This is a Jack Handey quote, actually. People talk about certain writers shitposting before shitposting was a thing, but Jack Handey practically invented shitposting. He wrote these short nonsense one liners and they published them in the National Lampoon and played them on SNL in the 90s. There’s a shit ton of them and they all sound like shitposts. Here’s just a few:
“I hope if dogs ever take over the world, and they chose a king, they don’t just go by size, because I bet there are some Chihuahuas with some good ideas.”
“Contrary to what most people say, the most dangerous animal in the world is not the lion or the tiger or even the elephant. It’s a shark riding on an elephant’s back, just trampling and eating everything they see.”
“To me, it’s always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, “Hey, can you give me a hand?,” you can say, “Sorry, got these sacks.“”
“If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I’d say Flippy, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong, though. It’s Hambone.”
“I think a good novel would be where a bunch of men on a ship are looking for a whale. They look and look, but you know what? They never find him. And you know why they never find him? It doesn’t say. The book leaves it up to you, the reader, to decide. Then, at the very end, there’s a page you can lick and it tastes like Kool-Aid.”
“If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.”
“If you’re an ant, and you’re walking along across the top of a cup of pudding, you probably have no idea that the only thing between you and disaster is the strength of that pudding skin”
“I wish I lived on a planet that had two suns—regular sun and “rogue” sun. That way, when somebody asked me what time it was, I’d say, “Regular time?” And they’d say, “Yeah.” And I’d say, “Sorry, all I have is rogue time.” It’d be fun to be a stuck-up rogue-time guy.”
“If you’re a cowboy, and you’re dragging a guy behind your horse, I bet it would really make you mad if you looked back and the guy was reading a magazine.”
“I hope some animal never bores a hole in my head and lays its eggs in my brain, because later you might think you’re having a good idea but it’s just eggs hatching.”
“If your friend is already dead, and being eaten by vultures, I think it’s okay to feed some bits of your friend to one of the vultures, to teach him to do some tricks. But ONLY if you’re serious about adopting the vulture.”
“If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you’ll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy.”
“We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can’t scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.”
There were so many of these, and they were all hilarious. Still are.
“It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.”
“The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.”
“I bet one legend that keeps recurring throughout history, in every
culture, is the story of Popeye.”
“Anytime I see something screech across a room and latch onto someones
neck, and the guy screams and tries to get it off, I have to laugh,
because what is that thing.”
“The memories of my family outings are still a source of strength to me.
I remember we’d all pile into the car – I forget what kind it was – and
drive and drive. I’m not sure where we’d go, but I think there were some
trees there. The smell of something was strong in the air as we played
whatever sport we played. I remember a bigger, older guy we called
“Dad.” We’d eat some stuff, or not, and then I think we went home. I
guess some things never leave you.”
“well, that’s not ideal” whenever something is going wrong
“we are in the timeline that god abandoned” whenever i’m mildly inconvenienced
“can’t you see that your fighting is tearing this family apart?” whenever two or more coworkers are arguing
referring to taking medication as “eating medicine”
“time to go back to prison!” when putting animals back in their cages
referring to inanimate objects as (s)he, particularly when i break something and say “oh no, he’s dead.” this concerns them especially when i follow it up with “that’s not ideal”
“what are they gonna do, fire me?”
I work in a blood bank, and constantly refer to blood types as flavors, such as “Oh, you need two units? What flavor is he?” And my older coworkers just look at me confused but my coworker that’s my age doesn’t miss a beat and responds “A Pos”
this is probably my favorite comment on this post so far
The most hilarious thing about the fact Buckbeak had a trial and lost is that later on JKR resolves the issue by having Hagrid take him in again and renaming him Witherwings. That’s literally all it took. What if in POA, Hagrid simply said, “Sorry, Buckbeak flew away.”
“There’s a hippogriff right there, Hagrid.”
“A different hipprogriff.”
“I’m… pretty sure that’s the same hipprogriff.”
“Prove it.”
no dna tests we die like scientifically underdeveloped societies
Prisoner of Azkaban continues to be the most frustrating book
Someone should have just adopted Sirius and started calling him Gerald.
Remus: Erm… this is our new order member, my… cousin Gerald. Gerald White.
“Mr. Lupin that is Sirius Black with glasses!” “Oh come now Minister, Sirius Black doesn’t wear glasses. That wouldn’t make sense.” “Well have Mr. White take off his glasses then!” “He can’t he needs them to see.”
it got better
It’s honestly a miracle to me that wizarding society doesn’t collapse every other week because like
You’ve got this world full of people who can destroy whole buildings or turn people into beetles or make vehicles fly just by waving a stick at them
And there is literally no common sense
Anywhere to be found
Voldemort would never have had anyone find out he was back if he just went around calling himself Steve
Okay, see, I thought I saved this post to comment on it but I’d like to bring up
The Minister would NEVER EVER disbelieve in Gerald White. He’d buy it hook line and sinker. The wizarding world would buy it hook line and sinker. The GOBLINS wouldn’t but wizards have been shown to be pretty blindingly clueless. Still, Gringotts would grudgingly give Sirius access to the Black fortune.
But, but, but, you know the one person
the one person
who Gerald White would drive AB-SO-LUTELY FUCKING BATSHIT?
Severus Snape.
Snape would do everything, EVERYTHING, to get people to believe that it’s Sirius. But the Order would ignore it (they accepted Sirius as Sirius before anyway) and Remus would just be so… so affronted.
‘Severus, he is my cousin.’
And Sirius would love it. He’d love the fact that Snape just hated it. He’d be the BEST DAMN GERALD WHITE EVER b/c Snape is doing everything from dropping veritaserum into his firewhisky to capturing a dementor in a box and releasing it on Sirius when he least expects it
That one causes problems for a bare minute because SHIT A DEMENTOR ATTEMPTED TO GIVE GERALD THE KISS MAYBE SNAPE IS RIGHT except Harry comes forward and is like ‘excuse me, I’ve never committed a crime and dementors are ALWAYS attacking me, I think they’re attracted to glasses’
and the magical community is like ‘shit, yeah, you’re right’
and just
Spare. Snape goes spare.
Picturing Snape as Mr. Crocker from the Fairly Oddparents now.
Gerald White eventually becomes a fully registered animagus. When he turns into his animagus form right in front of Snape, Snape’s bursting at the seams, just pointing at him and spluttering:
‘HE’S A BIG BLACK DOG! A DOG – THAT IS BLACK. SIRIUS BLACK. BLACK DOG DOG BLACK.’
And Remus calmly says: “That’s absurd, Severus. Sirius Black was never an animagus and besides which, people’s names don’t have any influence over their animagus forms or anything like that. That’s ridiculous.”
And Snape yells: “Shut it WEREWOLF MCWEREWOLF!”
Everyone looks at Remus, who blinks and sighs as Gerald White turns back into his human form.
“Pure coincidence,” Gerald says. “My aunt was into Roman mythology. Has to happen sometimes.” Then he pauses to give Snape an overly concerned look. “Are you alright, Severus? You’re looking a little red.”
“Most dangerous monster? Well, vampires are pretty easy–just carry pencils. Ghosts are mostly irritants, werewolves collapse at silver, and dragons keep to themselves… Naw, it’s one no one expects. It’s–”