Plotholes in Dumb Comedies

How can anyone get upset at a plothole in a stupid comedy? I don’t know how I do it, but I do it.

Old School:

  • The first big party is a Thursday, but in the great scene where we see Frank the Tank coming back, Frank says that he has a busy Saturday ahead of him.
  • Oh, that lousy Dean! Their frat got an average score of 84% on their test. But the Dean brings in the score of dead Blue (the old guy), of course it’s a 0%, and the new average score is now 58%! Uh-oh! That math doesn’t work though. It comes close if the frat only had two people, but we can see there are twelve or so. Averaging in another person score of 0% would bring it to 77% or so. Perhaps this was a sophisticated meta-test — if they could figure out how impossible the Dean’s claim is, they would have demonstrated the math skills they needed to pass the test.

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (This one really bugged me.)

  • Before the big match, the bad guys make Vince an offer. For $100,000, sign over his gym to the bad guys. Vince believes his team has no hope of winning. He seems like he’s going to sign it. Flash forward to the next day. Vince is getting drunk. In a bar. His team has been abandoned. They have no strategy, no plan, no hope. They consider forfeiting. Vince watches the pre-game on TV, where the announcers wonder if there will be a match at all. In a candid encounter with Lance Armstrong he says he’s not going to play. Lance shames him into changing his mind.

    Meanwhile, as Vince is on his way over, his team has forfeited. They don’t have enough players. It’s too late, it’s all over. Except one of his players finds a loophole – they can appeal to the judges. Fortunately for them Chuck Norris casts the tiebreaking vote and they are allowed to play. Yay! Vince arrives in time. He plays. He is knocked out instantly.

    Of course his team goes on to win. The bad guys bring out the contract to show how Vince gave up his gym. And now, finally, the part that gets me.

    Vince reveals that yes, he did sign the contract. But, he took the $100,000 and placed on his team to win at 50-1 odds. He now has $5,000,000 and can buy the bad guys chain of gyms, ha!

    When did he place this bet!? Before he got wasted? While his team waited for him to develop a strategy? Before it took an intervention by Lance Armstrong to make him decide to play? Could it have been after that, while his team was busy forfeiting due to his absence and only got to play due to a freak knowledge of the rules and the deux machina cameo of Chuck Norris? Before he played horribly and got knocked out within 10 seconds!? When did he make this bet, and how do any of his other actions correspond to this bet! (And, by the way, how would the odds be 50-1? Even Buster Douglas was only 45-1, and Vince’s team had convincingly beaten a wide variety of opponents.) Just an infuriating lack of consistency, a ridiculous plot hole that didn’t even add anything to the plot.

One thought on “Plotholes in Dumb Comedies”

  1. Someone has stopped willfully suspending their disbelief…

    (Surprisingly, you are OK with Ben Stiller owning a gym even though he is obviously deranged and would probably be in jail for some sort of sexual assault change…and that no one suffers permanent injury while training for the match…)

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