Pulp Fiction’s 5 Funniest (And 5 Most Shocking) Moments

Quentin Tarantino’s sophomore directorial effort Pulp Fiction burst onto screens in 1994. It defied genre classification. If you had to put a label on it, it’d be a darkly comic rock ‘n roll spaghetti western shot and edited in the style of French New Wave cinema, but that’s quite a mouthful.

Tonally, the movie’s a pitch-black comedy, although Tarantino has insisted that all of his movies are dramas, not comedies. Pulp Fiction flits masterfully between making its audience laugh and making its audience wince in disgust and terror. So, here are Pulp Fiction’s funniest and most shocking moments.

10 Funniest: “Zed’s dead, baby!”

Fabienne is easily the most irritating character in Pulp Fiction, but when Butch returns from the pawn shop with a new lease on life, his conversation with a clueless Fabienne is pretty hilarious.

He explains that the vehicle he stole from Zed is a “chopper,” not a motorcycle. When she asks after Zed, Butch explains, “Zed’s dead, baby! Zed’s dead!”

Bruce Willis is one of the least nuanced actors to land a major role in a Quentin Tarantino movie, but in the role of a wisecracking boxer, he’s a pretty ideal choice.

9 Most shocking: Mia’s adrenaline shot

Uma Thurman is one of the best actors for delivering Quentin Tarantino’s dialogue and playing his characters, because she always finds the real humanity of the character underneath all the flashy pontificating and genre tropes. She took Mia Wallace, a clichéd mob wife character, and brought a layer of genuine emotion to her portrayal.

After Mia accidentally snorts some of Vincent’s heroin, mistaking it for cocaine, and overdoses, Vincent panics and takes her to his dealer’s house, where they give her an adrenaline shot. They’re so inexperienced, and it could all go so wrong, that the scene is nail-bitingly compelling.

8 Funniest: “Does he look like a b***h!?”

Samuel L. Jackson singlehandedly made himself a movie star with an early scene in Pulp Fiction. While Vincent is looking in the mysterious briefcase, Jules occupies Brett and his buddies with questions.

He kills one of them, breaking Brett’s concentration, and he asks Brett, “What does Marsellus Wallace look like?” and as Brett tries to answer, Jules interjects to ask, “Does he look like a b***h!?” Brett says he doesn’t and Jules abruptly asks, “Then why are you trying to f**k him like a b***h?” It was a roundabout – and very funny – way to get the point across to Brett.

7 Most shocking: Jules and Vincent were in the diner that Pumpkin and Honey Bunny robbed

This moment isn’t shocking because it’s violent; it’s shocking because it brings the movie full circle and ties the tightly interconnected storylines together for a final showdown.

We realize that the previously unrelated opening prologue in which Pumpkin and Honey Bunny stick up a diner was significant after all because Jules and Vincent were sitting in the diner.

Vincent is in the bathroom when the commotion kicks off, leaving Jules to handle it on its own. He pulls his own gun on Pumpkin and Honey Bunny and forces them to return his stolen wallet that says “Bad Mother F****r” on it.

6 Funniest: Butch selects a weapon

When Butch escapes from the pawnshop basement, he heads for the exit, but then he can hear the torture that Marsellus is going through downstairs, and he can’t bear to leave him behind. And he figures that if he saves the crime lord who wants him dead, they might call it even.

So, he goes through the arsenal of weapons available for purchase in the store. He considers a baseball bat, a hammer, and a chainsaw before eventually settling on a katana that he finds. The whole scene plays out like a sight gag from a Looney Tunes cartoon.

5 Most shocking: The toaster seals Vincent’s fate

This scene was enough to put off a lot of initial investors from funding the movie. They didn’t understand how the lead character could be killed in the middle of the movie, and then still appear in later scenes. In other words, they didn’t get Pulp Fiction.

During “The Gold Watch” storyline, as Butch heads back to his heavily-guarded apartment for the titular heirloom, he finds the place empty, so he can relax – and then Vincent comes out of the bathroom. Some Pop-Tarts loudly pop out of the toaster, and Butch instinctively pulls the trigger on the noise, killing Vincent in seconds.

4 Funniest: Jules and Vincent discuss the implications of foot massages

Jules and Vincent’s dialogue in Pulp Fiction was reportedly inspired by the hysterically mundane banter traded by Jerry and George in Seinfeld. This would make sense because Tarantino’s snappy back-and-forth about the minutiae of daily life echoes the style pioneered by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David’s groundbreaking sitcom.

With a few minutes to spare before they’re supposed to arrive at Brett’s apartment, Jules and Vincent talk about the meaning of a foot massage, because Tony “Rocky Horror” was allegedly thrown from a window by Marsellus Wallace for giving his wife a foot massage. Jules insists that he is “the foot f****n’ master.”

3 Most shocking: Vincent shoots Marvin in the face

Vincent Vega screws up big-time on the way back from his job at Brett’s apartment. He and Jules are bringing Marvin to face Marsellus, when Vincent accidentally shoots him in the face, blowing his brains out the back of his head, all over the car, in broad daylight.

This leads to “The Bonnie Situation,” the third and final segment of the film. They need to get the car out of sight, hidden at Jules’ friend Jimmie’s house, so they can figure out how they’re going to clean up the gory mess and explain to Marsellus why Marvin is now dead.

2 Funniest: “Oh, man, I shot Marvin in the face.”

The shock of Vincent shooting Marvin in the face is immediately undercut with a joke when Vincent says, “Oh, man, I shot Marvin in the face.” The nonchalant approach he has to the situation is grimly hilarious.

Jules seems far more alarmed that a murder just took place in the car than the one who actually accidentally committed the murder. Jules panics, as one would in such a situation, but Vincent just seems to be exasperated by the hassle that will come along with his screw-up. Tarantino found a darkly comic angle to the mob hitman stock character’s casual approach to killing.

1 Most shocking: “Bring out the gimp.”

When Butch happens upon Marsellus in the street and rams into him, the tension of the scene seems clear. Marsellus recovers from the crash and starts shooting at Butch, who runs down the street and seeks refuge in a pawn shop. However, when the pawnshop clerk pulls out a shotgun and kidnaps both Butch and Marsellus, the tension is ratcheted up yet again. Now, they’ll be lucky to get out of it alive.

They’re bound and gagged in the basement of the pawnshop. The clerk’s cop friend, Zed, shows up, and they “bring out the gimp” to join them in their sadistic sexual games.

About The Author

Ben Sherlock
(3477 Articles Published)

Ben Sherlock is a writer, comedian, independent filmmaker, and Burt Reynolds enthusiast. He writes lists for Screen Rant and features and reviews for Game Rant. He’s currently in pre-production on his first feature (and has been for a while, because filmmaking is expensive). You can catch him performing standup at odd pubs around the UK that will give him stage time. Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop.

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