First up, we’re going to talk about character jokes.
And what I mean is that these jokes are jokes that are only funny because of the personality
of the character telling the joke.
As an audience, we find them funny because they’re so on-brand for that character,
and because the actor or actress for that role is so great at portraying that character.
Jake Peralta is a perfect example of this.
He’s essentially the main character of the show and a lot of the jokes are built around
Andy Samberg’s comedic talent and hilarious facial expressions.
“Say it, say my favorite movie is Failure To Launch.”
“My favorite movie is failure to launch.”
“I wish I could believe you.”
“That’s okay, I can run too.
Ohh, half-and-half just met the gasoline.
They are not mixing well.”
[Panting]
Jake’s character is immature, stubborn, and headstrong, but also brave,
kind-hearted, and selfless.
A lot of his jokes revolve around his inability to function like a normal adult.
“What I was referring to was the fact that your mom brought her own hand towels?
As if my mom wouldn’t have washed hers knowing they had guests coming over?”
“Did she?”
“No! You don’t have to!
They’re only touched by freshly-cleaned hands, they never get dirty!”
“Wow.”
Or his childish drive to be an action hero like the character from his favorite movie, Die Hard.
“It’s perfectly safe.
See you in hell, kiddo.”
“What?”
“Yippee ki yay -- bars bars bars!”
“Ooohh, are there bars on the window?”
“Yeah, there are bars on the window.”
And these jokes work because they’re well established as a part of who Jake is.
You know that when he has the chance to do some ridiculous Die Hard thing, that he’s
going to do it, and it’ll be funny.
And you know that he’s not great at adulting and will make mistakes that are hilarious
and clash with the people around him.
“Well, I hope you like sharing my one grey towel.”
“Was it grey when you bought it?”
“I didn’t buy it!
It was in the apartment when I moved in!”
Amy Santiago is the exact opposite: very mature, organized, professional, but also awkward and anxious.
“What are you up to?”
“Just jammin’.
Jam on, jam on.”
“Okay, nevermind. Peralta, come into my office please.”
“Sorry, babe, you blew it.”
“Do you think it was the jam on thing?”
“Yeah, I think it was the jam on thing.”
Her jokes usually come from her being a huge nerd or from her failing to communicate well
with people, and again, it’s funny because you expect that from her.
You shake your head and laugh go, “Oh, typical Amy.”
Brooklyn Nine-Nine can make you feel like you really know these characters and you relate
to them through their humor.
“I was President of the stenographers club in High School for a reason.”
“Was the reason because you were the only member?”
“Yes.”
Captain Raymond Holt is probably my favorite character on the show.
His deadpan expressions combined with his intense passion for certain things leads to
all kinds of hilarity.
“I was also a model train enthusiast as a child.
Those miniature tracks provided me with some of my happiest memories.”
“All aboard, the train will be departing in 45 minutes.”
[Clock ticking]
Lots of his jokes involve simply being in ridiculous situations because
of the contrast with his emotionless demeanor.
Watch, as I do a dance, to your name.
D-d-d-d-d-derek.
D-d-d-d-d-derek.”
Everyone’s type of humor is different and everyone’s going to have a different favorite
character, but these jokes kill me every time.
It’s just so pure to see someone usually so uptight be regularly confronted by situations
that force him to loosen up.
[Yelling in slow motion] “Ah, I can’t stop!”
[Elevator dings]
“The full bullpen!”
Rosa Diaz is by far the coolest of any of the characters on the show.
She’s aggressive and secretive, but also fiercely protective of her friends.
“So what’re you gonna do, slash his tires?
You shouldn’t do that.
But just out of curiosity, what kind of car does he drive and where does he park it?”
Plus, Stephanie Beatriz is an incredible actress who can do so many flawless different voices.
“So, Nikki, I always wanted to get my haircut here.
Everyone says you’re the best.”
Rosa, as the quiet, angry one, doesn’t have as many jokes, per se, as the rest of the cast.
But she makes a great foil for all of them.
“You dosed my water?”
“You just drank 960 cups of coffee.”
“Oh, that esprains why I no talk butter.
Me having stirk?”
“Ha ha, good luck solving that case.”
The jokes she does get tend to be based around either how badass she is.
“Are they gonna be looking in our desks?
Also, unrelated, someone left a bunch of swords in my desk.”
Or how she’s actually softer that most of them realize.
“March 12th, still not sure where Rosa was.”
“And you never will be.”
“Okay reminder, privacy is cool but if you don’t tell us, we’re gonna go to jail
for a very long time.”
“Fine, I was at a La La Land sing-a-long.”
“Really??”
“Enough, just move on to the next prong.”
“Yeah.”
Gina Linetti, often referred to as the human form of the 100 emoji, is confident, talented,
and quite the prankster.
[Coughing] “What is that??”
“Cement!
You just drank cement!”
Her jokes tend to come from how over-the-top her character is because of her flare for the dramatic.
“You are on fire, Gina, you do not have the upperhand in this situation!”
“I always have the upperhand.”
“Not when there’s flames shooting out of your butt!”
“Especially when there’s flames shooting out of my butt!”
Charles Boyle is Jake’s best friend, and his jokes tend to come from his love for unusual foods.
“Warning, it will delicious and highly erotic.”
“Your menu is not gonna involve animal genitalia, is it?”
“No I was gonna make… not that.”
His eccentric genuineness.
“I’ve never been a bad influence on anyone.
Should I bring my leather jacket?
It’s ankle length and fitted.
I won’t bring it, it’s too nice.”
And his ability to turn anything into a sexual innuendo.
“I told you, Jake, I’ll do anything to perk up my little man.”
“You've gotta know how gross that sounds in your underwear.”
As a character, he’s loyal and compassionate, but will often let people walk all over him.
You know that in any scene he’s in, he’ll manage to keep the conversation interesting.
“And also hence, we’re gonna drive around in the coolest undercover car on the impound lot.”
“Herbie from Herbie Fully Loaded!”
“What? No. You really think Herbie Fully Loaded was on the impound lot?”
“Without a doubt!”
And lastly, Terry Jeffords.
He’s a loving, emotional father, super strong, and loves yogurt.
“The Vulture’s the worst.
My mango yogurt--”
“Yes, you already mentioned the yogurt.”
“‘Cause it’s important!”
His jokes tend to revolve around how much stronger he is than everyone else, how passionate
he is, or how fun-loving he is, which leads to some phenomenal interactions with other characters.
“This is a direct order: Stop, dancing.”
[Sound of pecs moving against glasses]
The next category after characters is a very simple one, it’s what I’m going to call: crude jokes.
That’s the kind of thing that’s funny just because it (or its subtext) are about
something not generally discussed so casually in public, like poop or sex basically.
“You left me to do everything while I thought you were pooping.
I wish you were pooping, I wish to god!”
“But I only did it because I wanted you to enjoy it!”
“That ruins it.
I mean, it’s supposed to be good for both of us.”
“It was good!
Just because I didn’t get angry doesn’t mean I didn’t get anything out of it.”
“Yeah, but the whole point is for you to get, angry.
After that, we have the category of simply funny situations.
That’s when the characters manage to get themselves into a situation that is just weird
and unusual, which the audience finds funny because normally these characters exist in
a world very similar to our own where you wouldn’t expect that kind of stuff to happen.
“Okay, the tree has been contained.”
“Wait, we left a man behind.”
[Muffled noise of Terry trying to talk]
“Well, Terry’s trapped in the break room forever.
Only thing we can do now is move on with our lives, it’s what Terry would’ve wanted.”
[Crashing, glass breaking]
Next, we have a very broad category that actually has a lot of overlap with pretty much every other category.
It’s called: defying expectations.
This is the basis of so many jokes, not just in Brooklyn Nine-Nine but like, in everywhere else too.
People generally find it really funny when they think they know where a sentence or situation
is going, and then suddenly it takes a turn and surprises them with unexpected information.
For an example, here’s probably my favorite joke in this entire series.
“The first time I met Kevin's parents, I called Brahm's ‘Funf Gesange’ opus 106...
when it is, obviously, opus 104.
They haven't spoken to me since.”
“Really? Just for that?”
“Yes.
Also because they're huge homophobes who think that I made Kevin gay with my magic genitalia.”
See, it defies your expectations and it’s funny, because you think it’s going one
way and then suddenly it swerves another way.
Like I said, these aren’t distinct categories.
You could easily have crude jokes that also defy expectations, and the basis of the funny
situation jokes is that they’re defying our expectations for what happens in a normal world.
These categories are just rough estimates of how you could try sorting the jokes in
Brooklyn Nine-Nine and I think this category would kind of get the leftovers that didn’t
fit neatly into any of the other categories.
“Well, listen, we need your help.”
“Great, who are we killing?
I won’t do kids. That’s a rule.
But, that rule is negotiable if the kid’s a dick.”
“No babe, we don’t want you to kill anyone.”
“What, really?”
The next category is pretty niche and there are only a few jokes made about it throughout
the course of the series, but I still thought it deserved its own category simply because
of how refreshing it was.
This category I’m calling the Positive Relationship jokes.
When it comes to relationships in comedies, they tend to be handled one of two ways.
Either there’s a lot of “ugh I’m going to be ‘tied down’ now” kind of jokes,
or the show takes on a more serious tone around the relationship.
Now, Brooklyn Nine-Nine definitely takes on a more serious tone at times in regards to
Jake and Amy’s relationship, but it never stoops to the level of having Jake complain about
his relationship for laughs, like so many other shows would do.
In fact, it does the opposite.
Jake is made better by his relationship, and the show makes that funny, either by laughing
at how inept he used to be.
“You think that because you love me, and love has made you dumb.”
“I disagree. If anything, love has made me smarter. Remember last week, when I boiled that egg?”
“That was big, I was really proud of you.”
Or by showing how silly and excited the two of them get together when they take an interest
in each other’s interests.
“I guess you could say, he’s the Golden Snitch.”
“Wait, was that a Harry Potter reference?”
“It most definitely was. I started reading them because you love them so much.”
“And?”
“You were right! They’re incredible! Remember when I called in sick the other day?
I was at home reading Order of the Phoenix.”
“Ah! This makes me so happy!
How sad is it when Cedric dies?”
“I was crushed. Literally, crying, on, the toilet.”
“Aw!”
These are some of the most wholesome jokes, and while you could easily argue they’re
just character jokes for Jake and Amy, I think there’s something about the combination
of the two of them making those jokes together that deserves its own category.
It would be really easy for the show to go for the “ah, old the ball and chain is dragging
me down” jokes, but it doesn’t.
And I think that can be a model for how other comedies should look to get laughs out of
a relationship without putting anyone down.
Speaking of which, Brooklyn Nine-Nine has a pretty good habit in general of punching up, not down.
If you haven’t heard of that phrase before, it basically means that in comedy, you want
to be punching up at the people in charge, the oppressors, the people with power.
You don’t want to be punching down at the marginalized people, the people without power.
When you punch up at the Powerful, you challenge the status quo.
You make people think about things in a way they may not have before.
When you punch down at the Powerless,
you’re simply doing what the Powerful have been doing for a long time.
You become a part of the status quo, reinforcing old stereotypes and prejudices.
Good comedy knows how to punch up.
Bad comedy continues to punch down.
That doesn’t mean your comedy has to be political.
Lots of people go to comedy to get away from the misery of day-to-day politics.
But it does mean that your jokes exist in this current world and you need to be aware
of the environment you’re saying them in, and the effect they will have on people.
Punching down ends up being just as political as punching up, you’re just swinging at the wrong people.
And Brooklyn Nine-Nine, for the most part, seems to recognize that.
For an example, let’s talk about the three times trans people have been mentioned in Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
In the beginning of Season 4, when Jake and Holt are stuck in witness protection in Florida,
they’re trying to track down someone who got an embarrassing video of them and could
potentially blow their cover.
When Jake shows the local tattoo artist the photo of they have of the person they’re
looking for, the tattoo artist says that the person is wearing a ring from San Marino High,
and mentions that their mascot was the Pet Detectives from Ace Ventura.
So Jake says this:
"Classic film, one of my childhood favorites.
And it only gets overtly transphobic at the very end, so, a win.
Anyway, thank you very much. You’ve been very helpful.”
I thought this was hilarious, and a good way to handle the situation in general.
It doesn’t become a big serious argument.
Jake just makes a comment, the tattoo artist looks confused, and then they move on.
It’s a funny moment because you don’t expect him to say that, and you can tell even
the tattoo artist didn’t expect it.
It defies your expectations, but at the same time, it stands up for trans people.
Trans people aren’t the butt of the joke here, like they are on so many other shows.
Jake’s right, the end of Ace Ventura is extremely transphobic.
And that one little line about it is both funny and a perfect example of punching up.
The butt of the joke here is transphobes, or that one piece of transphobic media.
This joke challenges the status quo.
Later, there’s an episode where Jake and Amy are trying to babysit Terry’s kids and
failing because the kids keep asking hard questions like, “Did their dad get in trouble
with the police just because he’s Black?”
Eventually, Amy tries to explain things to them and this is what happens.
“You know how it’s tougher in this world to be a woman?”
“It is?”
“No, no no no, that’s not what I meant!”
“Then I don’t wanna be a woman.”
“Me neither.”
“You don’t have to be if that’s who you are! You know what, that’s a whole other conversation.”
This isn’t really a joke, it’s a line of dialogue in between jokes, it’s one of
the sincere moments of the show, tucked into an episode on racial profiling in the NYPD.
But it’s meaningful.
Because this was an opening for all kinds of transphobic -- or at least, cisnormative -- jokes.
Any other show would’ve taken that opening and run with it.
Trust me, I’m pretty much used to having to put up with at least a few transphobic jokes in most forms of media.
But instead of taking a cheap jab at trans people, Brooklyn Nine-Nine used it as a really
thoughtful moment to tell people that actually their gender can be whatever they experience it as.
That wasn’t the focus of the episode and they pivot away from the topic immediately,
but it’s a really nice thing to say, and I was really proud of Brooklyn Nine-Nine for doing that.
And lastly, in the 5th season, there’s an episode where Jake is in prison and talking
to the Warden about possibly becoming a snitch for him.
Initially he doesn’t want to, and this is what happens.
"I’ve always wanted a man on the inside.”
“Oh no, no no no no. The only people less popular in here than cops are snitches.”
“Well, let’s be honest, it’s not great in here for trans people.”
“That is so true.” “I know. They have a hard time.”
“It’s a problem. Regardless, I won’t snitch."
This joke breaks the flow of the conversation they were having and, again, defies your expectations.
They’re having a heated, fast-paced back and forth where they can’t agree and then
suddenly both of them slow down and recognize how hard it is in prison for trans people.
Then they resume their discussion.
It’s funny because of how it breaks up their conversation, but it’s also funny in like
a morbid “oh sh*t that’s right” kind of way.
Trans people being in jail isn’t the butt of the joke, the system that put them there is.
Again, it’s a small thing.
But any other show would’ve used this opportunity to make some terrible joke about trans people
in prison, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine not only avoided that but also pointed out how our
society has failed trans people in that regard.
That being said, while Brooklyn Nine-Nine does typically punch up, it definitely doesn’t
always do that, and with a couple of characters, it pretty consistently punches down.
You may have noticed I didn’t talk about Scully and Hitchcock in the beginning with
the other characters, and there was a reason for that.
Both of these characters’ jokes are pretty consistently not great.
I’m gonna put a content warning here for fatphobia and sexual harassment, and if you’d
like to skip this section I’d suggest pausing right now, and I’ll put timestamps in the
description so you can go past this part.
I think it’s important to talk about this stuff but I also understand if you can’t right now.
So, with Scully, the joke is almost always that he’s fat.
There are countless jokes about his health issues because, “ha ha, he’s fat and unhealthy?”
“Type 3, and Type 9, and 12 and 13.
Those are all the diabeteses I have.”
Like, what the f**k even is this joke?
It’s funny because he’s listing off multiple kinds of diabetes he has?
And that’s funny because… he’s fat?
I genuinely don’t get where the humor is supposed to be in this.
Why punch down at people with diabetes or fat people?
What does that achieve besides reinforcing the status quo?
And the show has countless Scully jokes just like this one, where they conflate being fat
with being unhealthy and consistently make him the butt of the joke.
Fat people deserve respect and kindness just like anyone else, and I’m so tired of seeing
“ha ha it’s funny because they eat food and they’re fat” jokes.
They’re tired. They’ve been done for decades. Find better jokes.
Let fat people be in roles where they aren’t constantly the butt of the joke.
Despite how much I love Brooklyn Nine-Nine, I feel like it has really messed up in this
department, and I think that’s worth acknowledging and asking them to do better.
Then, there’s Hitchcock.
His jokes are basically one of three things: he’s bleeding for no reason, he’s tasting
something he shouldn’t be tasting, or he’s sexually harassing women.
“Amy’s not in the break room.” “Or the evidence room.”
“Or the ladies bathroom. You know what, I’ll check again.”
“I’ve never seen him walk with such purpose. What a wretched man.”
What part of that is funny?
It’s funny that all of these characters just tolerate a coworker who consistently
harasses his female coworkers and makes inappropriate comments about them?
And Brooklyn Nine-Nine knows that he’s that kind of character because when they did a
#MeToo episode they literally wrote him out of the entire episode -- Holt just told him to go home.
And the thing is, I liked that episode, but I think it’s a tad hypocritical to have
an episode revolve around #MeToo while ignoring the character in your main cast who really should’ve
been fired by now.
There’s even a scene where Rosa spikes Jake’s water with caffeine when they’re both competing
to get a spot on Hawkins’ team.
During that cutaway, Hitchcock looks over and winks at her.
Given how Hitchcock’s entire character is based around sexually harassing women, what
are we as an audience supposed to gleam from that moment?
Because the only thing I can think of is that it’s implying that Hitchcock himself has
drugged and assaulted someone, or he’s at least happy about the prospect of other people
doing that.
Because he doesn’t know she’s lacing it with caffeine.
With everything we know about his character, I can’t think of a less vile explanation
for that wink.
Honestly, if you took Scully and Hitchcock out of the show entirely, you’d solve a
lot of its problems really quickly.
Unfortunately, it seems like they’re around to stay.
And while that sucks, I’m going to continue watching and loving Brooklyn Nine-Nine because
there are so many other positive aspects to it.
If I refused to watch any show that had hurtful jokes or storylines in it, I would literally
never watch anything.
All the media we consume has both good and bad in it, and I think we can appreciate the
good while also criticizing the bad.
The point of this video is not that Brooklyn Nine-Nine is perfect or terrible.
I think Brooklyn Nine-Nine can be an amazing show and have some very bad aspects to it.
The point of this video is that, aside from a couple exceptions, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is
generally really good at making jokes.
And I wanted to analyze what made it so funny in the first place.
To recap, there are character jokes built around solid acting and good contrasting character traits.
Then there are your usual crude jokes and funny situation jokes.
Then there are jokes that defy your expectations but don’t neatly fit into any of the other categories.
Then there’s the Positive Relationship jokes where relationships are joked about in a positive
manner rather than a negative one.
And lastly, we have jokes that punch up, and jokes that punch down.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine tells jokes in all of these ways, but it’s the first six categories
that make it such a hilarious show.
By the time this video goes live, Brooklyn Nine-Nine will just be wrapping up it’s
sixth season, but it has been renewed by NBC for a seventh season, which I’m super thankful for.
I’m excited to see where the Nine-Nine is headed for the next season.
Thanks so much for watching this video!
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I really wouldn’t be able to make these without all of you over on Patreon.
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Thanks, everyone, and I’ll see you next time!
“Jokes on you, they was always friends! Now I’mma get my immunity.”
“The ghost of the talking dog haunts the precinct! The talking dog died.”