Pixar’s Hoppers is getting near-universal praise and for a number of very good reasons. One of the things that many critics and fans have noted about the film is that it’s one of the funniest Pixar movies we’ve ever seen. And one of the movie's best jokes… is barely a joke at all, and somehow still hilarious.
Jesse Andrews wrote the screenplay for Hoppers, and in a recent post on Twitter told the story of how one of the moments that gets the biggest laughs in the theater came about. It’s a single line delivered by a spider who, in response to a question from another spider, drops the exasperated line, “It’s an arrow, Ted.”
According to Andrews, initially, it was going to be a funny-looking bird who helped out Mabel with directions to the stream. But the scene wasn’t quite funny enough, leading to a request for a joke. Andrews explained…
Our executive producers kept giving us the note of, 'Please at least try to put a joke here.' So someone, I think head of story John Kim, was like, 'What if instead of a bird who points, it’s a spider who draws an arrow on her web?'
The spider idea was embraced, but there was still no joke in the scene, a situation that apparently lasted for months. At some point, it sounds like Hoppers' director Daniel Chong was getting frustrated that nobody had come up with anything to do with the scene.
Andrews says he came up with the initial idea for the setup, which sees a spider draw the arrow, and then a second spider comes over and asks what it is. Initially nobody laughed. Then script supervisor Rachel Slansky suggested the tone of the delivery, that of a woman frustrated by her dumb husband. Andrews continued…
Slansky, looked me dead in the eye and said, her voice dripping with exhaustion, 'It’s an arrow, Ted.'
The line is great because it’s set up and punchline all in one. The tone in which it is delivered tells you all you need to know about the relationship between these two spiders, who you never see again. The room at Pixar finally got the joke, and the script supervisor’s delivery was so perfect, that she’s the one in the movie. Andrews said…
Well the rest is history. The room burst into laughter. In fact, no professional actor was able to beat Slansky’s read, and that’s her voice in the movie itself.
I’ve seen Hoppers twice in theaters and both times “It’s an arrow, Ted” got one of the biggest laughs in the entire movie. Even outside of context, the joke works perfectly.
Sometimes it’s the little things about Hoppers that really work, and this great joke is certainly part of that. If you haven’t made it to the theater yet to see this one, do it soon and enjoy the great jokes with a crowd. At some point, you’ll be able to watch the movie with a Disney+ subscription, but you really don't want to have to wait for one of the best Pixar movies ever.
