What was the punchline to Bender’s joke in ‘The Breakfast Club’?
A few classics instantly come to mind when looking back at some of the greatest cliffhangers throughout film and television history. The incredible moment in the very last scene of the finale episode of The Sopranos, in which Tony Soprano sits in a restaurant with his family, anxiously looking over his shoulder at the rest of the diners when suddenly, the show abruptly cuts to black in total silence before the final credits roll. Or, perhaps the famous final moment in The Italian Job, which is quite literally a ‘cliffhanger’, seeing as the film ends with the getaway bus precariously balancing on the edge of a cliff. However, another example comes in the iconic high school comedy, The Breakfast Club, and like all the best cliffhangers, it’s had fans begging for answers ever since.
The Breakfast Club, directed by John Hughes in 1985, starred Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Paul Gleason, Judd Nelson, and Molly Ringwald and told the story of five high school kids from various social cliques that spend a Saturday together while serving a detention. The film was a seminal cult classic of the time that featured career-defining performances and highly quotable dialogue, which helped it become a cultural phenomenon.
But the scene that came midway through the film has left fans desperate for answers. The scene in question comes when the character John Bender, played by Judd Nelson, the punky bad boy of the group, is crawling through the air vents of the school. While the teen ventures through the school above the classrooms to keep himself entertained, he tells himself a joke, which goes as follows: “A naked blonde walks into a bar with a poodle under one arm and a two-foot salami under the other. She lays the poodle on the table. Bartender says, ‘I suppose you won’t be needing a drink’. Naked lady says…“.
However, before Bender can say the punch line, he falls through the ceiling, crashing into the classroom of his fellow schoolmates, to which the character delivers the line while brushing dust from his shoulders, “… Forgot my pencil.”
The answer to the punchline has been puzzling and plaguing fans for years. Many have reached out to the writer and director Hughes for an answer, but according to the director, there was never a punchline, and Nelson had, in fact, improvised the scene. Nevertheless, to this day, the scene remains in the movie vault as one of the great cliffhanger moments in cinema.
The magic of a well-worked cliffhanger brings the audience back to the film for answers and creates a dialogue about the movie with fans after it has ended. Although it’s rare to see cliffhangers in comedies, a good joke needs a punchline. The fact that this comedic moment has become so iconic and is still debated to this day is a testament to Hughes’ film.
Take a look at the trailer for the iconic coming-of-age classic below.
