Where Does Funny Come From Penny Arcade

• "And For My Next Trick": "DAYTONAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! "
• Gabe learns a new word!
• I Hope You Like Text.
• "You're arguing for a universe with fewer waffles in it," I said. "I'm prepared to call that cowardice."
• This and Tycho's delivery.
• While discussing Bayonetta...

  Gabe: I heard someone talking about tits and breasts!
  Tycho: Weren't you at the mall?
  Gabe: ...yes.

• "The prosecution asserts that this shit is off the hook."
• This news post with Tycho's efforts to run a charity are horribly subverted by Gabe.
• Gabe is playing inFAMOUS as a bad, bad man.
• Gabe's hiccup remedy.
• Battle not with nerds, lest ye become nerdy.
• Despite the embarrassment, Gabe posts a comic he drew in eighth grade. Tycho mocks the writing, but instantly changes his tune when Gabe threatens to post some of his old writing.
• Tycho describes their quest to make carrot cake soup, and his fear that the authorities will try to stop them. From the same rant, he suffers game withdrawal and starts seeing Venice as an FPS level. Then he goes into an internet cafe to find them playing the city on Counter-Strike. "The psychotic break made was practically audible... Thank God that place had a liquor license."
• Tycho is considering creating a harem. His wife... disagrees.
• The Abridged versions of the presentations by Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony at E3. "Nintendo, bitches! We out."
• Tycho can't stand the thought of losing to Gabe at Words With Friends just from Gabe button mashing.
  • Even better when you look up what "churl" means.
• God help you if you mix up Tycho's ice cream order.
• The Unhorse.
• Cha Cha Cha Changes.
• I play violent video games! I could snap any minute!
• Tycho uses the Wii Weather Channel to destroy a life.
• "I'll tell you this: the best thing about the placenta is cold placenta sandwiches the next day."
• From PATV Episode, 4th Panel of Racist Clocks. Jerry hurt his back playing ping pong earlier that day:

  Jerry: I achieved victory but at what cost?
  At what cost Michael?!
  Michael: I don't care.

• From PATV, season 2, episode 7.

  Mike: I heard that sometimes if someone presses on your prostate you cum. I've heard that.
  Jerry: (beat) How... how much do you wanna know? About that?

• It Only Doesn't. Made even funnier by the fact that it's structured exactly like an "It Only Does" ad, so you can imagine it becoming real for yourself.
  • Not to mention that the strip became both Harsher in Hindsight and Hilarious in Hindsight when, well...

    Tycho: We put up today's comic on Friday because it was inconceivable to conceive of thinking that they still wouldn't have their shit together by today. In the interim, its spicy payload has only grown more intense, like kimchi.

• Whyyyyyyyyyy
• "I might grind, there may be grinding."
• "911? I've cut off all my fingers. They're all gone. It is excruciating, yes!"
• "Using this Macbook is like putting my dick in a George Foreman Grill. Okay? It's like making a penis panini."
• "You understand that there's more to Dissidia than murdering Tidus over and over."
• "I saw where a hippo was not, and said, no. This will not do."
• Anneservice, Part 4, aka the geek's hat trick.
• On Crippling Overspecialization in the new Deus Ex.

  Barrett: I'M GONNA BREAK YOU IN HALF!
  Nerd!Jensen: Oh yeah? Well... well... I'll hack into your laptop and read all your mail!

• This lampooning of Warhammer 40,000's grimdark nature.
• An option that Xbox Live desperately needs.
• How are these exterminators still in business?!?
• Either Gabe fails at nerdiness, or he's just trolling Tycho. Either way, hilarious.
• Tycho's Oh, Crap! face in the last panel as he realizes what's coming. Epic.
• There's nothing quite like innocently clicking your shortcut to Penny Arcade and being confronted with a giant banner proclaiming... SEMEN WEEK .
• The Dickerdoodle contest. Investigate further at your own peril.
  • Perhaps the best was an update on the contest, along with a few Gabe and his wife made. Said post was sandwiched between two of Tycho's posts, the first being some information about the Child's Play event, the second consisting entirely of an angry, "GOD DAMMIT I AM TRYING TO RUN A CHARITY HERE!"
• Everyone Else Seems to Like It

  I can't let these guys know how much I hate Kingdom Hearts.
  Gabe: I hate Kingdom Hearts.
  Shit! Alright, damage control.
  Gabe: I like Kingdom Hearts.
  Well played.
  KH Fan: Huh?
  Uh-oh. Think of something! Fast!
  Gabe: Hair!
  That may have been too fast.

• On Yahoo! Maps giving driving directions.
• How to install the GBA Afterburner.
• Oh, that's right, he had two purposes.
• Gabe posts a video of Tycho playing Harry Potter on the Wii while wearing a Gryffindor scarf and pretending to be casting spells. The video got 704 billion views; likely far more than any YouTube video in existence.
  • It's far more than the entire population of the Earth! About a hundred times more!
  • Then how Tycho retaliates.
    • The best part of the entire mini-story is arguably the newspost accompanying the first strip, where Tycho mentions the video being "inserted into the public sphere by a villain".
• Tycho's story on Gabe playing Unreal Tournament.
• Roiling . The sight of Tycho having a Balloon Belly from holding in his poop, and trying to poop his pants in front of the guy talking to him is priceless. The face he makes is the icing on the cake.
• Gabe explaining to Tycho the method of "Topping".
• Kickball, Sport of Kings
• Words cannot describe how great this one is.
• The result of Gabe and Tycho playing Kinect.
  • Speaking of Kinect...
• The Line
• The Great Indoors
• In the Before-Now
• Tycho: "When I was in the shower this morning trying to scour off a lifetime of regret..." The funny thing is that he doesn't make anything of that, it just leads into what he's really talking about. Trying to scrub away the burden of past mistakes is just how Tycho lives.
• First panel:

  Tycho: Listen, I'm not saying you know anything about my penis specifically. What I'm saying is that there are things about it you can probably infer. Like, its base damage or something.

  • The "4th Panel" episode for the comic is also gold.
• Pay Close Attention To His Technique. Gabe destroys a guy in Splinter Cell so hard that the guy loses his network connection.
• In Tycho's commentary to Mindcraft, a moment which is simultaneously heartwarming and hilarious:

  Tycho: We knew that "online rules" were something we wanted to do for the comic, but the strip as you see it very nearly didn't happen. I wrote it out this way, but was afraid to tell him what I had written because it's a little... close, so I asked him if he had his phone because then I could send it to him and I wouldn't have to read it aloud. He didn't. At the same time, he had come up with something very similar, but only got halfway through the idea before he said it was dumb, but I made him tell me just in case we were actually on the same page. We've been making stuff for almost twenty years now, and this thing almost didn't happen because we were each, independently, afraid to be honest. There is no doubt a lesson in all this but I refuse to learn it.

• While the topic of conversation in this strip most certainly is not funny, Gabe's reaction to it is enough to bring it right back into rib-cracking territory.
• Gabe's anger at not being able to play a digital copy of Diablo III before the stores have a chance to sell it. He ends on a perfect line.
• A fellow reader tries to dissuade Tycho from picking up the Anita Blake books by pointing out that they basically devolve into sadomasochism and werewolf sex. This is not a deal breaker for Tycho
• Gabriel is not a gracious loser
  • He's not a very gracious winner either
• Can you believe a Nightmare Face can be made so goofy and silly, you can't help but crack up looking at it? You're gonna have a hard time with the third panel. The context makes it even funnier.
• The ending of the 4th Panel for "Stewardship": after Mike and Jerry finished a script which had Scott Kurtz telling Tycho what not to include in the duo's forthcoming PvP guest strips, they had the real Scott Kurtz come in to read the script out loud before finalizing. His reaction?

  Scott: That's good. Y'know, what's funny is ... I considered coming in and doing that.

• Gabe's kickstarter. The sad part is that this really isnt that far from some real life Kickstarters.
• The premise of The Talk. Gabe's confronted with the fact that his son wants to learn about the birds and the bees, but since Gabe's not entirely emotionally ready to tell him the truth he just has a parade of other comic artists tell him in his stead.
  • An earlier strip has the same theme, where Gabe just resorts to telling his son that A Wizard Did It.

    Gabe: I panicked!!
    Tycho: Why didnt you just tell him the truth?
    Gabe: I DONT KNOW THE TRUTH!!

• Gabe doesn't handle game frustration very well
• Penny Arcade's take on The Mermaid Problem
• A minor running gag is Gabe trying to come up with some random career change when he needs more money for incoming game releases. One of the best ones would be his brief career in dentistry
• Gabe helps Tycho make a player character
• "The bomb says no, Brian"
• Gabe's relationship with Patrick Swayze is... complicated
• Gabe had an unusual concern when buying a house
• Gabe gets to go to Gen Con. Tycho is not amused. At all.
• The original design for Death in Darksiders II was a bit on the nose.
• The problem with freemium games
• "Know your audience"
• Tycho plays Resident Evil 7: Biohazard:

  I thought I'd try that Resident Evil 7 demo that went up over theGOD!
  GOD!
  NO! NOOO!
  I'm FEAR-SHITTING! NOOO
  I'm SHITTING and PISSING and now I'm PISSING on my SHIT
  AND VICE VERSA
  EVERY HOLE
  BUY A NEW COUCH ON AMAZON
  Oh man. You've gotta try it!

  • Gabe's response:

    No, I don't .

• "Artists complaining about their hardships is an act universally despised.  It will always be vile, and unwelcome, like a sax solo."
• "It's only, like, twenty-one years ol--my God... Super Mario Kart is old enough to drink."
• Tycho's reaction to an Out-of-Character Alert from Gabe.
• Thank you so much for saving me- *chomp*
• The new God of War draws liberally from Norse Mythology, but its most fantastical element is the useful, well-behaved child .
• Tycho needs the premium shit to prepare his computer for the original Crysis.

  Thinking Aliminum: Hey.
  Tycho: Hey. Alright, and let's see... five "denimite mem-shards."

• Ratchet resorts to drastic measures to gain the necessary bolts.
• Gabe is so addicted to margaritas he now passes them as waste, as confirmed by Word of God
• I don't know how much they pay you, but it cannot possibly be enough.
• Well, Mickey Mouse is a king and a wizard, and Sephiroth is there, and sometimes Cloud, and you can ride a Light Cycle with Jack Skellington, and I don't know what the fuck else YOU WANT!
• Gabe and Tycho's argument over The Stanley Parable goes a little too far:

  Tycho: Here's your problem: if there's no obvious button to push, some hole somewhere you can stick your dick in, then you're like, fuck it! I'm out!

  Gabe: You just want a game that'll suck your brain's dick! You want to be told how smart you are over and over!

  (cut to Jerry and Mike)

  Jerry: Euugh.

  Mike: Yeah. It's getting kinda real in here.

• There's crossing the line, and then there's Rock Band Nirvana edition.
• Gabriel has a... rather intense reaction to his dentist visit.

  Gabe: They had to use a special sedative called Darkest Night.
  Tycho: Dear God tell me there's security cam footage.

• "There is always a point in every YouTube video where the creator is revealed to be completely fucking insane."
• The Pilgrimage details Gabe forcing Tycho to rub his severed penis on a TV at CES.
• Gabe has a problem with his new parrot.

  Gabe: You need to stop teaching him shit.

• "I can already feel my chute dilating."
• Tycho expects a lot out of Mass Effect's romance options.
• Gabe gets a little too much mileage out of Rez HD's controller vibration.
• Gabe attempts to catch Tycho in the act of watching America's Got Talent.
• Tycho's frantic attempt at figuring out why Silent Hill got cancelled:

  Gabe: Is this...shit? Whose shit is this?

  Tycho: Does that matter?

  Gabe: It matters to me.

• "Why do you have all these naked pictures of Will?"
• Gabriel is a very, very, very bad Pokémon Trainer.
• Never say the words "hydration routine" to Tycho.
• Thirty-Seven Hour Energy
• Penny Arcade's idea for where the Soul Stone was hiding.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Funny/PennyArcade

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