Happy Birthday, Joss Whedon!
Ack! It’s late in the day, and I still haven’t wished my Dark Lord and Master, Joss Whedon, a happy birthday. To make up for it, and to show that the guy isn’t just all about breaking hearts and visiting death upon your puppy, here’s some examples of Joss Whedon’s great sense of humor:
“You’re a wee little puppet man!” The Angel episode “Smile Time” is one of the many illustrations of a concept that wouldn’t work anywhere but on a Whedon show: Angel is turned into a puppet and fights the evil felt hosts of a popular kid’s show. In this clip, he fights Spike, who is too busy laughing his ass off to take the threat seriously.
There was a lot of funny going on in Firefly‘s “Jaynestown,” most of it having to do with the crappy town where Jayne’s a hero. But even better was River encountering Book’s hair. This video starts off with a great philosophical discussion after River tries to “fix” Book’s bible, but goes to another level entirely at around 1:58 in, when Book unleashes his ‘do.
“The hammer is my penis.” That’s really all that needs to be said.
Buffy asks Spike to describe what he’s doing, in five words or less. His response is incredible.
Speaking of Spike, he’s rarely better than when mocking Angel, his eternal nemesis/frenemy. (Yeah, I totally just said “frenemy.” Deal with it.) It’s no surprise that his first appearance on Angel the series was its first great episode, and this is that episode’s shining moment.
Angel is such a somber, brooding guy. EXCEPT WHEN HE BOOGIES.
I leave with you an all-time classic: Wash from the first episode of Firefly, playing with his dinosaurs. Doesn’t get much better than this.
There are other moments I would have liked to have included: it’s incredibly difficult to actually find specific Buffy scenes on YouTube, and I most regret not finding a Xander scene; Dollhouse scenes are also pretty hard to find, so that means no Topher, particularly the scene with the two Tophers; and I could have included any number of other Wash scenes, especially, “WHO’S FLYING THIS THING?! Oh right, that would be me.” In any case, happy birthday, Joss Whedon!