"The Fart Joke Debate" is the second segment of the thirteenth episode of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Synopsis[]
Pencil and the boys search for a fart joke that'll make Paper laugh.
Cast[]
- Carlos Alazraqui as Scissors
- Ron Funches as Rock
- Thomas Lennon as Paper
- Melissa Villaseñor as Pencil
- Jason Alexander as Jonathan Fartjoke
- Xanthe Huynh as Hilda/Host
- JP Karliak as Convenient News Reporter/Machine/Alien
- Melanie Minichino as Young Margo/Adult Margo
Plot[]
Rock, Scissors, and Pencil are watching something on the tv, laughing. Once Paper asks them what they were watching, they reveal that they were watching an old comedy special about Jonathan Fartjoke, a comedian who uses fart jokes in his comedy. Paper then tells the three that he didn't find fart jokes funny, shocking the three. Scissors comes up with a plan to make Paper like fart jokes.
A montage starts, showing how Rock, Scissors, and Pencil implement fart jokes into Paper's daily life, such as:
- Rock’s hiney and legs appearing in Paper's bowl of cereal and farting.
- Scissors playing an extremely loud fart on 2 large speakers.
- Pencil pretending to choke on something and pretending to die, only to fart in her casket at her "funeral".
Paper has had enough of this and tells the three that he considered fart jokes "lowbrow", and unless they could come up with a "smart fart joke", he would not be laughing. In response to this, Pencil tells Paper that she combined Fluorine, Argon, and Tennessine together, which, when written out in their chemical symbols, spelled out "FARTs". Paper then announces that the three made him hate fart jokes even more, and that he never wanted to hear a fart ever again. After Paper leaves, Pencil comes up with an idea: To find Jonathan Fartjoke and make Paper laugh. So, the three head off to his house.
After ringing the doorbell, the three are greeted by Jonathan's granddaughter, Hilda. The three go up to Jonathan and tell him their problem, asking him for his help. Jonathan tells them that he didn't do fart jokes anymore, and now, all he did was review flashcards with his daughter and granddaughter. Jonathan then tells the three why he quitted being a comedian.
Back then, Jonathan got tired of only being known as a comedian who made fart jokes, and wrote a book about cooking and healthy diets. But before he appeared on an interview on a talk show, he made a mistake that he would regret for the rest of his life, trying a bean cauliflower cabbage and flax seed casserole, one of his recipes. Then, during his interview, he kept farting over and over. This makes the talk show host laugh, even the cameraman laugh. Jonathan runs out the building, feeling humiliated.
He tells the three that because of that incident, he vowed to never fart again, even going as far as placing a clamp on his butt so he could not fart. Rock, Scissors, and Pencil walk out the house, disappointed. Scissors gets a notification on his phone and becomes shocked. Paper has invented a machine that plays random facts and classical music once someone farts, and that he would use it to eliminate the sound of farts all around the world.
Jonathan is going through his old VHS tapes and finds an old tape that he has not seen before, entitled ''Margo's Movie''. Once he plays the tape, he sees that it was a recording of him making his daughter, Margo, laugh by farting. The tape also shows Jonathan walking sadly into his house after his failed interview, rejecting his daughter’s wishes of making a fart joke. He then sees the misery that he is putting his daughter and granddaughter in and decides to make things right.
Meanwhile, Paper is booting up his Anti-Fart Machine. Rock, Scissors, and Pencil try to stop him, but he refuses to shut down the machine. Pencil becomes desperate and tries to make Rock fart into a jar so they could put it in a museum. Suddenly, Jonathan appears, demanding Paper to shut down the machine. He tells Paper that he did not want him to go down the same path as he did, and that he shouldn't forget about the joy of laughter. Jonathan then takes off the clamp he had on his butt, leading out an atomic fart that destroys the entire city.
After the blast, Paper finally laughs, overjoying the three. Paper then tells Rock, Scissors, and Pencil that it was not Johnathan's fart that made him laugh, it was the fact that during the blast, people fell. The three call Paper's humor "lowbrow", causing them to get into an argument.
Trivia[]
- Even though this is the second segment of the thirteenth episode, it was the first episode to air as a sneak peek in the US.
- This episode premiered after Super Bowl LVIII: Live from Bikini Bottom on February 11, 2024. It was originally going to premiere at 10:00pm, but due to the unscheduled overtime, the sneak peak was delayed until 10:54pm. On the East coast feed, this first aired as part of Nick@Nite.
- There are a total of 26 farts in this episode (968 if you include the "942 fart jokes later" card).
- Pencil references the films A Star is Born, Casablanca, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Spartacus, The Sound of Music, Silence of the Lambs, and Sophie's Choice, though all with fart-based puns.
- It is revealed in this episode that Paper dislikes fart jokes.
- A special version of the Nickelodeon Productions logo appears at the end with the Nickelodeon jingle played with fart noises.