Gurglings of a Putrid Stream

One of the great I Love Lucy episodes has a scene in which Cuban Ricky Ricardo reads aloud from an English children's book. Of course, the text is sprinkled with words ending in "ough," and each time Lucy corrects him on one pronunciation he tries it again on the next word. Rough becomes row, through becomes thruff -- until he gets to cough, when he says, "Coo?...Well, I know it can't be cow!"

The scene is genius -- precisely because Ricky is reading the words. What drives me crazy -- and I see it time and time again -- is when (in movies, on TV) writers try the same joke in dialogue. Here's an example, from a bad early 90s T&A monster film called Dinosaur Island.

"This isn't magic. This is chemistry."
"What is CHIMistry?"

Really? The sad thing is, this joke isn't confined to bad T&A movies from the 90s. I've seen it crop up all over the place. Sometimes I wonder if even the writer knows how ridiculous it is.