Happy Endings’ greatest moments: a video tribute

When I watched the Happy Endings episode, “Party of Six,” I was thinking the episode was funny, but not earth-shatteringly funny. Then the ending came, and just about killed me (the old lady cursing Penny). I was laughing so hard I was crying, and we had to watch it twice.

This regularly happens to me while watching Happy Endings. Cougar Town and Community are two of my favorite sitcoms, because the laughs are frequent and the writing is brilliant. Happy Endings, though, when it has its moments, it has its moments. I cannot think of a show that finds the target to my funny bone and hits the bullseye with such spontaneity; the funny always sneaks up on me and grabs me and sends me into uncontrollable fits of spasmodic giggles and tears. My brother would refer to it as “Mom’s crazy laugh,” but I seem to have inherited  it. I don’t know about you, but whenever I can get a belly laugh like that, I’m there.

So after I composed myself (just barely), I consulted the CliqueClack writing team and started working on this post, a video tribute to our collective favorite greatest moments of Happy Endings. I’m not sure I’ll actually live through watching all of these videos concurrently, since I’m not sure it’s legal to laugh that hard and that long, but I’m willing to give it a go.

Debbie:

I mentioned the curse on Penny as being one of my favorite moments above, but two others that made me lose my composure were when Dave offered Penny a Whore’s Bath drink and she went into her speech about one night stands; I lost it. Then, in the episode where Jane and Brad had their annual fight, and Jane notices a bird in the apartment and Brad thinks she’s having a stroke, calling him “bird” instead of “Brad.”

Rachel:

I was hysterical during the part in the hipster episode (“Dave of the Dead”) when Max is teaching Penny about the “rules of being a hipster” as she tries on mismatched outfits to prepare for her date. I also loved the part in the same episode when she is hanging out with her date and his apathetic hipster friends and she says her first “Over it. …” (Here is the quote I pulled from the review of the episode:)

“Meet my friends, Ione and Atticus. She has a blog about zines and he won the mustache contest three years in a row.” — Toby, introducing fake hipster Penny to his friends
“I don’t care.” — Atticus
“See that guy? [Gestures to guitar player] He’s right-handed; he refuses to play with his dominant hand. It’s too commercial.” — Toby
“He’s huge in the abandoned gas station circuit.” — Ione
“What do you think?” — Atticus, to Penny
“Oh, uh … over it.” — Penny
“Totally, super over it.” — the hipsters

An:

I think Happy Endings is one of the smartest written shows on TV. But, I can never get into an episode because I don’t buy the characters’ friendships. It always feels forced. For instance, I buy the New Girl and Cougar Town characters as friends, but the Happy Endings chemistry doesn’t feel believable.

All the same, I loved the episode where the guys film the sandwich truck’s commercial but absolutely forgot to include the name of the truck.

Julia:

Okay, in order of appearance:

From “Mein Coming Out,” when Max finally has to come out to his parents because his lies about everyone being his beard start falling apart, bonus features Penny coming in and saying “I was too much of a Nazi for Hitler!” incredulously at exactly the wrong moment, by which I mean the exact right moment.

The ending sequence of “Of Mice and Jazz-Kwon-Do,” where the entire gang does, well, Jazz-Kwon-Do. Priceless.

The hipster sequence in “Dave of the Dead,” as was already covered.

Penny’s drunk wedding speech in “The Shershow Redemption.”

Max and Jane’s Less-Vain-Than-You competition in “The Shrink, The Dare, The Date, and her Brother,” which cumulates in them greeting the firemen in their underwear.

“Party of Six”‘s whole line where Max muses about “Mary Tyler Moore Tyler Moore Moore Moore.”

I am like 99% sure I’m missing million hysterical moments I can’t even think of, but I think those are all the biggies? Maybe.

Kona:

For whatever reason, when Max keeps talking about wanting a “whisker basket” in the vision board episode, it kills me! I also love the food truck commercial in general. Probably because local ads used to be my business.

Bob:

Definitely when Penny was dating the man with the last name Hitler. When she went to the bar and he saw the notebook where she had written Penny Hitler all over it trying to get over his unfortunate name and he assumed she was a crazy neo-Nazi.

Julia:

Also a great part of that episode was how Alex had looked up Hitler on Wikipedia just to make a million terrible puns.

Bob:

Let’s not forget that if she hyphenated her name, it would have been Penny Hartz-Hitler. That episode solidified my love for the show.

Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Apr 30, 2012 @ 13:00 EST5EDT