear's gonna show up!
      Producer: Uh-oh, gonna be tough to get away from Cocaine Bear now!
      Screenwriter: Actually, it's gonna be super easy, bearly an inconvenience!
      [the two stare at each other awkwardly for ten seconds]
      Producer: ...That was really good.
  • The Spoony Experiment:
  • On Steam Train, Ross and Dan devote a good portion of their playthroughs of Sierra games like King's Quest and Leisure Suit Larry utterly groaning at the awful puns of the narrators. Like when they are shot by an arrow in King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow.
    Bill Ratner: That move was slightly arrow-neous!
    Ross: Aw for fuck sake!!!
    Dan: Augh Jesus Christmas!!!
  • Stuart Ashen once reviewed a POP Station that "looks like a fat batarang: a fatarang!" He apologizes quickly after.
  • Two Best Friends Play: The Last of Us. Pat has the controller. When Ellie starts reading bad puns from a joke book ("You want to hear a joke about pizza? ... Never mind, it's really cheesy"), Pat responds by wordlessly unholtering his gun and pointing it at Ellie's face. Low ammo was probably the only reason he didn't pull the trigger.
  • TyrantSabre:
    • In his Let's Play of The Saboteur:
      [Sean Devlin slides down a ladder]
      Darrin: He keeps murdering his hands.
      TyrantSabre: I thought... I thought we already established this. He's got hands like ham hocks. He's got hand hocks.
      Enigmatic Cardboard: [laughing] Hand... That was the worst pun.
      TyrantSabre: I can't help it.
    • Later:
      TyrantSabre: [of Yosef Bryman] I would be very surprised if didn't know anything about The Resistance. After all, he is an electrical engineer.
      Darrin: No, no, he's— awwww...
      [others start laughing]
      Darrin: Awwww... Every time you open your mouth, I hate you just a little more.
      TyrantSabre: Excellent.

    Real Life 

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Alternative Title(s): Lame Pun Acknowledgement

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CARLOS!

Carlos does a lame pun at least Once per Episode on the cartoon, prompting a collective groan from the other kids. Notably the only one of the kids that didn't have a catchphrase unlike the rest.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (9 votes)

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