Tears for souvenirs.

Two Frenchmen in Paris court for shoplifting at the Euro Disneyland gift shop. Their friend Murphy is there to support them.

Judge : Pierre I am fining you 50 Euros for stealing a statue of Snow White.

Murphy points his finger at Pierre and bursts out laughing.

Judge : Silence in court.

Murphy : Sorry Mon sir.

Judge : Marcell I am fining you 50 Euros for stealing a statue of Peter Pan.

Murphy points his finger at Marcell and bursts out laughing.

Judge glaring at Murphy : Irishman I am fining you 500 Euros.

Murphy :But I stole nothing.

Judge with a smile on his face : That's for taking the Mickey.

When you originally posted this, it was difficult tell if you intended it to be a gag told by a stand-up, or to be performed as a sketch. It is good to see you have now taken the trouble to format it properly.

You have, however, committed the basic error of providing information in the stage direction which is not available to the audience - how do the audience know that two Frenchmen have been arrested for shoplifting in Eurodisney? The dialogue does not really explain this.

As a gag told by a stand-up it might be serviceable as a shaggy dog groaner, with a sufficiently undemanding audience, but such a weak pay off does not justify a sketch. Sketches take a lot of effort stage, so they need to deliver a lot of funny.

You did not need to add (Mouse) in brackets; the problem isn't that people were not getting it.

Sketches are not about the pay off anyway, they are about how you get there - they have to be funny throughout. Not just a set up and gag.

If you are interested in writing sketches, watch a few sketch shows and try to figure out how the sketches work; or read the contributions in Critique of people like gappy or Ben who are serious about being funny.

Thank you ,I appreciate your help Tursiops.

No worries.

It didn't work for me because "taking the Mickey" isn't a feasible method of describing the theft of a Mickey Mouse toy. I think to make this work you'd have to introduce this as a false idiom by having the judge talk about "taking the Pluto", or something, for the previous guy.

So, yes, a perfectly decent pun on paper, but one that doesn't quite work in reality - there are lots of them, it's bloody annoying.

I think it sort of works but it's a little leaden

Yes for me it was the taking the Mickey bit that threw it all out, otherwise I thought it was fine, but it needs a better punch or a visual aid, like CCTV footage where they show the both culprits stealing Peter Pan and Snow White and then you taking the Mickey.

Or maybe there is also taking the Minnie (you could have drove them there)

It's an old joke.

Quote: Shandonbelle @ 11th December 2013, 7:03 PM GMT

It's an old joke.

View original

That's the problem - you've thought of an obvious play on words, then manufactured a complicated sketch to lead up to it, and it's just not worth the trouble.