Brick Joke/Film

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Animated

  • The stop-motion animation film A Town Called Panic plays it straight when Cowboy and Indian try to order 50 bricks to build a barbecue for their friend, Horse. They accidentally order 50 million bricks, and the day wears into evening as truck after truck deliver loads of bricks, until there is a pile as large as the house. Horse returns home to a brick-free yard, except for the newly constructed barbecue. His birthday party runs well into the night, and it is not until the lights are out at bedtime that we find out where the 49,999,950 other bricks have gone. They are neatly stacked on the roof, forming a cube larger than the house.
  • In the DreamWorks movie Megamind, snarky Damsel in Distress Roxanne complains early on that the titular villain's gimmicks are getting old, and he needs to make things more exciting. The thing is, Megamind has a habit of mispronouncing and misinterpreting words. So later in the movie, she opens a door in Megamind's lair marked "EXIT" to reveal a deep pit full of alligators, some random toys on the ground, and a disco ball hanging overhead. Not an "exiting" room, but an "exciting" room, as Megamind later explains.
  • In the 1994 Disney movie The Lion King, during Scar's little self-righteous speech at the beginning of the movie, Zazu casually comments about the villain lion that "He'd make a very handsome throw rug." 3 years later in the 1997 Disney movie |Hercules, a short clip of a stresses Herc shows him tossing a familiar lion's pelt onto the floor in frustration. One of the many shout outs to previous movies.
  • In The Emperor's New Groove, in the beginning of the movie, Yzma announces Kronk to "Pull the lever", and it sends her down a trap door into a moat with an alligator as she shouts, "WRONG LEVER!!". Then she angrily storms back in saying, "Why do we even HAVE that lever?" and smacking an alligator who was clinging to her. About 3/4ths of the way through the movie when Pacha and Kuzko walk back into the palace to enter Yzma's "Secret Lab". The first thing shown is a drenched Kuzko walking back in grumbling, "Why does she even HAVE that lever?"

Live-Action

  • In A Guy Thing, Paul gets beat up by Becky's ex-boyfriend. His fiance insists on calling the cops but Paul doesn't want to tell the truth so he gives them a completely ridiculous description. In the last scene of the movie Paul and Becky get into a cab and the driver matches Paul's description exactly.
    • Actually, this guy appeared in the police lineup earlier in the movie, soon after Paul gave the ridiculous description, but Paul said "It's not him."
  • In Airplane!, Stryker leaves a passenger behind in a cab to catch his plane in time. At the very very end, after all the plot has happened, the guy gets the girl, everybody is rejoicing and the credits have rolled, we cut back to his passenger, still in the cab: "Well, I'll give him another twenty minutes. But that's it." And the meter's running, too.
    • While the joke is lost on audiences today, the guy in the cab was Howard Jarvis, who pushed for California Proposition 13 in 1978, an initiative which made massive money saving cuts to public services.
  • In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the opening credits are botched, and the audience is told that the people responsible were sacked. At the end of the film, there are no closing credits, just a blank screen with music.
    • Another well-known example: Shortly after assembling, Arthur and his knights are spurned by a castle populated by Frenchmen. Their lord is uninterested in the search for the grail because "he's already got one". It turns out that this is where the grail was all along.
  • In another Rowan Atkinson project, Johnny English, gets two in one. Johnny invents an assailant to explain how the crown jewels got stolen. He uses things in the room as inspiration for his description, leading to an incredibly implausible appearance. At the end of the film he accidentally ejects Lorna from his car. Roll credits. Halfway through, Lorna lands in a hotel pool in the ejector seat. Sitting on the side of the pool is a man who matches the imaginary assailant's description perfectly.
  • In Spice World when a movie producer is pitching ideas about a movie involving the girls (intersperced with clips of the girls actually acting out what he says) he says "and that's when they find the bomb". The manager rejects that idea. During the end credits Mel C suddenly says "what happened to the bomb on the bus?" and it goes off.
  • In a Russo-Finnish film Jack Frost (later made into an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000), the superhumanly strong hero Ivan, when facing a band of thieves, throws a bunch of clubs into the air. Months later, when he wins the heart of Nastinka, he and his love are attacked by the same thieves. At which time the clubs fall down on the thieves' heads.
  • The King's Speech is filled with these, from the shilling that Bertie owes Lionel for much of the film to "When waiting for a king to apologize, one may wait a rather long time."
  • In She's All That the main plot is a bet between Zack and Dean to make Lanney the prom queen. When she finds out about this, the bet is forgotten. The second to last scene has Lanney asking what the bet's outcome was. We cut to graduation where Zack accepts his diploma stark naked.
  • Around the start of Cabin Fever, a store owner causes an awkward reaction when asked about a gun, saying only that it's "for niggers". At the end, three nig...black people (two men and a woman) are walking along, seemingly unaware that they're in the middle of Hicksville, Nowhere. The store owner frantically reaches for the gun...the visitors enter..then the store owner places the gun on the counter, greets the visitors and says "I got it all fixed up just like you wanted!"
  • The western spoof Support Your Local Sheriff starts with some pioneers burying a man named Millard Frymore. The funeral is permanently disrupted when gold is discovered in the grave. Later in the film, it's mentioned in passing that the resulting mine was named after Millard.
  • Who Framed Roger Rabbit?: Roger keeps blowing his lines, seeing tweeting birds instead of stars at the beginning of the film. Later, in Toon Town, Eddie Valiant gets brained and sees tweeting birds. And finally, during Roger's subverted Big Damn Heroes moment, he gets a pile of bricks dropped on him, causing him to see...

"Look, Raoul! Stars! Ready whenever you are!"

  • The Avengers: The second stinger has the group go to the shawarma place Tony recommended earlier in the movie. The shawarma place was nearly destroyed by the battle. No one speaks.
    • The Hulk getting a little payback on Thor after he uppercut the green giant with his hammer. As they take down a Leviathan at the Grand Street Station, Hulk lays a right hand straight across the God of Thunder's jaw and sends him flying off-screen. Hilarity Ensues.
    • And earlier in the film. Captain America tells Nick Fury that by that point, nothing could possibly surprise him, and Nick bets $10 that Cap's wrong. Several scenes later, after watching a carrier lift off out of the water, Cap hands Nick ten bucks without either saying a word.
  • Anger Management has the main character almost taking a seat between two fat passengers before Buddy offers him one. The air marshal that assaulted the main character with a tazer had taken that seat, shown at the end of the film.

Unsorted

  • In Accepted, when Bartleby is letting the students choose what they want to learn, one rather creepy looking guy states he would like to "learn how to blow s**t up with my mind." B tells him to write it on the board. Later during the school party montage, we see him trying (unsuccessfully) to blow up random objects. Then, at the end of the film, Harmon College's Dean is walking to his car, which mysteriously explodes. Cut to the creepy guy, who tells a stunned B: "I told you, dude..."
  • In The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, when the trio launches Priscilla, their going-away party drowns out a ceremony announcing a girl who plans to run across Australia. The girl shows up twice later in the film, once just after the bus takes a short cut, and again when she runs right past the group and takes no notice of them.
  • In the first Lord of the Rings movie, when Aragorn is helping the others jump a gap over a long fall, Gimli refuses his help because "No one tosses a dwarf!" In the second movie, during the siege at Helm's Deep, Gimli needs help jumping to attack some orcs. Reluctantly, he says to Aragorn "Toss me," and requests that Aragorn not tell Legolas.
  • In one of the first scenes of Lawrence of Arabia a man in a bowler hat comes out of Lawrence's funeral and takes offence at what he takes to be a disparaging remark. When asked if he knew Lawrence he replies that he did not know him, but "had the honour to shake his hand in Damascus." Three hours of film later, when Lawrence is in Damascus wearing his dishdasha and keffiyeh, the man in the bowler hat slaps him and calls him a "filthy little wog". A couple of scenes later when Lawrence walks out of a conference wearing his military uniform, the man grabs his hand and shakes it, saying, "Just want to be able to say I'd done it, sir." Lawrence asks if they have not met before, and the man denies it. "No, no, sir, I should remember that."
  • There is a shaggy dog in the first and second Pirates of the Caribbean movies who carries the keys to the Port Royal prison, but the dog is left behind and presumed eaten by cannibals on the island from which they rescue Jack in the second movie. And then in the third, the dog shows up again carrying the key to the Pirata Codex, which is explained away by Captain Teague as the work of sea turtles (which is another Brick Joke).
  • In the opening moments of Election, the high school's janitor witnesses Mr. McAllister (Matthew Broderick) absentmindedly dump a take-out box on the floor, leaving a mess. The janitor has no lines here (or anywhere else in the film), and isn't seen again until the climax - busting McAllister for fudging the results of the school election, apparently as revenge.
  • In Johnny English, the titular hero pretends to be involved in a fight. Later, he has to help the police produce a likeness of the assailant, so he makes up a description: the assailant was... um... big. His hair was... [quick glance at a bowl of fruit standing on the table] orange. And curly. Frizzy, actually. And he had an eye patch. Broken nose. Very few teeth, two at most. And a scar on his cheek in the shape of... [another glance at the bowl] a banana. Actually, he had scars on both cheeks. The two scars sort of met in the middle. The policeman then produces the likeness according to the description and shows it to English, who gasps in terror and assures the policeman that the likeness is perfect. At the very end of the movie, a guy with this exact visage is shown relaxing at a pool.
  • In Cars there's a minivan couple who wander into Radiator Springs looking for the interstate. In a scene after the closing credits, they are still lost, and the male van has apparently lost his mind as well.
  • The 1964 Russian/Finnish fantasy film Morozko, which was later spoofed in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (under the name "Jack Frost"), has such a trope. Towards the beginning of the film, the hero takes a pair of cudgels from some thugs, and tosses them so high into the air they disappear; he guesses they'll come down "next winter". At the end of the film (about a year later), when the hero and his new bride are attacked by the selfsame thugs, the cudgels fall out of the sky and bludgeon them.

Mike: Oh yeah, it's raining cinematic payoff...

    • Don't forget the British horror movie The Deadly Bees that MST3K also riffed. The movie opens with a couple of British government officials reading a letter about murderous bees. That plotline is completely abandoned for the next hour and a half of the movie. After the bad guy is dead, the girl survives and leaves the island, and the entire plot is resolved, you see the British official from the very first scene walking up to the house to check-up on the letter. This was actually a pretty clever bit in an otherwise awful movie, but the MST3K writers either forgot who the guy was (or pretended to forget) and acted pretty perplexed about the whole thing. Quite likely it was intentional forgetting, as the writers watch the films several times while writing the riffs. The goofy, whimsical score during this extremely brief coda doesn't help.
  • In Dude, Where's My Car?, a scene at the beginning of the film shows one of the main characters watching Animal Planet, showing monkeys using sticks as tools. Later on, when the main characters are trapped by a giant alien space babe, he uses a crazy straw to activate the mysterious super weapon by pressing a small button.
    • Similarly, they early wonder "Dude, did we get baked and buy a lifetime's supply of pudding?", which comes back as a way to prove who the good aliens are.
  • Muppet Treasure Island has Gonzo comment on how the Starfish in his pants feel awkward, after coming out of the water. Rizzo dismisses Gonzo as a freak. Later on in a fight scene, we see a pirate getting pinned to a the side of a wall, by shuriken starfish.
  • The 1972 Film of the Book The Day of the Jackal, of all things, used a Brick Joke. After conjecturing the main character's alias, the main characters chase down all twelve people in England with that name. At one point, they search an unoccupied apartment belonging to one of said people. After the main plot is wrapped up, that person, totally unaware of the plot, walks in and asks what the police are doing in his apartment.
    • This is in the original book as well, although not played for laughs.
  • Near the beginning of his 1973 film F for Fake, which is about truth and fakes, Orson Welles says:

"Ladies and gentleman, by way of introduction, this is a film about trickery, fraud, about lies. Tell it by the fireside or in a marketplace or in a movie, almost any story is almost certainly some kind of lie. But not this time. This is a promise. For the next hour, everything you hear from us is really true and based on solid fact."

    • Some time later, Welles reminds the audience of his pledge. "That hour, ladies and gentlemen, is over. For the past seventeen minutes, I've been lying my head off." The film is 85 minutes long.
  • "Just call us S.H.I.E.L.D."
  • Return Of The Killer Tomatoes: in the opening scenes, a main character tosses a pizza into the air, but plot intervenes before it returns to frame. Much later in the movie, in response to a comic call-out, the pizza dough returns from its hour long journey...
    • It's better than that. The film begins with a framing sequence that makes it look like part of one of those "watch the movie, learn the secret word, and win a contest if we call you" programs that used to be common in local TV markets. This is done so that they can pull of a Bait and Switch Credits gag. With the framing sequence "explained" by the gag, the viewer quickly forgets about it... until the end of the film, when the characters hope that something would distract Dr. Putrid T. Gangrene, and he receives the call from the movie contest framing sequence. The characters then lampshade how clever it was that they set up something in reel one, only to pay it off later. As they are congratulating themselves for cleverness, they are hit by the falling pizza dough, a double double-subversion of Chekhov's Gun.
  • Naked Gun 2 1/2: The sequence at the presidential dinner has a news reporter mentioning as a side-note that some animals have escaped from a zoo. At the end of the film, the villain falls out a window, miraculously survives a multi-story plunge to the sidewalk, only to get mauled by a lion.
    • This was set up much much earlier, since Frank Drebin was the one who released the animals in the first place, driving an armored car through a bad guy's house and knocking down the wall of the zoo.
      • Also sets up a brilliant exchange.

Commissioner: Do you realize that because of you this city is being overrun by baboons?
Drebin: Well, isn't that the fault of the voters? (Cymbal crash in the background.)

    • The first film had one as well; a minor villain is killed and falls into a vat at a meat plant. Much later on, the main villain is eating a hotdog at a baseball game and bites down on the mook's ring.
    • Also in the first film, Drebin stood in for the opera singer Enrico Pallazzo and butchered the national anthem. After saving the queen's life and revealing his face from behind the umpire mask he had on, a random fan yells out "Hey, it's Enrico Pallazzo!"
  • In the lesser-known Eight Legged Freaks with David Arquette and Scarlett Johansson, Scarlett's character gets handed a taser by the character's mom. Way later on in the film when they're looking for power to the generator, da da DAAH! The taser shows up again and powers the generator, and it also administers a painful surprise to a motorcyclist.
  • In Back to The Future Part II, it's shown that the Marty McFly of 2015 has ruined his life, but the issue is quickly superseded by the main plot. The problems with Marty's future are finally resolved in the next film.
    • Ah, but in the first Back to The Future, Doc tells Marty to join him on the parking of Twin Pines Mall for the test of the DeLorean Time Machine. When Marty escapes from the Libyans by inadvertently activating the time circuits, his first act is to drive over a pine. So, of course, when Marty goes back to the mall after managing to return to his own time, he runs past the mall sign... which proudly proclaims it to be the Lone Pine Mall.
    • A similar effect in the third movie: After saving Clara Clayton from falling into the ravine that later got named after her, Doc assures Marty that his actions won't matter, they will just name the place something else. After Marty, who goes by "Clint Eastwood", disappears from the timeline at the ravine, he is apparently presumed dead, and arrives in 1985 at Eastwood Ravine.
      • Also in the third film, do you remember when the bartender told Marty the only place to get water is the horse trough outside. When the passed-out Doc is given "Wake-up juice", he immediately wakes up, runs outside and dunks his head in the horse trough.
    • Back to The Future was filled with these. Didn't I hear Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen's name already? Of course I did, in the alternate 1985 in Part II.
      • This was also where Marty learned (from the film Biff was watching) how to dress to avoid getting shot (at the end of part III).
        • That's actually a Running Gag moment, complete with "A bulletproof vest!" And it's been running since the Libyan incident.
      • Also, in the first film, a throwaway line in the beginning revealed that Marty's parents met when Lorraine's father hit George with his car. Except it actually turns out to be a major plot point of the film.
    • Also, throughout the movies the Doc and Marty each have a catchphrase (which also doubles as a running joke): (Doc: "Great Scott" Marty: "This is heavy") and then in the third movie when the name on the gravestone in the photograph changes from the Doc's name to Marty's (technically his pseudonym as Clint Eastwood): and Marty and the Doc switch catchphrases.
  • Tropic Thunder features this with the whole, weird Tivo sub-plot. At the beginning of the movie, Matthew McConaughey's agent character goes on and on about getting Ben Stiller's character Tivo in some sort of joke about agents. At the end, with the actors in peril, up pops McConaughey, Tivo box in hand, to intercept a rocket and save them.
  • Black Dynamite. After a shootout that ruins his chili and donuts restaurant, Roscoe remarks that the odd combination wasn't working out anyway. Nearly an hour later, Creamed Corn scoffs at a waitress' ridiculous offer of chicken and waffles. Upon hearing this, Roscoe jumps up in the background, shouts "That's IT!" and runs out of the diner. For those who live outside of California / who don't watch Rhett and Link, "Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles" is a very nice regional chain in that area.
  • One montage in The Monster Squad briefly includes character Eugene writing a letter to the army, asking them to come quick, because there are monsters. At the end, after the monsters are all dead, the army show up. "Where are the monsters, Eugene?"
  • In Hot Fuzz, there's one member of the Neighborhood Watch Alliance (Edward Woodward, of the 1972 version of The Wicker Man) who we see reacting to his sabotaged security cameras, but he fails to make an appearance during the epic final battle. He decides to attack later, while the police force service is filling out all the paperwork related to the aforementioned battle.
    • Not to mention that scene ends with the accidental triggering and explosion of a huge sea mine that was shown and around the beginning of the movie, simply left alone where it was being held in the station's armory until that point in the movie, and had been presumed until the point to be a dud. All in all, an astounding pair of Brick Jokes to finish the climax on.
    • Don't forget about the swan... or the almost literal use of the term with the flying waste paper baskets throughout the movie.
    • Also regarding the swan, an earlier conversation had one of the Andys mentioning that a swan could break a man's arm in a seemingly throwaway line. At the end of the movie, Chief Butterman is caught because he crashed his car when the swan attacked him; when he's getting his mug shot taken, he visibly has a broken arm.
    • There's a ton of these in Hot Fuzz. The first third of the movie is mostly one continuous setup for brick jokes that all pay off at the end.
    • When Angel suspects that the accidents were in fact murders and that Skinner was the murderer, the Andys joked about starting the search of his clients starting from Aaron A. Aaronson. A redheaded boy that Angel comes across at the end of the high-speed chase is named Aaron Aaronson.
    • When Angel is talking to the Andys about unlicensed firearms in the country, one Andy tells him, "Everybody and their mum's packing 'round here." Angel asks who, specifically, and they repy, "Farmers." "Who else?" "Farmers' mums." Just before the major shoot-out in town, Angel encounters a farmer, who tries to shoot him. The farmer then shouts to his mum for help, and then she tries to shoot him.
    • During one of their early scenes, Danny asks Angel if he has ever done any of the things that his favorite action heroes do, such as "firing two guns whilst jumping through the air." During the final epic battle they do every single one of the things that Danny mentions.
  • In The Brothers Bloom a pair of traveling con artists, Brother 1 (Bloom) fakes his own death early on in the movie, but Brother 2 (Steven) mentions offhandedly that the illusion isn't perfect -- his shirt is soaked with bright red stage blood hours later, and the real stuff dries brown in about twenty minutes. It's left by the wayside until the very last scene of the film where Bloom notices what he assumed was stage blood drying brown. In a spur of the moment Plan, Stephen had convinced Bloom that his mafia-involvement-gone-wrong murder was really a masterpiece ploy to extort ransom money from Bloom's heiress girlfriend, allowing the two a heartrending-in-hindsight goodbye.
  • In Flubber, early on in the movie, a golf ball and a bowling ball is treated with the title substance, and then later in the movie knocks out a bad guy multiple times, with it shooting up into the sky afterwards each time. (He gets knocked out, wakes up a little while later, only to be knocked out by the flubberized ball crashing down from the sky on him again.)
  • Lampshaded in Fight Club. The movie opens with Tyler holding a gun in the Narrator's mouth, and he asks him if he has anything to say.

Narrator: I can't think of anything.
* The whole plot happens, leading back to the opening scene.*
Narrator: I still can't think of anything.
Tyler: Ah, flashback humor.

    • And arguably at the very end of the film before the ending credits, where Tyler Durden's projectionist job rears its ugly head.
  • In Night at the Museum 2, Larry leaves his cell phone inside an old painting. He has a corporate executive with his son on the other line, yet nobody ever speaks of it again. Until the end credits, where it turns out the Motorola guy had a Eureka moment with it.
  • In the 2009 film The Hangover, the mattress impaled on the facade of the hotel turns out to be one of these.
    • The entire plot of The Hangover is centered around resolving a long string of Brick Jokes.
  • A rather dirty one in Austin Powers. Early in the movie, Austin is recollecting his belongings, one of which is a "Swedish-made penis enlarger". Austin denies that it's his and the many attempts to prove that it is as part of an Overly Long Gag. Then, later, Austin finds it again as part of a How Did That Get in There? joke. Finally, it comes back into play at the very end of the movie, when Austin uses it to defeat one of Dr. Evil's minions. Crazy, I know.
    • A crazier example can be found in that series. In the first movie, Austin is talking about the only two things that scare him: Nuclear War and Carnies. He describes carnies as having small hands and smelling like cabbage. It's a relatively small throwaway joke, and it's not mentioned again until two movies later when Nigel Powers is on Dr. Evil's sub and turns around to see Mini-me standing behind him. His comment? "Blimey, I thought I smelt cabbage". It's a brick joke spanning 3 movies and five years.
  • In the first Hellboy film, during the expedition into the Russian mausoleum, Director Manning stays behind in a safe room while Hellboy scouts ahead. Hellboy, Liz Sherman, and John Meyers all get captured by Rasputin. They stop Raz from causing the end of the world and the movie ends. Halfway through the credits, we cut back to Director Manning, trying to reach the others on his radio: "Uh, guys, I'm still here."
  • In Idiocracy, after Joe (Luke Wilson) spends the whole movie calming Rita (Maya Rudolph) down and finally convinces her that she is safe from her "boyfriend" Upgrayedd, Upgrayedd emerges from one of the Army pods and walks off in search of her.
  • At the beginning of The Dead Gentleman Production's movie Demon Hunters,there is this whole gag about their sponsor, Cobler's Crystals. Then the movie continues and you pretty much forget about them until about 3/4 of the way through the movie where they replace the demon killing mint in the Silent Jim's squirt gun with Coblers Crystals Coffee to "see if he notices." He does.
  • Monty Python's The Meaning of Life has a sketch which is interrupted by "an attack by the supporting feature" (The Crimson Permanent Assurance, a short Terry Gilliam film which preceded the main feature in theaters).
    • The debate about swallows, and the killing of the Famous Historian, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
      • The swallow debate actually drops TWICE. Once in the introduction of "Scene 24", and then again very late in the movie at the Bridge of Death.
        • It drops FIVE times actually. Err, I mean three. It's easy to miss, but when we first see Sir Bedivere he's holding a bird that's tied to a coconut.
    • In The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, more specifically the track "The Story of the Film So Far", it starts off with a synopsis for a completely different film.

Doug and Bob are metropolitan policemen with a difference. Doug likes nothing more than slipping into little cocktail frocks, while Bob bouffants his hair for a night "on duty". Still, as they aren't in this film, we won't give their last names.

Meanwhile, Harold and Victor Medway III discover a newfound love for each other in a flashback near Devon, where they meet up with Doug and Bob, the metropolitan policemen who suprisingly turn out to be in this film after all, who kill everyone, and live happily ever after.

  • Near the beginning of Legally Blonde 2, Paulette comments that Elle's outfit "makes me want a hot dog real bad." In her part of the Where Are They Now? Epilogue, she "finally got her hot dog."
  • In an early scene in Nine to Five, Violet is shown installing a garage door opener while bitching about her boss to her teenage son. Much later in the movie, the three main characters bind their boss in an intricate contraption to stop him from escaping. When he attempts to attack one of the women, she quickly grabs a remote and pushes a button... causing him to be yanked back by the garage door opener he's been tied to.
  • The scene in The Breakfast Club when the Basket Case opens her sandwich and flings the miscellaneous lunch meat at the library's objet d'art, where it sticks, is picked up in Not Another Teen Movie (made 17 years later): in a scene using the same set, there is an abrupt cut to a slice of miscellaneous lunch meat peeling from the art. The lunch meat has aged appropriately.
    • Although, in the original film, the meat is actually shown falling off the art.
  • In The Pink Panther 2006 remake Clouseau dislodges a large metal globe from his office. It rolls out of the building, causing several bikers to crash. About a third of the way into the movie after Clouseau disrupts another biker with his car. The man gets up and starts to yell at Clouseau only to be hit by that same globe.
  • The Blind Side ends with Leigh Anne attributing Michael's good fortune to God and Lawrence Taylor. Who? The man who made left tackle the second most highly paid position in American football, as she explained in the opening narration two hours previously.
    • In the book, the author goes into detail about how Lawrence Taylor was such a physical freak, he kept defeating the left tackles he faced and sacking the quarterback from behind (since most QBs are right handed, the left is his blind side). Correspondingly, as coaches recognized the importance and difficulty of the left tackle position, they chose better athletes to play it and spent more time and money finding, training, and paying them.
  • The Boondock Saints: an iron that Rocco picks up while packing his apartment - which appears to be a item chosen at random for comic effect - turns up later to be used to treat the wounds they sustain in their shootout with Il Duce.
  • In the Adam Sandler film Mr. Deeds, the eponymous Deeds inherits a vast fortune when an old billionaire with no family dies. Two businessmen come to his pizzeria to tell him what happened, to find Deeds distracted by the restaurant's patrons, who are waiting to hear his latest attempt at a greeting card. A cop calls out to him, "Hey Deeds! Read the card already. I gotta get back on duty." After this, the businessmen finally get to explain to Deeds all about his rich uncle and his newfound fortune. Deeds's reaction:

Deeds: * incredulous* Wait a minute.

  • turns back to the cop*

Deeds: What are you talking about you gotta get back on duty? You're not a cop.
"Cop": Yeah, you're right. I got this down at a costume shop, but it can't hurt to pretend.

  • In another Adam Sandler flick, Big Daddy, the protagonist's girlfriend at the start of the film (who functions as the Alpha Bitch), abruptly breaks off her relationship with the hero and cheats on him with a much older man; she believes that he can provide her with greater financial security. When Sonny (the hero) finds out what she has done, he is thoroughly disgusted and tries to forget he ever knew her. The movie's plot then progresses to Sonny raising a foster son, getting a new girlfriend, being sued in court, etc., and the ex-girlfriend is barely mentioned for almost the rest of the movie. Then, in an epilogue taking place over a year after the movie's climax, Sonny is taken to a Hooter's restaurant for his birthday....and is surprised to discover the long-forgotten ex working as one of the demeaningly attired waitresses. Turns out, the old guy she'd assumed was so successful was actually a cook at the restaurant.
  • In Billy Madison, during the field trip bus ride to the farm, the bus driver (Chris Farley) throws a Banana Peel out the window and onto the highway. Later, we see it slowly rot until near the end of the film when a car driven by the Jerkass O'Doyle family veers off course after going over the peel and plunges over a cliff.
    • And the clown who toppled over earlier gets up much later during a musical: "Hey, kids, it's me! I bet you thought that I was dead! But when I fell over I just broke my leg and got a hemorrhage in my head!"
  • In Being There, at one point, as Chance wanders the streets of Washington, D.C. he is mistaken by a street gang as a messenger for a rival gang, and the leader (who is black) gives him a message to relay back to "Raphael". Chance says he will do so. Hours later in-story, as Chance is being treated by a black doctor at the Rand estate, he asks him if he knows Raphael, "because I have a message for him." So it's already a brick joke, but as scripted, Chance was to recount the message to the doctors, slang and all. Alas, Peter Sellers could not do so without cracking up. In the end, director Hal Ashby ran the Hilarious Outtakes of Sellers' attempts to pull it off under the film's end credits, which makes this even more of a brick joke than it would have been had things gone right.
  • In Home Alone, Kevin climbs the shelves to take his brother, Buzz's life savings. His weight broke the shelves, fell down and leaving Buzz's room a mess. The film ends with Buzz yelling, "Kevin! What did you do to my room?!"
    • Also, Buzz's tarantula escapes and late in the film, it helped Kevin to scare off one of the bandits.
    • And then they do it again in the sequel: For much of the second act, Kevin stays in a New York hotel room on his dad's credit card. The film's last line is Dad yelling "You charged $967 in room service??!!!"
  • The entire first half of Hoodwinked consists of a long string of these, as each protagonist tells their side of the story; each explains what some bizarre detail from a previous telling was all about.
  • In Avatar, the height difference between the humans and Na'vi is sort of a Brick Joke. We see it in a very dramatic fashion when Jake first controls his avatar, but after that we tend to forget about it since there isn't much direct interaction between humans and Na'vi. Then, at the end of the film, Neytiri finds human Jake in the damaged link shack and saves his life, and we're suddenly reminded that the Na'vi are much taller than humans.
    • There's actually another one shortly before that, when Tsu'tey jumps into the back of the shuttle and begins killing soldiers, and he swats them away like ragdolls.
  • In Lilo and Stitch, at the beginning of the movie it is revealed that the galactic council cannot destroy the Earth to eradicate Stitch, or disrupt it in any way, because it was a wildlife preserve for the endangered mosquito, an apparent joke about which lifeforms on Earth the aliens found to be valuable. Midway through the movie, the mosquito scientist of the council while on Earth gets bitten by numerous mosquitoes. This seems like it would be the end of it, but at the end of the movie Cobra Bubbles reveals that he had once saved the Earth by convincing the aliens that mosquitoes are an endangered species.
  • In District 9, when Wikus is being forced to test Prawn weaponry on a Prawn target, he begs to be given a pig to shoot instead. In the climax, Wikus ends up putting on a suit of Powered Armor and taking on MNU mercenaries- during which he picks up a pig with the Mech's gravity gun and shoots it at one of them!
  • Pulp Fiction: "Everybody be cool, this is a robbery!" -- left hanging in the air just before the opening credits, and lands with a boom near the end.
    • This is done so well it's almost qualifies for containing this film's only Wham! Line. We hear Tim Roth yell "Garcon, Coffee!" in the first scene, which seems incidental, and then two and a half hours of absolute craziness ensues and the audience forgets. The Wham! Line comes when we arrive back into the diner in the final scene, and we jump cut to Tim Roth yelling "Garcon, Coffee!". This time, the line feels like a punch in the gut, because we realize where we are, and shit is about to get real.
  • Go (1999) is full of these, as the overlapping plotlines keep linking together in unforeseen ways.
  • Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy has an incredibly delayed punchline. In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (novel, 1980), a religion is set up that involved the Great Green Arkleseizure having sneezed out the universe. At the time, it was British humor - just left out there on its own. In The Film of the Book (2005) this is revisited... and brought to a punchline with a religious service that culminates with the preacher intoning, "Bless you."
  • Spice World: What happened to the bomb on the bus?!
  • In the 1980s comedy Summer School, a student in Mr. Shoop's class claims he was forced into summer school due to a computer error. A little later, he asks for a bathroom pass and is never seen or mentioned again until the end of the film. When he returns for the final exam, Shoop asks him where he's been. He returns the pass and replies nonchalantly, "Bathroom." He gets the highest grade on the exam, so he was apparently justified in skipping summer school.
  • A particularly dark example occurs in Fallen. At the beginning, the narrator -- who you assume to be Denzel Washington's character -- casually says he'll tell the story of the time he almost died. Then you see him battle with, and seemingly triumph against, a body-possessing demon with a brilliant Plan, dying in the process but apparently taking the demon with him... until you're reminded by the narrator that this is the story of the time he almost died -- turns out the narrator was the demon all along, and it's Not Quite Dead.
  • Lampshaded in the 1920 Gloria Swanson comedy Why Change Your Wife? Near the end, an intertitle reads "If this were fiction, a convenient device would come in and solve everything. ... It's usually a brick or a banana peel that changes a man's destiny." Several minutes later, a brick drops on the husband's head, starting the chain of events that reunites him and his wife.
    • This might just be the Trope Namer...
  • Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 ends with the main characters discovering via radio that a full-scale Zombie Apocalypse has hit New York City, due to the original Zombie Infectee from the beginning of the movie.
  • At the end of Mallrats, we get a Where Are They Now montage which shows Jay and Silent Bob with a monkey. This is not addressed or explained until three films later, when they rescue a lab monkey in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
  • Cabin Fever uses a example that plays on both black and white stereotypes. In the small country store, when asked what his gun is for, the Colonel Sanders-looking owner explains it's for 'niggers', to the shocked reactions of the city folks at his open racism. Later on in the movie, we see the owner hanging with his black friends whom he affectionately calls 'my niggers' as they come to collect the guns he was holding for them.
  • Although usually common for 80s action flicks to start out with a flashback where a criminal or terrorist gets away and becomes the Big Bad, an unusual variation takes place in the Gary Busey movie Bulletproof, where McBain as a police officer gets stuck in a hostage situation and the bad guy shoots through the hostage which gets McBain in trouble, touching off the events of the film. You would expect him to be amongst the South American revolutionaries or the Muslim radicals helping them, but he never reappears...Until a Russian HIND is shown enroute to land some Russian tankers who are there to take the supertank back to the motherland. As with most brick jokes, the Chekhov is a throwaway radio conversation. The passage of time was very kind to him, as the common street thug is now a major in the glorious Red Army. He technically isn't the Big Bad either (some nebulous guy we never meet in Russian intelligence who set it all up) since he's just there to take the tank. Also a But for Me It Was Tuesday moment. And then a show-off that of course is a callback to the initial hostage situation.
  • Throughout Stranger Than Fiction, there are a few things that pop up, on screen or in mention, a number of times: the black woman, the child with his bike, and Harold's wristwatch. It isn't until the end, however, that we discover that these three things are all part of Harold's fate: the small child falls off his bike, Harold saves him, is hit by a bus driven by the black woman (fresh on the job), and is saved because of his wristwatch. It's nothing short of poignant.
  • In Toy Story 3, in the junkyard, towards the end, the 3 Pizza Planet toys get shoveled off the screen by a bulldozer and are (presumably) presumed to be lost forever within a few moments. Later, when the other toys seem to be doomed to die in an inferno, the Pizza Planet toys save them with "the Claaawwwww!" (a junkyard crane with a claw on the end).
    • Given that the setup for that joke happened two movies and fifteen years previously, this could be a great Trope Codifier.
    • Don't forget about Sarge and his men parachuting out of the window near the start of the film, only for them to land in Sunnyside at the end of the film!
    • Back in the first installment Rex states he wanted a herbivore dinosaur friend to play around with. One finally appeared in the third movie.
    • Also I believe Word of God stated that the guy driving the dump truck is Sid from the first movie.
  • The heavily Monty Python inspired Norwegian movie Noe helt annet (something entirely different) opens in typical Python fashion as a feature about the Baker Guild and their imminent anniversary. We see a giant cream pie getting prepared for the anniversary party and flown by helicopter across the city to the party site. Near the end of the flight the camera zooms in dramatically to show that the carrying straps are starting to fray. Then the film "breaks", and after a short discussion the projectionists decide to put on "something entirely different", and the main movie starts. At the end the hero does yet another repeat of the running gag "I never wanted to be (what I am), I wanted to be something different", this time concluding that he always wanted to be a comedian. We then see him living out his fantasy, standing on an outdoor stage telling jokes until interrupted by the sound of a helicopter. He looks up - and gets hit by a giant cream pie. (To round it off, the closing credits include the recipe for the pie.)
  • Despicable Me has the Minion with the anti-gravity formula. Again. And again.
    • Then there's the scene where Gru sweet-talks Miss Hattie in Spanish (which she doesn't speak), telling her she has a face "como un burro". Later, when she shows up to take back the girls, she mentions that she bought a Spanish dictionary! She slaps Gru in the face.
  • Don't Tell Mom the Babysitters Dead: After the babysitter, Mrs. Sturak, dies in her sleep, the kids put her body in a travel case and drop it off at the morgue. She's only briefly mentioned a few times afterwards (when the kids' mother calls for Mrs. Sturak, they make up excuses for her absence), and her Buick is soon stolen by drag queens. The film ends with the kids' mother asking, "Where is the babysitter?"
  • In the original Dawn of the Dead, Roger loses his gun to a random zombie/ghoul on their first run through the mall. At the end of the movie, what does Peter run into? A zombie carrying a gun.
  • At one point in the mockumentary Never Been Thawed, Shawn shows off his collection of frozen food entrees. He points out that while the rest of his collection are in special freezers throughout his house, the most prized piece of his collection is just in the small freezer among food that's actually meant to be consumed, since anyone breaking in to steal his valuable entrees wouldn't think to look there. In The Stinger, his brother pulls it out of the freezer, presumably to eat it.
  • In Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, near the beginning Roger's director berates him for producing Circling Birdies instead of stars after a blow to the head. Near the end, Roger gets hit by a literal ton of bricks, and sees stars as he crawls from the wreckage. The first words out of his mouth after this are "Look, stars! Ready when you are, Raoul!"
    • After Benny the cab helps Eddie and Roger escape from the weasels, he tells them "If you should ever need a ride, just stick out yer thumb!" Later still, Eddie and Jessica need a quick get-away from the Toon Patrol while in Toontown, and Eddie gestures with his thumb while they argue over which way to go... which prompts Benny to show up and offer them a ride out of town.
  • Early in Easy A, the protagonist Olive narrates that, somehow, what you're reading in class always has some relevance to your real life, with respect to The Scarlet Letter. "Except," she says, "for Huckleberry Finn. I don't know anyone who's run away with a hulking black man." Sure enough, however, when near the end of the film she is told that Brandon has "run away with a hulking black man," she says "Apologies to Mark Twain."
  • At the start of Support Your Local Sheriff, some Western pioneers are burying a man named Millard Frymore. Gold is discovered in the grave, leading to an all-out brawl. Later in the film, it's mentioned in passing that the resulting gold mine was named after Millard.
  • Near the beginning of Sherlock Holmes, Holmes hides his face when the photographers takes a picture. Later when he is shown the newspaper with the headline that he is wanted by the police he comments wryly that there is no picture to identify him.
  • In Professor Layton and The Eternal Diva, Amelia makes a remark about how her Grandfather only has a month to live. Then, during the credits you see her, Layton, and Luke all standing by a new grave with flowers on it.
  • In The Running Man, Killian tells his bodyguard Sven to remove Captain Freedom. When Sven doesn't act immediately Killian says sarcastically "Steroids make you deaf?" Near the end Killian is confronted by an angry Ben Richards.

Killian: Sven, do you wanna talk to Mr. Richards? [pause] Well?
Sven: I've got to score some steroids. [turns and leaves Killian to Richards]

  • Early in Beetlejuice, the newly dead find themselves in the afterlife waiting room. Among all the things there waiting with a number for their turn at service is a man with a shrunken head. Near the end of the film, the re-deceased Beetlejuice finds himself in the room, with an astronomically high number. He sits down between the shrunken-headed man and another with a low number, and attempts to switch the numbers. The other man, annoyed, sprinkles some dust on Beetlejuice's head, shrinking it down just like shrunken-head's.
  • In the Scary Movie series, the first movie has the first victim die by being hit by a car and being launched in the air, and then ends with the sole survivor screaming in the street and getting hit by a car and launched into the air, and then the survivor has it happen again in Scary Movie 2 although the butler is also hit.
  • Wild Wild West. Jim West and Dr. Loveless have an Overly Long Gag where they use Volleying Insults toward each other. Near the end of the film they meet again for the last time and get in one more set of insults.
  • Early in the Australian horror film Primal, Mel, having playfully called her (male) friend a "cunt", apologizes to another friend for using the word in front of her. The friend(Anja)'s reply, "It's not that I don't like it, Mel... It's about context." prompts Mel to start teasing her about it in an effort to get her to demonstrate the word's proper context, but she never gets an answer. At the end, Anja finally uses the word-- as a Bond One-Liner after killing Mel, who had turned into a monster and killed or infected all of their other friends.
  • In Starship Troopers Drill Instructor Zim is told that he'd have to "bust himself down to private" to see any action in the war. At the end of the movie we find out the person to capture the brain bug is Private Zim.
  • In Star Trek Generations:

Data: I get it! "The clown can stay, but the Ferengi in the gorilla suit has to leave!" I get it!
Geordi: Data, what do you get?
Data: The Farpoint mission! You told a joke; that was the punchline!
Geordi: The Farpoint mission? Data, that was seven years ago.
Data: I know! I just got it! Very funny!

  • In the 1994 animated Disney movie The Lion King, Timon actually tells Simba that stars are actually fireflies that were trapped in the night sky, while Pumbaa actually tells him about a more scientific explanation about what stars are. Several movies later, at the end of the 2009 animated Disney movie The Princess and the Frog, a firefly dies... ...and is reincarnated as a star in the sky.
  • In the first Superman film staring Reeve, he was being interviewed by Lois on the balcony of her apartment. In regards to his x-ray vision, she off-handedly asks him what color her underwear was, but he says he couldn't tell because the planters she happens to be standing behind apparently had a high lead content. A few moments later, while talking about other subjects, she steps away, only for him to suddenly say "Pink." Cue her suddenly dashing back to having the planters between them.
  • In Dracula: Dead and Loving It, both Dracula and Van Helsing get into an argument and start throwing foreign insults at each other in an attempt to have the last word. After Dracula wins, the movie continues; the protagonists discover Dracula is a vampire, they devise a plan to trap him, and eventually kill him. Then just before the credits roll, Van Helsing turns to the pile of ash that was once Dracula and says his final insult, thus getting the last word in their little argument!
    • But if you wait till after the credits, you can hear Dracula retaliate. "That man, he never gies up!"
  • Done throughout the Spanish time-travel thriller Timecrimes. For example, after the protagonist realizes that he was being chased by his future self all along, he soon discovers that certain key parts of the past (such as when the man in bandages turns and looks back at him from a distance), were either unplanned or guessed at.
  • At the beginning of No Way Out, Kevin Costner is being interviewed by two men. Before the movie begins the flashback sequence that takes up most of the movie, he looks at a mirror and asks, "When's he coming out from behind there?" At the end of the movie, we return to Costner being questioned by those men, and we find out who's behind the two-way mirror - Costner is really a Russian mole, and the man behind the mirror is Costner's landlord, who turns out to be his handler. Not only that, in another one earlier in the film, Costner and a friend of his are in Manilla when a kid offers to carry his bag; he ends up stealing the bag, and the friend gives chase, but Costner stops him by pointing out there's nothing in the bag except some underwear. At the end, Costner's handler says to him, "When you passed that bag of underwear in Manila, Moscow was not amused."
  • In Mystery Team, Duncan mentions that Mrs. Kimmel makes soap-filled pies for her dead husband. In a later scene, Jason explains away the soap in his ear by saying she thinks they're married.
  • In the first Harry Potter film, Harry accidentally lets a Chocolate Frog escape out the window of the Hogwarts Express. At the end of the eighth film, when Harry's children are boarding the Hogwarts Express, the frog jumps back in.
  • In Blade II, the eponymous Blade shoots a vampire with a normal round and makes him lead him to his objective. When things get particularly hairy Blade is forced to leave his hostage, saying "I'll get you later" before he proceeds to chase his new targets. We don't see him again until the very end of the film, after everything has been resolved. The hostage is going to see a peep show and is very excited about it. He goes into the room, the curtain raises... only to reveal Blade. Blade responds, "What, you didn't think I forgot about you did ya?"
  • In Galaxy Quest, the crew dupes two of the aliens holding them hostage by sealing them in an enclosed space, then depressurizing the room and venting them into space. Several scenes later, as General Sarris talks to his lieutenant, one of the two creatures airlocked hits the front window before sliding off, prompting an angered reaction from the crew. This is Played for Laughs.
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