More Spoonerisms

Examples in modern culture

The Middle Common Room of New College, Oxford is informally known as "The Rooner Spoom", in Spooner's honour.

In the movie Robin Hood: Men in Tights, the Sheriff of Rottingham utters such phrases as "He deered to kill a King's dare."

In the TV series Green Acres, Mr. Douglas addresses the governor of the state (the Kangaroo State!) on behalf of the "poople of Heeterville".

In the TV series Andy Griffith, during the episode where Barney Fife gives the governor a parking ticket, Barney becomes unwittingly "gassed" from water in the cooler that Otis Campbell has spiked. Emboldened, an inebriated Barney later remarks to Andy (regarding his indifference to the potential punishment from the governor), "Tell the governor to put THAT in his smipe and poke it!"

The dwarf Doc, voiced by comedian Roy Atwell, provided spoonerism comedy in Walt Disney's film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937..

On the TV series Late Show with David Letterman, instead of wishing everyone a "Happy Jewish New Year", stage manager Biff Henderson mistakenly wished everyone a "Happy Newish Jew Year".

Doodles Weaver frequently injected spoonerisms into the tunes he sang with the Spike Jones's band

NOFX 's best-selling album was entitled Punk in Drublic.

An alleged spoonerism led to the nickname "the Canadian Broadcorping Castration." (An LP set of bloopers released in the 1970s included this one, where a French Canadian announcer, doing an English network identification, stated "This is the Dominion Network of the Canadian Broadcorping Castration ," although it is not known whether this recording comes from an actual broadcast or a post facto recording to support a rumour that already existed.)

Harry Von Zell once introduced Herbert Hoover , the President of the United States at that time as "Hoobert Heaver".

The Capitol Steps have successfully done a few political comedy routines ("Lirty Dies") based on this premise.

Comedian Ronnie Barker played Rev. Spooner in a sketch on The Two Ronnies TV show.

American comedian Archie Campbell , one of the stars of the long-running TV show Hee Haw , performed routines about "Rindercella and the Pransome Hince" and "Beeping Sleauty".'.".

The Shel Silverstein book Runny Babbit , published posthumously in 2005, consists entirely of poetry (and illustrations) filled with spoonerisms.

In Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones , the character Jar-Jar Binks says "dellow felegates" when addressing the senate."

Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther sequel A Shot in the Dark goes for a three-fer with "killed him in a rit of fealous jage".

Mayor Lumpkin in Trollkins was prone to spoonerisms, at one point, saying: "[...] my golf game, er, golf game... Hey, I can't mess up these words!"'

In one episode of The Simpsons , when Sideshow Bob tries to murder Bart , Chief Wiggum is trying to put him in prison and says "Bake him away, toys!"

Apu Nahasapeemapetilon 's surname is a spoonerism of the name Pahasaneemapetilon, which was the surname of a school mate of Simpsons writer Jeff Martin .

Paul Jennings , Ted Greenwood and Terry Denton collaborated to create Spooner or Later, a puzzle-like book to figure out spoonerisms that are pictured around the sides.

Don Knotts , on his 1961 comedy album An Evening With Me, portrays a nervous sportscaster doing the play-by-play of his first big game. "It's a grand day in the great stands, and the solden gunshine is beaming on the fectators' spaces."

The history of the NSF (a fictional terrorist organisation in the computer game Deus Ex ) mentions a siege at the town of Squalnomie, a spoonerism of the town of Snoqualmie in Washington .

Another video game, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty , contains the fake game over screen "FISSION MAILED".

In a season three episode of Rescue Me , a drunken character tells someone to "Hake a Tike".

Infocom 's interactive fiction game Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It is divided into "chapters" devoted to different forms of wordplay, one being spoonerisms.

In an episode of Monty Python , one of the actors refers to the Shakesperean play King Richard III as "Ring Kichard the Thrid." (This comes at the conclusion of a sketch where an man claiming to speak entirely in anagrams is interviewed; he is writing an anagram version of Shakespeare . The interviewer calls his bluff over this spoonerism, and the man gets up and leaves.)

Metallica's logo typestyle has been replicated and is distributed under the name, "Pastor of Muppets", a Spoonerism of the band's album "Master of Puppets".