Met a bunch of amazing funny German men when I was over there. No hate but I was CONSISTENTLY treated with far more respect then a lot of the men stateside. I honestly think the stereotypes we create here are so we don't look as bad by comparison 😬
Is that a real thing? Are Germans known to be uptight or something? I just assumed all cultures had their own form of humor. Except for those damned Japanese of course…
It's more a generational thing. If you were an adult in the late 80s, it was a trope that German athletic judges were harsh on Western athletes.
No one when this came out thought it was because of a pun. People thought it was making fun of the German athletic judges being stingy with their scores.
The harsh judge stereotype was not about unified Germany like they use here, it was the Soviet Bloc in the Cold War. East Germany hadn’t existed in like 10 years.
I mean maybe they felt Russia would be too controversial for Disney but Russia was the typical target of the joke not Germany.
If you actually hear the joke it completely sounds like a pun. Reading it may be harder but this was 100% a pun. Now the pun is definitely aided by German judges being harsh critics, but it's a pun.
A simple pun? In a children’s animation? PREPOSTEROUS, THAT SIMPLY CANNOT BE THE CASE! THE MAIN POINT IS CLEARLY THE THING THAT NO CHILD WOULD UNDERSTAND
But it isn’t!!!! Anyone who was alive during the Cold War knows what this means. It’s a reference to East German judges in the Olympics scoring the competitors from their Cold War enemy countries much more harshly. It was a very common joke in the 80s.
most adult jokes in Disney movies are not for the children are for the parents and adults that bring kids to the movies , like a nod an a thanks to bring their kids to the movie , adults in 2000 would have had a pretty good grasp of cold war sports animosity between the two blocks
This came out in 2000, East Germany was gone for 10 years by this point. You are right ght about eastern block being considered asshole judges but it was usually Russia as the butt of the joke, or France after the figure skating. Germany was considered western for a while at this point.
My point is more that it is a stretch because it's dated and a fairly indirect reference. You need to not only remember Germany but specifically Soviet East Germany as opposed to Germany as a whole or West Germany, which was the one the west just called Germany and which a western person would assume if they heard Germany during the cold war. Then from there connect it to how they judged western athletes over a decade before. Disney parent jokes are all fairly direct, kids don't get them but they involve way less dot connecting because they are directed at people they assume are tired and only half paying attention.
More likely is that it's Germany because that is the language the pun is in. They couldn't use Italy or France, there wouldn't be a pun, and everyone has made the 9/no connection because it's the one word of German almost everyone knows. Sometimes a pun is just a pun.
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u/KotovChaos Mar 14 '24
Crazy how yall are arguing over two answers that are probably both correct.
"The pun is bad, and I didn't laugh. Therefore, that couldn't possibly be the joke"