JOEY: Man this is weird. You ever realize Captain Crunch’s eyebrows are actually on his hat?

CHANDLER: That’s what’s weird? Joey, the man’s been captain of a cereal for the last 40 years.

Cap’n Crunch is a well-known cereal in the US. The ‘captain’ is a cartoon character.

Here’s a commercial from the year I was born (1983):



CHANDLER: Mine is the red one! Oh God. Can open, worms everywhere.

Chandler is referencing the idiom ‘to open up a can of worms’ in a creative way. The expression means that a lot more problems are being created by doing something. As the discussion continues, Joey admits to more and more things that he does that are problematic to Chandler.

JOEY: So where you gettin’ it?

PHOEBE: I think on my shoulder.

ROSS: What? What’s on your shoulder?

PHOEBE: Um, a chip. A tattoo, I’m getting a tattoo.

Phoebe is using the idiom “a chip on my shoulder”. When someone has a chip on their shoulder, it means that they feel mistreated and are angry about the disrespect. It’s often something that isn’t that important but nevertheless makes the person angry.

JOEY: Ah, I was just in the bathroom, and there’s mirrors on both sides of you. So when you’re in there it’s like you’re peein’ with the Rockettes.

The Rockettes are a dance group that is famous throughout the US. They are specifically known for the dance shown here:



PHOEBE: I like this lily. It’s more open, ya know, and that’s like my mom. She had a more open, giving spirit. Ooh, Foghorn Leghorn, ooh.

Foghorn Leghorn is a cartoon character who appeared in Looney Tunes. He’s a pretty silly character:



PHOEBE: Just, you know, long time ago. Well, when men used to tell women what to do – a lot. And then there was suffrage, which is a good thing but is sounds horrible. Do you want to get this tattoo?

‘Suffrage’ means the right to vote, but it sounds similar to the word ‘suffer’.

MR. GELLER: Honey. Honey, have you seen my Harmon Killebrew bat? Bob doesn’t believe I have one.

Harmon Killebrew is a baseball player from the 1960s. The bat refers to a baseball bat. Baseball bats used by professionals often have their name written on them, as each player uses a different bat (at a length and weight that they prefer).

MR. GELLER: I know. He’s like a new man. It’s like a scene from Cocoon.

‘Cocoon’ is a science fiction movie from the 1980s in which aliens make a bunch of elderly people young again.



JOEY: What’re you gettin’ so bent out of shape for, huh? It’s not like we agreed to live together forever. We’re not Bert and Ernie.

Bert and Ernie are two characters from Sesame Street, a childrens TV show. They are best friends and live together.



JOEY: Oh no-no, it’s uh, it’s not what you think. We uh, we used it to, you know, fling water balloons off the roof. Remember that, those junior high kids couldn’t even get theirs across the street.

‘Junior high’ is short for ‘junior high school’. Another name for it is ‘middle school’. It is typically grades 6 to 8, so the children they were fighting with were between 11 and 14.