YMMV / H.M.S. Pinafore

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Does Dick Deadeye rat on Ralph and Josephine merely out of meanness and spite? Or is it because he genuinely believes that the classes should not intermarry and thinks he is doing the world a favor?
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Audiences may assume the reference to a telephone is an anachronism, but it's in the original libretto—HMS Pinafore was written in 1878, a few years after Bell's invention.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Though on the whole clean and family-friendly and within the standards of propriety of polite Victorian society, two risqué moments are thrown in. First, the climactic moment when Captain Corcoran shocks everyone by swearing "Damme! (I.E. "Damn me!")^note To show that not everyone back then would have dismissed this as mere jest, it is worth noting that Lewis Carroll, who was an ordained deacon, took issue with the inclusion of the expression. He wrote critically of the use of a word that calls to mind the idea of Hell for amusement's sake and concluded: "How Mr. Gilbert could have stooped to write, or Sir Arthur Sullivan could have prostituted his noble art to set to music, such vile trash, it passes my skill to understand." It's too bad!" Then, when he says of his bride-to-be Buttercup "I must wander to and fro;/But wherever I may go,/I shall never be untrue to thee!" and is asked "What, never?" He answers: "No, never!...Hardly ever!"
• Designated Villain: Dick Deadeye is treated as a knave and rapscallion mostly due to his looks and his name. The rest of the crew shout him down even when he's agreeing with them.
• Fridge Logic: A famous example. If Ralph and the Captain were switched as babies, then they must be the exact same age. Wouldn't that make things a bit awkward for Josephine?
  • Also if Buttercup was old enough to nurse Ralph and the Captain doesn't that make their marriage a bit weird as well?
  • Also - how old are Ralph, Josephine and the Captain? Ralph is "the smartest lad in all the fleet", and probably isn't more than about 25: to have a grown-up, or fairly grown-up, daughter, Corcoran must be at least 40 (especially to have attained Captaincy); he's a widower, and generally seems to have greying temples.
  • If we put Josephine in her late teens and the men in their earlythirties, the age gaps are somewhat plausible. Then again, this is Gilbert And Sullivan. If there ever was a reason to roll out the MST3K Mantra, this is it.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Captain Corcoran's line "I never use a big, big D" is supposed to refer to swearing (saying "damn" aka "the D word") but nowadays sounds like he's declaring something else about himself entirely.
• Memetic Mutation: A notable Older Than Radio example is the "What, never?", "No, never", "What, never?" "Well, hardly ever." exchange, which proved to be quite an ear worm. The editor of a certain London newspaper is said to have threatened to sack any man on staff quoting the passage, his rant ending with "I never want to hear that joke again!". Cue everyone...
• Once Original, Now Common: This play may seem like a stream of clichés to some of us these days but when it premiered in 1878, nobody had ever seen anything like it.
• Parody Displacement: A lot of 90s kids first learned "Carefully on Tiptoe Stealing" in its use in the Freakazoid! episode "The Island of Dr. Mystico."
  Dr. Mystico: They're right! It was my cat!
• Values Dissonance:
  • Sir Joseph's marriage to his cousin Hebe is removed from a fair number of contemporary productions, due to marriages between cousins becoming less acceptable.
  • It's presented as a given that high birth makes one essentially superior due to better blood. Thus, as soon as the baby switch is revealed, the roles of Ralph and Captain Corcoran are reversed. Depending on how much you believe G&S believed in blood superiority, that may also explain Captain Corcoran's professed talents, "Though related to a peer, I can hand, reef or steer, or ship a selvagee" not to mention Ralph being "the smartest lad in all the fleet" and able to win Josephine over. Blood will show.
    • It's a satire on the "given" idea of class/blood superiority - the reductio ad absurdum is that Ralph and Captain Corcoran swap military ranks (and in some productions they may even swap accents) when the baby-swap plot is revealed, which of course wouldn't happen in real life.
• Values Resonance: Mocking political appointees with no practical experience and overinflated egos... that has a good chance of never not being funny. The opera's relatable plot and witty humor actually catapulted Gilbert and Sullivan to stardom and Pinafore was one of the most popular operas on both sides of the Atlantic.