Stealth Pun / Epic Rap Battles of History

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Stealth Puns in Epic Rap Battles of History.

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• "… ten-thousand-dollar shoes I use to stomp out a beatle."
• "You might fly like a hawk, but you fight like a kitty." ^note The Wright Brothers' famous flight took place in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
• "Oh, no, we'll smash your globe." ^note Said to William Shakespeare, whom the Globe Theatre is often associated with.
  • "You gettin' upstaged Bill, yo you just got played" is especially stealthy.
• Steve Jobs saying "I got a PC, but it wasn't from you," to Bill Gates. One of the stealthiest ones yet. ^note Steve Jobs had Pancreatic Cancer.
  • He also says he'll "bring up some basic shit". ^note A reference to the Basic programming language.
  • Later, HAL 9000 offers "I think different from the engine of the days of old", referencing both the former Apple Macintosh slogan "Think Different." and Charles Babbage's difference engine, the first computer.
• "You wanna trade blows? You can't even hit puberty!"
• "Gettin' 'Lo on Mark Antony." ^note It's believed that Cleopatra had an affair with (or "got low" with) Marc Antony. Additionally, the spelling of "low" as "Lo" reference J-Lo's ex-husband, Marc Anthony.
  • "Tossing Caesar's salad"
• "You're a batshit crazy basket case!" to Batman.
  • "Dissing these dynamic douchebags..." for Batman and Robin.
• "I fought the caste system, but you still cannot touch this!" ^note Double pun referring to the Untouchable caste and the MC Hammer song.
  • "I'm the King of civil rights" said by Martin Luther King Jr.
• "Before I let loose with this ruthless aggression" said to Babe Ruth.
• "I'm a Prodigy, Sonny, and I'm about to smack a bitch up!" ^note The Prodigy's most famous song is titled "Smack My Bitch Up"
  • "...and you reek of dead mouse."
  • "You died baroque and worthless!"
  • "I attack, you decay, can't sustain my releases!" ^note In sound synthesizers an ADSR envelope (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release) is applied to a flat tone to give the sound wave a shape that mimics the sound wave created by an acoustic instrument.
• "I strike back hard against a Nazi!"
• "I spit hot borscht when I'm crushing these beats!" ^note  Borscht is a Russian dish made by crushing beets, or in this case, beats.
  • "Took Trotsky out of the picture" ^note Joseph Stalin famously edited Leon Trotsky out of several pictures as part of his effort to make it look like Lenin wanted Stalin and not Trotsky to be his successor. See the image for the trope Unperson.
  • "I'm a President in my Prime" ^note Vladimir Putin has been both President and Prime Minister of Russia, and it was considered that he held more political pull as Prime Minister than the real President did at the time, hence he was the real President even when he was only Prime.
  • "The last man who attacked me lived a half-life" ^note Vladimir Putin was accused of using a bit of radioactive Polonium-210 (which, as a radioatice element has a half-life) to poison one of his political detractors.
  • "If your name ends with 'in,' time to get out!"
• "I see a universe of infinite energy, but no potential for threat from this enemy." ^note Referencing potential energy.
• "You're the least talented rat in your whole pack of rodents!"^note Frank Sinatra was a member of the Rat Pack.
• "Your highest calling was a text from Wiz Khalifa." ^note  Khalifa is known for tremendous marijuana consumption, so a message from him would be a "high calling" indeed.
• "God bless us, every..." "WHO WON?"
• Rick Grimes calls himself "a grade-A MC."^note A reference to AMC, the network that The Walking Dead airs on.
• Superman being a "greasy slick MC from DC."^note The obvious reference is Superman's hailing from DC Comics, but "DC" is a common name for Washington, D.C., the capital of the US, referencing Superman's being the All-American Face.
• "Fame, money, talent, success, you'll always have less, never more!" ^note  Quoth the raven, nevermore!
• From Artists vs TMNT: "I can bebop and steady rock a mic, sucka!" ^note  Bebop and Rocksteady, the Bumbling Henchmen Duo best known from the 1980's series.
• "I'll kick your hiney man, I'm a savage killer." ^note  Hyneman and Savage.
• "Stay all up in your grill like my name was George Foreman!" ^note Referencing the George Foreman Grill, invented and marketed by the former boxer George Foreman.
• "I'll handle this darling, I'm known to fire off some BAR's".^note Bar as in rap bars, as well as the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, a WWI-era machine gun that became famous for being Clyde's weapon of choice.
  • "'Cause if these lovers cross me, they're gonna end up seeing stars!" ^note Shakespeare referred to Romeo and Juliet as "star-crossed lovers."
  • "Damn sure I'm gettin' licks in."^note A lick is both an attack and a short musical solo.
• Jack the Ripper: "God protect you From the Hell I've spread upon us!" ^note One of Jack the Ripper's letters to Scotland Yard was addressed "From Hell."
• David Copperfield to Harry Houdini: "I'll summon up a little Halloween brunch: Deep-fried sucker with a side of punch!" ^note Houdini died on Halloween, 1926 from appendicitis, which manifested several hours after he sustained several punches to the stomach; it is debated whether the punches actually damaged his appendix or simply caused him to misattribute the appendix pain as being from the punches.
• RoboCop: What can go wrong for you will, creep: Murphy's Law! ^note He references the Murphy's Law while also boasting that (Alex) Murphy is law.
• All throughout the Philosopher battle, both sides wax lyrical and make references to various rappers, like Method Man and Ludacris.
  • "Honestly, I think you owe both of your students here an apology!" ^note A reference to the Apology, Plato's version of the speech Socrates made in his defense.
  • "You need to fill your bowl with some shit that makes some sense!" ^note On "bowl", referencing Lao Tzu's "a bowl is most useful when it is empty" line, and "bullshit". Also, of course, a toilet bowl.
  • "I'll make you move, bitch! Get out the way!" ^note Not only as in the song, but as in the Way of Tao.
• "I got the strength of a lion, and the speed of a cheetah; and everyone knows you're just a chicken, Caesar!" ^note Salad, that is.
  • "Take your cow skin shield and hide under it!"
  • "You're fucking with the most triumphant third of the Triumvirate!" ^note A reference to the Roman Triumph
• "You let a kiwi hold your gun and it fucked up your canon!" ^note  Cannon.
• "We can tell what's gonna happen by page and age five!" ^note The Lord of the Rings ended at the beginning of the Fourth Age of Middle Earth time.
  • "You're a pirate! You even stole my R. R.!"
  • "You can't reach this fellow! Shit, I'm too towering!" ^note Fellowship of the Ring and Two Towers. Followed by the more blatant line "Every time I battle, it's Return of the King!"
• "Mrs. Child, welcome to the grownups table!"
• In "Frederick Douglass vs Thomas Jefferson":
  Jefferson: Oh, Frederick, I've never heard a verse I dug less.
  • "This ain't Louisiana, man; I ain't buyin' it!" ^note  Thomas Jefferson is also known for conducting the Louisiana Purchase during his presidency.
• "I only need one round, golden gun."
  • "You can't shag properly with that waxed tush!"
• "You'll get a huge sack like Novgorod!"^note as in, either "a thorough defeat with lots of collateral damage" or "the result of a Groin Attack". Followed by: "Hey, fella, swell diss."
  • "I brought foes to their knees in Phoenicia!"^note Pronounced "foe-knee-sha".
  • "Oblique attack tactics ain't exactly straight!"^note Either referring to Fredrick the Great's use of oblique order, or his numerous affairs mainly with other men.
• "And I say DC is a whole step down!"^note In music, C is a whole tone (i.e. whole step) below D.
  • "Princess Diana, but this lady don't die!" ^note Lady Di.
  • "You couldn't walk in my shoes, so stick to your reboots!" ^note Red boots.
• "Great one, Wayne!"^note A reference to Gretzky being known as "The Great One".
  • "I got 99 problems, and you ain't one, Wayne!"^note Wayne Gretzky wore the jersey number 99, so Tony would indeed be able to dismiss him as not a "99 problem".
  • "It's a street fight, T. Hawk, show some respect!" ^note T. Hawk is the name of a character from Street Fighter, but "T. Hawk" is also short for "Tony Hawk".
• "TR will give WC the full deuce!" Made more evident by Churchill's response: "Whatever shit you throw at me, I'll just return to sender!"
  • A subtler one, but Churchill delivers all of his versed with Tranquil Fury. He keeps calm and carries on!
  • In the same battle, the Presidents of Mount Rushmore form a rock band.
• "I've been looking up your family. It gets dark, my god!" ^note As Mark Zuckerberg indirectly says in the very next line, Elon Musk's father was a supporter of apartheid in South Africa, which victimized black people. Dark, indeed.
• "Last rapper this plastic^note wrapper, and also because the Burger King mascot had an actual plastic mask had a Happy Meal toy in it!"
• "You're made of turkey feathers, but you'll never be down!"
• "So don't throw down with Rivers! The flow is too relentless!"
• "Your face tells me you've met your match!"^note As in, the thing you start fires with, riffing on Freddy's burnt appearance.
• "I'm universally known for intrigue and desire!" ^note A reference to Universal Studios, which made the 1931 Dracula movie, which also happens to be the most famous.
• The Joker gets a force-five hurricane of these at the end of his verse: "Ask Robin if I drop bars, I take smiles and I leave scars, guards at Arkham will admit that the Joker just killed it!"
  • "When I flow, I go Mark Ham with ill zingers." ^note In addition to namedropping Hamill, Joker's arguably greatest actor, 'Mark Ham' is a near-pun on Arkham.
• "Now I'm here to split you like 2 and 3 from 5!"^note Referring to uranium-235 (U-235), the fissile material used in the earliest nukes.
• "Your acting is flat and your raps are 2D too!"^note The last four syllables of the verse sound similar to R2-D2.
  • "You might be Potter, but Harry, I planted your seed!"^note Aside from being an obvious reference to Harry's last name, to plant one's seed is a euphemism for impregnating someone, meaning Luke is figuratively, and literally saying he's Harry's father. It goes even deeper when you remember what's the most famous plot twist in Star Wars.
• "You took Acre and Jaffa like a piece of cake, but never attacked Jerusalem for Christ's sake!"^note Jaffa cakes are a popular snack in England which Richard ruled over. Meanwhile despite being the end goal of the Crusades (being to spread Christianity), Jerusalem was never formally conquered by Richard, hence it was never taken for Christ's sake indeed.
  • "You couldn't even beat a Salad in a fight!"
• "You're such a toxic date, you could kill a little monkey!" ^note Referencing the monkey that died from eating poisoned dates meant for Indy in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• "I'll chew you up dawg, this Kong's getting conquered!" ^note Kong is also a brand of dog toys.

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