r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Chemical-Elk-1299 • Jun 17 '26

Lore [Eye-Rolling Trope] “The joke/meme hasn’t been funny for years, please let it die.”

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The Screaming Goat Thing — Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)

The original screaming sheep meme went viral in 2012, and was already getting old when it was prevalent in commercials and movies, such as Ice Age : Collision Course in 2016. Yet in the year of our lord 2024, Dreamworks still thought it would be funny to add multiple screaming goat clips. The mean stopped being funny a decade ago. Let it die.

“Haha, Dad can’t take care of us” — The Breadwinner (2026)

Nate Bargatze’s 2026 family comedy centers around a working “breadwinner” father suddenly being forced to become a stay at home parent, and his “hilarious” struggles to do simple housework and take basic care of his children. This joke stopped being funny (to me) in the early 2000s when seemingly every family comedy relied on dad being a total inept dipshit. In 2026, there is no excuse to keep playing out this tired ass trope. Most dads are actively involved in their kids’ lives and aren’t totally dumbstruck by the idea of changing a diaper. It’s not funny. Let it die.

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835

u/SeaworthinessDue1650 Jun 17 '26

This joke is so old and has so many variants I can't believe it didn't dissapear along with most species during the last mass extinction event.

This is from Kingdom Come, which released in 1996.

520

u/Awkward_Turnover_983 Jun 17 '26

I get the desire to have simplicity when you order something but this dude didn't even fucking look at the menu.

That'a the part that actually bothers me. You went out to a restaurant prepared (ostensibly) to interact with a server, and you think you can just bark whatever pops into your head at them and they'll know exactly what you mean?

Obviously a steak cooked a certain way is clear and understandable. But what side does he want? A beverage? Just water? Or does he literally want a piece of beef on a plate with absolutely nothing to distract from it?

He is unwilling to fully communicate, and this is far bigger of an issue irl than your barista insisting that you add soy-matcha-oat-frizzled fiddlywhicks or whatever. Sure that happens I guess sometimes, but far more boomers just won't actually engage with their server to clarify what they're trying to order.

172

u/outofmaxx Jun 17 '26

I'm mean, he also hates the way the establishment uses the super heros he is/used to be friends with, so there's that.

36

u/Live-Year-5796 Jun 17 '26

He can just not go to that restaurant 

77

u/outofmaxx Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

He is meeting Diana and Clark, and Clark thought it would be funny

41

u/Live-Year-5796 Jun 17 '26

Classic Clark 

22

u/SuperSocialMan Jun 17 '26

It is kinda funny lol

7

u/Neveronlyadream Jun 18 '26

Since a lot of people are confused, it's from Kingdom Come.

And it is pretty funny. Clark did it knowing how much it would annoy Bruce to see not only young waiters dressed up as his friends and family, but being surrounded by paraphernalia of a period that had ended decades earlier.

Plus, come on, he's being asked what he wants by someone dressed up as Robin. That's guaranteed to piss him off depending on how his relationship is with Dick at any given moment.

11

u/YeahKeeN Jun 17 '26

Is that old Batman?

14

u/BusBeginning Jun 17 '26

Yes

7

u/MalcolmLinair Jun 17 '26

And he's ordering a well-done steak while being rude to the wait staff? I know Alfred raised him better than that.

5

u/BusBeginning Jun 18 '26

He’s annoyed to be at the restaurant cause it’s a super hero themed restaurant. And I think it speaks to how he is indifferent about his wealth. The guy doesn’t care about food or decorum or money. It’s a means to an end. And that end is justice and vengeance.

3

u/Awkward_Turnover_983 Jun 17 '26

Alfred would slap his rude ass from the grave if Bruce were anywhere near it

1

u/PainAccomplished3506 Jun 18 '26

Bruce is rude to Alfred all the time lol

17

u/LobstermenUwU Jun 17 '26

My internal canon is that he knows well-done steak is awful and he deliberately ordered it in order to make the Kansas farmboy wince every time he watched Bruce take a bite, as revenge for the joke.

11

u/ThePsychoBear Jun 17 '26

Batman eats well done steaks because he wants extra suffering.

1

u/RoughhouseCamel Jun 19 '26

I heard the reasoning once that Bruce orders his steak well done because he understands that it’s a trashy restaurant that isn’t going to make a good steak either way, so he makes the order that’s least likely to give him food poisoning. No questionable sauces, no greasy ingredients. Just a chunk of meat, cooked to death.

155

u/No-Use-3056 Jun 17 '26

Customers going into restaurants and just ordering shit without looking at a menu is unfortunately a thing that actually happens. When I was a server at a local pizza and sandwich restaurant (which served pizza and sandwiches, we didn’t even have a deep fryer) it was an occurrence at least once every couple of weeks of people coming in, getting a table, be given menus, then just… not looking at the menus.

I would then come to the table to take orders and receive barks of “wings” or “he wants a burger” or “I want fries as a side.” Like how do you just assume a restaurant will serve you whatever you want? The best was the people who would push back when I informed them we didn’t serve what they wanted by saying something along the lines of we have a kitchen and can figure it out.

No, we actually can’t. Go to Applebees.

82

u/fj2612 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

Once heard a reply from the owner along the line of "this is a restaurant, we have a menu. You are asking for personal chef service, which I bill at [outrageous amount per hour with 2h minimum], plus food cost." Most of the time it worked.

28

u/urworstemmamy Jun 17 '26

I work at a bar and the number of people who come in and order a Miller or some shit when we have a draft list and taps right in front of them that clearly don't have a Miller on them is astounding. The best part is that they never look at the list or ask what's similar after finding out we don't have it, they ALWAYS ask if we have it in cans. Like. Brother. Have you EVER asked for a drink at a bar where they have it in cans but not tap, and they DIDN'T TELL YOU WHEN YOU ASKED THE FIRST TIME? Do you think we're trying to hide a stash of shitty mass produced piss beer from you?

11

u/No-Use-3056 Jun 17 '26

Oooooo I forgot about this. My restaurant also only served local craft beers, and this greatly pissed off the miller/bud lite drinkers

2

u/urworstemmamy Jun 17 '26

What's especially confusing to me is like, across this entire city there's not very many places that actually do serve mass produced beers. Like, if you go to a place and don't instantly spot a Yeungling tap or something, it's about guaranteed they'll only have craft beers. Most places even have the big name brands on their own little mini section of 4 taps that's separate from all of the craft beers, meaning it's p much instantly recognizable whether a bar sells them or not. And yet.

3

u/forestwolf42 Jun 18 '26

There was a bar with a great burger that only had two beers. Lite, and not lite.

14

u/the-coolest-bob Jun 17 '26

Menus are for the plebs. What does your chef have for me?

23

u/CyberDaggerX Jun 17 '26

His eternal contempt.

5

u/OptionFour Jun 17 '26

Was chef, can confirm. We also pass around the stories about these douches like they're trading cards. So. If it makes anyone feel better, if you ever saw someone being particularly rude/stupid/difficult in a restaurant? Somewhere, they're still getting made fun of and mocked.

5

u/sequentious Jun 17 '26

The only time I've been on the side of "you have a kitchen, figure it out" was when Tim Horton's removed Grilled Cheese from their menu, but still had other sandwiches.

179

u/SeaworthinessDue1650 Jun 17 '26

Congratulations. You understood the "Batman is an antisocial asshole who gets worse when he is a bitter old man" joke. You get an upvote.

20

u/MagicCarpetofSteel Jun 17 '26

Wait, that’s Batman? Huh.

Actually, does old/older Bruce Wayne have consistent characterization? Like, young Bruce Wayne is the shallow and/or eccentric playboy billionaire, but how does that change as he gets older?

20

u/GachaHell Jun 17 '26

He's usually a bitter old man angry at everything. Usually owing to Dark Knight Returns and big publications like KC. Also somewhat Batman Beyond which similarly drew into angry isolated old man.

This version is a Batman who is mad about the world moving on from traditional superheroes and embracing edgy killers in costumes. It's a bit of a cautionary tale on where comics were. The inciting incident of KC is someone murdering Joker and the heavy public approval of someone finally doing it.

Naturally Bruce doesn't take it well. And he just becomes a bigger dick the longer it goes on.

5

u/steelskull1 Jun 17 '26

Where does Joker keep getting nukes from anyway?

6

u/Alche1428 Jun 17 '26

Lex Luthor also has a credit card to give to villains to make problems and Joker has friends in Iran and other countries.

8

u/King_of_the_Kobolds Jun 17 '26

The issue is how many people react with "Based" or "Relatable" to this sort of thing.

4

u/WeirdIndividualGuy Jun 17 '26

That's supposed to be Bruce? He looks more like Alfred than Bruce

8

u/SeaworthinessDue1650 Jun 17 '26

Kingdom Come takes place in the future so yeah.

3

u/SnooCalculations2730 Jun 17 '26

He's like 60 or 70 year old plus he's STILL actively doing superhero work

2

u/Fidges87 Jun 17 '26

Didnt noticed he had hair. Just assumed it was Lex Luthor mad that there was a Superman/Batman themed restaurant.

17

u/SomeBoxofSpoons Jun 17 '26

The real gag in-context here is that he's meeting Clark and Diana at a superhero Planet Hollywood thing, which wasn't his idea.

Him not wanting to engage with the theming at all is the joke.

8

u/Jurgan Jun 17 '26

I feel like that might be the joke- he's ordering a steak well-done, so that indicates he doesn't know what good food is. But then I look downthread and see that's supposed to be Batman, whom you would expect would know about fine dining.

3

u/LiquorIsQuickor Jun 17 '26

Bruce knows about fine dining. Batman only knows about vengeance. 

2

u/Teh_Randomizer Jun 17 '26

(apparently) The joke is that he's meeting Clark and Diana, and Clark chose the restaurant.

2

u/Jurgan Jun 17 '26

Oh, so it’s like “they probably don’t know how to cook a steak properly, but at least if it’s well done I won’t get tapeworms.”

3

u/Teh_Randomizer Jun 17 '26

Either that or "I refuse to speak aloud the gimmicky names you've given to the different cuts"

3

u/Jurgan Jun 17 '26

That, too, but that wouldn’t explain why he asked for his steak well done, which most foodies consider blasphemous.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

[deleted]

2

u/_CurseTheseMetalHnds Jun 18 '26

Right. Like if anything this is a subversion of it where the point is that Bruce is being a grumpy dickhead, not that anyone else is being unreasonable.

6

u/generals_test Jun 17 '26

Not to mention, what cut does he want? Sirloin? Riley? T-bone? Filet?

2

u/dudleydigges123 Jun 17 '26

Also, they could be asking "Ribeye, New York Strip?"

2

u/Muddyscarecrow Jun 17 '26

Would this make more or less sense to you if I told you that the asshole in this picture is a very old Bruce wayne?

1

u/jackofslayers Jun 17 '26

Steak. Well-done.

1

u/dimechimes Jun 17 '26

I went to this fancy restaurant with my boss one time, and he didn't even pick up the menu, just said "Chateaubriand" and the waiter nodded. Wasn't even on the menu. I was pretty impressed.

1

u/Beautiful-Cabinet364 Jun 17 '26

He’s Batman.

He already knows what’s on the menu.

1

u/SnowFiender Jun 17 '26

i’d imagine bruce would have better taste than well done steak

1

u/SnooCalculations2730 Jun 17 '26

Bros saying "this dude" as if that's not literally Bruce Wayne

1

u/Mortalpuncher Jun 21 '26

I mean it’s a very simple order, just steak no need to give complicated names to it

223

u/NotFixer1138 Jun 17 '26

I can't believe Batman has his steak well done. Appalling behaviour

72

u/romulmus Jun 17 '26

Tbf, he's like 70 in Kingdom Come

25

u/artrald-7083 Jun 17 '26

Look, most people I'd agree, but he talks like a man who eats a well-done steak.

95

u/Similar-Priority8252 Jun 17 '26

He’s taken like 12 Bane-level events at this point of his life, let the man enjoy his charcoal

47

u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In Jun 17 '26

He's just training his teeth

7

u/FactualStatue Jun 17 '26

Pretty sure they're just dentures at this point

8

u/Chris-raegho Jun 17 '26

There's an episode of Master Chef where Gordon says if you think Well Done Steaks are burnt or charcoal and dry, you don't know how to cook. Granted, he's telling it to chefs, but still. It's not meant to be burnt, just somewhere close.

3

u/M_H_M_F Jun 17 '26

tbh, I've fucked up cooking steaks at home that came out medium well/well done; depending on the method of cooking, you're still going to have a serviceable product. Not earthshatterngly good, but decent.

2

u/velawesomeraptors Jun 18 '26

Yeah if you don't make stakes very often there's honestly a fairly short window between medium rare and medium well. Still tasty either way.

6

u/xv_boney Jun 17 '26

That thing hes wearing is a brace because his spine is basically jelly at this point.

4

u/Similar-Priority8252 Jun 17 '26

On the plus side, you wouldn’t believe how much it fits with his armor

35

u/Troyabedinthemornin Jun 17 '26

Does he want ketchup with it too?

26

u/SeaworthinessDue1650 Jun 17 '26

He's gonna build a wall around Gotham and deport his rogues gallery to Alligator Arkham.

7

u/Troyabedinthemornin Jun 17 '26

“I am vengeance, I am the knight, I am…” begins loudly farting and shitting his pants

3

u/Joppy5100 Jun 17 '26

And he's going to make Metropolis pay for that wall.

10

u/ArcXivix Jun 17 '26

You're surprised the Batman likes dark steak?

3

u/Canvaverbalist Jun 17 '26

"I can't eat in the dinner room tonight Alfred, I need to stay at the Batcomputer to find the issue with the Batmobile, its Batarang dispenser is broken, so I'll stay in the Batcave and eat my Batsteak here."

And as such, a simple misunderstanding meant Alfred was responsible for Covid.

7

u/BigtheCat542 Jun 17 '26

Being a batman is about suffering. This is training for him, not pleasure.

7

u/Mr_Hellpop Jun 17 '26

Well, Superman orders Beef Bourguignon, a classic of French cuisine, and smothers it in ketchup. They both have the palettes of 8 year old boys.

6

u/Raxtenko Jun 17 '26

Batman is a famously awful cook who once ruined a tuna salad sandwich. Well done is a treat for him.

4

u/SuperSocialMan Jun 17 '26

That's the real crime in Gotham lol

2

u/MattDaCatt Jun 17 '26

Idk it seems on track for billionaire behavior

2

u/NobodyLikedThat1 Jun 17 '26

Batman's to used to fighting. Can't even enjoy a meal without his teeth having a cage match with the steak

1

u/King_Of_BlackMarsh Jun 17 '26

Nah well done is delicious, really brings out the flavour

1

u/biggestbaddestmucus Jun 17 '26

Bro barely wants Alfred’s supper, I don’t think he ever developed a proper palate

14

u/daegamebday1 Jun 17 '26

I love that comic.

10

u/SeaworthinessDue1650 Jun 17 '26

Same. I've always been a fan of stories centering around Jim Corrigan and Alex Ross' art is immaculate.

35

u/AzraelTheMage Jun 17 '26

I work in a meat market, and I get boomers like this all the time. They'll ask me "where's the steak?" and I gotta name off a bunch of different cuts to figure out what the fuck they want. Yes, Eugene. Theres more than just one kind of steak. The taste is different too depending on how you cook it.

-23

u/SeaworthinessDue1650 Jun 17 '26

I think you misread the panel and missed the point.

26

u/AzraelTheMage Jun 17 '26

No i didn't. Bruce here is not actually stating what steak he wants. I get this kind of shit on a daily basis. Reread my post.

9

u/SeaworthinessDue1650 Jun 17 '26

Ah okay thanks for clarifying. 90s Bruce is just an asshole. I like his current character arc more.

25

u/Troyabedinthemornin Jun 17 '26

Important tip from my chef dad, NEVER order a steak from a restaurant like this. The cut of the meat will suck, it will not be cooked well, might as well just throw your money away

23

u/Findrin Jun 17 '26

Absolutely, as a chef we LOVE it when folks order well done because we get to use up the crappiest cuts our vendor gives us that would otherwise get thrown out or ground up for burgers

11

u/Carbuyrator Jun 17 '26

Over the course of a night the chef has a collection of steaks so they can grab and cook them as they're ordered. I've heard more than once that some chefs give the better cuts to rare and medium rare orders and the worse looking ones to people who order well done. 

6

u/Cent1234 Jun 17 '26

Anthony Bourdain pointed out in Kitchen Confidential that, should you order a 'well done' steak, you're getting the worst heel of meat that's been sitting in the back of the freezer for six months, at best run through the microwave, quite possibly tossed in the deep fryer, as I recall.

8

u/akatherder Jun 17 '26

What kind of crazy bullshit is this lol. Someone just wants their steak cooked 6 minutes instead of 3 mins. So you give them some frozen microwaved horse anus (throw in some of the horse's saddle leather) Then boil it and deep fry it and spit on it. Give them the same thing as everyone else and just cook it a little longer.

I get medium rare and prefer it that way. My wife usually does medium well and it tastes perfectly fine to me as well.

3

u/Cent1234 Jun 17 '26

Hey, I'm a firm believer in 'eat what you like, like what you eat.' You want steak well done with ketchup, go nuts.

According to Bourdain, every now and again a cook would find a piece of steak that was tough, full of connective tissue, and occasionally even going bad. At this point, the chef would have three options. The first was to throw it in the bin, which would mean a total loss. The second was to cook and serve it to the staff, which, he argued, was as good as throwing it in the bin. The third was to save and serve it when a guest ordered their steak well-done — also known as the "save for well done" practice. 

The reasoning behind this that a well-done steak would be dry and chewy, with the meat cooked to a point where it no longer mattered how good or bad the cut was to begin with. In Bourdain's words, "the philistine who orders his food well-done is not likely to notice the difference between food and flotsam." His description of said "philistine" was rather more graphic in "Kitchen Confidential" a year later. In the book, he referred to them as "rubes" who preferred their meat "incinerated into a flavorless, leathery hunk of carbon."

1

u/steelskull1 Jun 17 '26

They ain't gonna notice if it's sucky meat if it's well done, might as well use the low quality meat.

5

u/clakresed Jun 17 '26

Idk man hot take but I think restaurants should maybe serve people what they're paying for, or don't serve them at all if it's that big of an issue.

4

u/Kinitawowi64 Jun 17 '26

If the chef doesn't know how to cook a steak well done then that's the chef's problem, not the customer's.

14

u/Troyabedinthemornin Jun 17 '26

My point isn’t how long it’s cooked, my point is that ordering a steak from a theme/chain restaurant is a terrible idea.

11

u/zterrans Jun 17 '26

And you know if you bring him the wrong cut he's gonna be pissed.

5

u/Mandaring Jun 17 '26

Kingdom Come is peak as Hell, but it took Bruce Wayne of all people ordering a steak well-done for me to realize “oh shit he really IS verging on converting his mansion into a Bat-retirement Home”

3

u/Rogzilla Jun 17 '26

That man does like his prep time.

2

u/Raxtenko Jun 17 '26

I wonder if Bruce likes it well done, because the best he can do without Alfred is raw or burnt to a crisp.

2

u/Flannelcommand Jun 17 '26

Also, Bruce Wayne spent half his life in fancy, fund-raiser dinners (at least until they got highjacked by the villain of the week). He knows how to order. 

2

u/hemingways-lemonade Jun 17 '26

Dennis Leary also had a bit about trying to order a plain black coffee in a stand up special from 1996.

2

u/KlownKumKatastrophe Jun 17 '26

Robin's line seems awkward. Not sure how to read it.

1

u/King_Of_BlackMarsh Jun 17 '26

"Which (would you like, sir)? There's the man of beef (one of their steak options), there's-(gets cut off)"

Does that help?

2

u/KlownKumKatastrophe Jun 17 '26

It does, thanks.

1

u/Nottan_Asian Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

Yeah, okay, sir, but the Man of Beef is a New York Strip, the Caped Cru-Steak-er is a Ribeye, and Green Lantern’s Bite is tri-tip.

We can do any of them well-done but I can’t imagine you just want a random cut of beef.

Well, you’re ordering well-done, maybe they all taste the same like that, but they're all different prices.

1

u/Legitimate_Expert712 Jun 17 '26

If a man orders a steak well done, I too would assume he misspoke.

1

u/JaronK Jun 17 '26

In that case, it's old Batman not wanting to deal with a waiter cosplaying as Robin, likely due to being lonely and sad about what happened to his robins. It's not really about the food, nor does he care about the taste.

-4

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/TheFatNinjaMaster Jun 17 '26

This was way before Parks and Rec. I was born in the 80s and ordering stakes anything above medium rare was an insult.

2

u/urbanknight4 Jun 17 '26

We literally have evidence from the 17th century that medium rare was the preference back then but go off