Conan O'Brien

"If life gives you lemons, make some kind of fruity juice. "
- Conan O'Brien

Conan O'Brien, in this quote from his talk show, proves that he is one of the wittiest hosts on the late night talk show circuit. O'Brien, ever since he started writing for The Simpsons back in the early nineties, has a reputation for being one of the wittiest television writers in the business and this quote serves to show how deftly he can craft a one liner to create humor. This quote is a play on the proverb "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade", which is another way of saying make the best out of what life gives you. O'Brien twists this phrase into an epigram by providing a witty and satirical twist on the traditional proverb in the second clause. Instead of saying what we expect to hear whenever we hear this proverb, the traditional ending "make lemonade", he says, "Make some kind of fruity juice" in order to surprise us which is humorous.

In music, some of the most interesting and pleasing moments are when a musician deviates from or delays the conventional patterns of resolution that are present in any piece of music. For example a traditional piece in the key of C is by virtue of music theory supposed to end with the V chord (G Major) resolving to the I chord (C Major) because it is what everyone’s ear expects and wants to hear. Musicians play within this structure by doing things like playing the V chord and then the IV chord and then resolving to the I chord which creates a notable tension in the listener's ear because they expected to hear the I chord after the fifth and instead they heard the IV chord. This creation of tension is the main tool a musician uses to create an interesting piece much in the same way that a writer deviates from convention in order to create a more interesting piece through the tension they establish in their deviations. This notion is important to understand the humor in O'Brien's quote.

O'Brien is playing off of what we expect to hear at the conclusion of the quote. Our ear wants to hear "make lemons" we've grown up hearing this many times so we expect it to conclude with this. O'Brien brilliantly creates an unexpected tension by instead resolving to, "Make some kind of fruity juice". This tension is what we call humor.

On the textual level O'Brien's quote operates as an epigram because of its witty twist at the end. In the cultural arena O'Brien's quote operates as a play on our societies use of the “if you have lemons…” proverb in every day speech.