Longest Running Inside Jokes On TV

Nothing beats the feeling of plopping down in front of a TV screen, a laptop, or even a phone and catching up on our favorite shows. There's something comforting about the escapism and familiarity that comes with watching the best television has to offer, and it's even better when we can appreciate all the little inside jokes and running gags that help connect threads through the seasons. When done right, these sly references can bring back fond memories and help us connect with characters more deeply. More importantly, they can make us laugh. Here's our tribute to some of the best running gags in television history. Some might be NSFW—but only slightly.

The "Slap Bet" episode from How I Met Your Mother's second season gave viewers one of the show's finest running gags. In fact, what makes the bet even more special is that it's tied in with one of the show's other great running gags: Robin Sherbatsky's past life as a Canadian pop star named Robin Sparkles. The bet involved Barney and Marshall getting slapped in the face if either was wrong about the secret Robin had been hiding. Marshall ended up winning and Barney agreed to receive the slaps over time.

Season after season, we'd get a few more of the slaps in, with some added to the pool along the way. It all culminated in an epic slap in the show's final season, after which Boyz II Men came out to sing their rendition of Marshall's "You Just Got Slapped" song. The very last slap was used on Barney to stop him from running away from his own wedding, so we're glad such comedic violence was used for something good.

It's probably one of the more bizarre rituals to come out of a TV series, but New Girl's True American drinking game became a hit with fans after its debut on the show. The seemingly nonsensical game involved dizzying bits of American history, a lot of running and yelling, and a healthy amount of booze. Different versions of the game were played throughout the series, with a special "First Lady" edition being played before Schmidt and Cece's wedding. If you'd like to give it a shot, here are some rules. While it might seem complicated, the most important rule for True American is to just have fun drinking with your buddies.

Nothing was more enjoyable on Scrubs than Dr. Cox's constant hatred of others. This lovable misanthrope, played by John C. McGinley, always seemed to direct his anger towards his de facto protege, J.D. His ire would usually take the form of calling J.D. a bunch of girl names to emasculate him, a tradition that ran the length of the entire series. Just check out this compilation of names that Dr. Cox has used over the years—while he could definitely be downright nasty, it's hard not to be impressed.

Anytime Paul Rudd appears on Conan O'Brien's show, he always shows a clip from whatever upcoming project he's out promoting. Well, that's not totally true—he always claims he's going to show a clip from his latest movie, but invariably ends up showing the same clip from the 1988 release Mac and Me, a scene featuring a wheelchair-bound young man named Eric falling off a cliff and landing in water. Rudd trolled O'Brien even harder when he actually showed footage from Ant-Man during an interview, only to have the clip transition to the same Mac and Me clip he's been showing for years... twice. You have to appreciate his dedication to the gag.

As much as Dr. Cox hates J.D., he grew a little more attached to him as time wore on. The same cannot be said for The Office's Michael Scott and his inexplicable hatred for Dunder Mifflin Human Resources rep Toby. It seemed any provocation, even in the form of an innocent statement, from Toby would set Michael off. His cartoonish hatred is actually kind of endearing in a messed-up, mean-spirited way.

Boy Meets World was a part of ABC's TGIF programming block in the '90s and helped spawn one of the greatest bromances of all time between lovable dork Corey Matthews and his good-hearted bad-boy buddy, Shawn Hunter. As they grew up, their bond became stronger and stronger until they pretty much acted like an old married couple, oftentimes to the chagrin of their respective girlfriends, Topanga and Angela. We enjoyed how close these two became and appreciated the fact that their friendship continued well into adulthood on the show's sequel series, Girl Meets World.

There's one running gag in Spongebob Squarepants that fans have probably heard for years but might have never really noticed: Fred the fish getting hurt and screaming, "My leg!" He's usually offscreen when he gets injured, but if you pay attention, you can almost always hear it. We're not sure if he offended some ancient deity of misfortune, but injury always seems to find him. In fact, according to Mental Floss, Fred was even hurt in the feature film, only he screamed "My eyes!" instead of "My legs!"

Here's a classic gag from a legendary sitcom. George Costanza, played by Jason Alexander, made up the character of Art Vandelay early in the series and constantly used him in different situations, either assuming the name as an alias or referring to him a different person entirely—a long-running gag that came to a head in the series finale. While the show's last episode has been maligned over the years, it contained at least one punchline several seasons in the making: the gang got into some trouble with the law and appeared before a judge...whose name happened to be Arthur Vandelay.

Poor, unfortunate Lieutenant Dangle from Reno 911!. There's a gag throughout the series that involves Dangle somehow losing his bike or finding it vandalized. For some explicable reason, Dangle's bike is always a target of theft or some other mishap. A few fans on Reddit discussed who might be behind all of Dangle's bicycle woes, theorizing it was Junior that kept stealing it because he ended up trying to sell it at one point. Whatever the reason for the bike's constant disappearance or damage, it was always funny to see Dangle's reaction.