Difference between revisions of "419: Forks and Spoons"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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(Explanation)
(Explanation: Unless you want a lecture on binary fractions, this explanation is perfect)
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==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Incomplete; seems rather short.}}
 
 
This comic begins like standard sci-fi fare, where amoral scientists request funding from mysterious benefactors. The dialogue of "You're toying with powerful forces here" and "We know what we're doing" is a [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow classic trope], foreshadowing that things will soon [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoneHorriblyWrong go horribly wrong]. It inevitably leads to the humorous incongruity of a sentient {{w|spork}} on a murderous rampage.
 
This comic begins like standard sci-fi fare, where amoral scientists request funding from mysterious benefactors. The dialogue of "You're toying with powerful forces here" and "We know what we're doing" is a [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow classic trope], foreshadowing that things will soon [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoneHorriblyWrong go horribly wrong]. It inevitably leads to the humorous incongruity of a sentient {{w|spork}} on a murderous rampage.
  

Revision as of 12:16, 11 March 2014

Forks and Spoons
Their biggest mistake was bringing Rachael Ray and Emeril to tour the lab and sign off on the project. That's when Spielberg caught wind of it.
Title text: Their biggest mistake was bringing Rachael Ray and Emeril to tour the lab and sign off on the project. That's when Spielberg caught wind of it.

Explanation

This comic begins like standard sci-fi fare, where amoral scientists request funding from mysterious benefactors. The dialogue of "You're toying with powerful forces here" and "We know what we're doing" is a classic trope, foreshadowing that things will soon go horribly wrong. It inevitably leads to the humorous incongruity of a sentient spork on a murderous rampage.

Rachael Ray and Emeril are celebrity chefs, and Steven Spielberg is a famous movie director. The joke seems to be that if the laboratory hadn't hired the two renowned chefs, Spielberg wouldn't have made a movie in which Rachael's and Emeril's characters are killed off horribly.

Transcript

Megan: A spoon crossed with a fork is a spork.
Off-panel Megan's voice: Our lab has successfully crossed a spork with a spoon. [Diagram showing the fractions of fork and spoon in each item.]
[Chart showing possible combinations of spoons a forks.]
Megan, facing audience: With your funding, we could create hybrids in proportions corresponding to any binary fraction.
[Fork-Spoon Spectrum.]
Audience member: You're toying with powerful forces here.
Megan: We know what we're doing.
Two weeks later:
[Picture of a destroyed lab with two dead bodies, blood everywhere and a spoon-fork hybrid hopping away.]
Hop hop hop.


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Discussion

What could the title text be about? 208.120.153.144 05:45, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Rachael Ray and Emeril are two celebrity cooks in America; he has a TV show (or did at the time this was drawn); she has her own magazine. Spielberg is presumably the movie guy. 24.61.10.104 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Speilberg is definitely "the movie guy" and most relevantly the director of Jurassic Park, with which Randall has a well-documented obsession (87:_Velociraptors, 135:_Substitute, and many others.) The overall plot -- disaster brought about by cocky scientists "toying with powerful forces" -- is the same as this comic's. Rachel Ray and Emeril would presumably be the stand-ins for JP's Drs. Sattler and Grant. --66.114.70.139 17:38, 28 October 2013 (UTC) It looks more like a spoork (stage 2 spork) in the last panel141.101.99.215 09:16, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

could it be a knife at the last panel? Imanton1 (talk) 03:39, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

It does look like a knife; one edge is completely straight and one is rounded. LogicalOxymoron (talk) 20:18, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

The first line of the explanation suggests that the spoon-spork hybrids are produced in manner "similar to Mendelian inheritance" is incorrect. In fact the process is far more similar to non-Mendelian inheritance. LordofMarzipan (talk) 06:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Might be going too deep into the charts... --flewk (talk) 16:26, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

"Should'a just stayed with the fork'n knife" "Huh?! What kind'a knife?" NerillDP (talk) 19:28, 1 April 2016 (UTC)Nerill

A sponife! 1/2 spoon and 1/2 knife! You don't need spoons anymore! Weirdly enough, I have a weird utensil that is a fork and knife on one side, and a spoon on the other side. It can be kind of weird to eat with it because you have to be careful to not cut yourself while using the spoon.

"I don't use a spoon or fork, i use a spork!" (Jurassic Park music starts playing)Dontknow (talk) 00:08, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Look up grapefruit spoons, those things are vicious! Jelsemium (talk) Jelsemium