http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FunnyBackgroundEvent

"What kind of an emergency? What's the rush to get off the planet all of a sudden?" note "KAY! KAAAAY!"

me." ComicTropes, " , " Jim Starlin's Great and Not-So-Great Cosmic Creations at Marvel We cut to Avengers Mansion, where all the superheroes that were not abducted are gathering, got a list, are already figuring out who is missing. There's a weird little drawing the bottom left corner by Ron Lim where Iceman trips Speedball who apparently plants his face between She-Hulk 's boobs. Is that something that Jim Starlin wrote into this cosmic script? Or was Ron Lim getting bored and was just like "I gotta draw this for."

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The humorous counterpart to the Meaningful Background Event, and sometimes overlaps with Distant Reaction Shot.

Sometimes, a scene contains something funny going on in the background. Very often it is used during a conversation and if you are paying too much attention to the foreground, you may even miss the scene, especially if (as is often the case) the characters are looking away from it. The event can contain simple slapstick humor, or be an inside gag. It doesn't have to be subtle, sometimes it is obvious while the conversation is unimportant. The important thing is that it is played in the background and is at least somewhat funny or cool.

Despite the name, sometimes this can actually be in the foreground or momentarily panned over, but the important point is that the audience has their attention directed elsewhere.

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Occasionally, this might be a result of Artificial Atmospheric Actions. See also Cue the Falling Object. Compare Annoying Background Event, which is only funny to the audience.

Examples:

Other examples:

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Advertising

An advertisement from about 10 years ago (probably for an Internet search engine or some such) has as its tagline, "There's fun stuff everywhere. You just need to know where to look." In the immediate foreground we see a dour-faced man stepping out of a subway car while further back in the subway station, almost too far away to be seen, the doors to another subway car are opening and several circus clowns are stepping out! Made even funnier by the fact that the clowns have dour facial expressions, too.

State Farm has a commercial out now (2011) featuring a guy claiming the money he saved on insurance bought him a falcon. The end of the commercial draws attention to a guy who used his savings to buy samurai armor, but throughout the commercial there are people walking by with all sorts of things, including a cockatoo, a clown car, a stuffed moose head, etc.

During the Compare the Meerkat advert "The Battle Of Fearlessness" there are two soldier meerkats throwing sandballs at each other near the start.

One of the commercials for Mio Energy involves every scene having something different. The only thing that doesn't change is an older worker pushing a cart.

A series of commercials for Food Lion (a regional grocery chain in the southeastern US) features the Food Lion mascot, a talking lion. In one of the commercials, the lion talks with a stereotypically embarrassing smother who makes snacks for a sullen teen's Garage Band. She and the lion make snack choices that embarrass her son, ("Mom! Fishsticks. Do Not. Rock!") but almost imperceptibly, one of his bandmates actually agrees with the mom, and is excited about those snack choices.

There's an insurance commercial in which a tailor is outfitting the ad's spokesman in a custom-made suit, pinning sections of material in place as his client talks about Allstate. There's a three-quarter-length portrait on the wall behind them, which shows the client in real time: the first time it's shown he has no sleeves, in the second glimpse his left sleeve has been attached, and in the last shot of the painting he's fully suited with hands folded, exactly as the man stands in front of it.

Asian Animation

In episode 49 of Happy Heroes, there is a scene where if you look in the background, the silhouettes of a certain boy and alien flying on a bicycle can be seen passing in front of the moon.

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Comic Strips

Used frequently by the comic artist George Herriman, often as Running Gags. A recurring Funny Background Event in his comic The Dingbat Family eventually led to his most famous creation, Krazy Kat. In one Krazy Kat strip, there is a Spanish-language poster that changes with every frame (and changes fence side for one frame), but is always a word or phrase in Spanish with an image that matches the text. Special props to the one on Ignatz's side of the fence that reads "Ratón Muerto", Dead Mouse.

These were all over the Smokey Stover strip, starting in 1935.

Done in Calvin and Hobbes when Calvin's Mom says that she hasn't seen Calvin for about fifteen minutes. We then see out the window while she's reading the newspaper, where the family car is rolling into the road and Calvin and Hobbes are chasing it. In the last panel, she says that it probably means he's getting in trouble.

In this Candorville strip, the diploma on the wall changes from "M.A." to "Ph.D" to "WTF".

Candorville strip, the diploma on the wall changes from "M.A." to "Ph.D" to "WTF". Allison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For contains lots of background goodies, such as a sign reading "Try our gluten-free, lactose-free, low-fat white pizza!"

FoxTrot often has small, easily missed gags in strips where the characters talk in front of paintings, posters, or photographs. A recurring gag is the object in question changing between panels (such as a person on a magazine cover being in a different pose). Likewise, whenever a character is reading a newspaper there will usually be a joke about a cartoonist in the headline.

Paul Sample's Ogri cartoons have entire little subplots taking place as Funny Background Events. For example, a dog is looking down a drain; then the drain eats the dog; then the drain belches; then it spits the bones out. Or the main sequence of the strip involves a bike cop stopping Malcolm and rabbiting on endlessly as he pulls charge after charge out of the "Police Officer's Handbook of Fantasy Charges" to charge Malcolm with, while in the background Ogri is taking the cop's bike apart and selling the bits to random passers-by; when the cop is finally finished and turns back to his bike, Ogri has disappeared and nothing is left of the bike either.

Used in What's New? with Phil and Dixie, with things like people in dice costumes walking behind the title characters, or little gag scenes going on in the back ranks of crowds.

Fan Works

Music Videos

Print Media

MAD doesn't have a page that isn't scrawled with miniature comics in the margins, footnotes, and assorted other wackiness. In fact, reading these can take up as much if not more time than reading the magazine proper (if such a word can even be said to apply to Mad). The ur-artist of those margin comics is Sergio Aragonés.

Pro Wrestling

Roleplay

Sadly, 99% of the funny background events get edited out of the final versions of AJCO roleplays, but every now and then an observant player will send a screencap into the out of context blog . The best examples tend to feature players abusing Minecraft's weapon and animal naming features. Pi-TEC was slain by A_J using a rather sharp rock I found on the ground All of the Deserters was slain by Krauzer using The State Auditor was slain by A_J using Mother's hand Blue was slain by Krauzer using a sword made of her own teeth

. The best examples tend to feature players abusing Minecraft's weapon and animal naming features. Destroy the Godmodder: is full of them. What is relevant to the plot isn't always what attracts the attention of the players... TT2000 recently declared war on Minor's fly armies. Then in the off-topic thread Opel and TT started arguing over how stupid it was. engie and piono introduced each other to their split personalities. Followed by eye rolling and sarcastic remarks from other posters and the forum equivalent of a facepalm from Twinbuilder. Some of the mini-flame wars that occasionally start between the players. Made funnier by the rest of the players telling them to shut up, and once even the godmodder stepping in to shut it down.

Faith Testers: Any time Matias's Staff is given any mention in the text 90% of it is funny background events. [1] That little tidbit of text isn't nearly as funny without the context of all of the said staff is female and was fawning over one of the party being yelled at (ie. Miximac)... which caused the mess above to happen.



Sports

Mixed Martial Arts: During UFC 182, two of Joe Rogan's male comedian friends sitting at cageside waited until they were both on-camera in the background of an ongoing fight and then made out.

Tabletop Games

Theatre

Theme Parks

Jim Henson's Muppet*Vision 3D at Walt Disney World has this at least twice. It's fairly obvious that while Dr. Bunsen is explaining his invention, Beaker is getting heavily pounded by said invention. But most viewers of the 3D film are too busy watching Kermit give a tour of the inside of Muppet Labs to notice that in one scene, Scooter and Janice ride across the hallway in the background on a double-seat bicycle. Especially notable since it's one of the very few times you can see Muppets' legs.

When Farquaad talks to the guests in the pre-show of Shrek 4-D, Thelonius grows curious of the flaming torch he's holding, and attempts to stick his finger in it. The results are what you would expect.

Visual Novels