The poem has become a staple of
American humor. It is often used as a joking example of fine art, with the vulgarity providing a surprising contrast to an expected refinement: • In a 2003 episode of
8 Simple Rules, Rory uses his puppet Skeevy to start the joke to his mom Cate • In the 2002 film
Solaris,
George Clooney's character mentions that his favorite poem is the most famous poem by
Dylan Thomas that starts with "There was a young man from Nantucket" • In
Will & Grace season 8 episode 3 ("The Old Man and the Sea"),
Grace criticizes her date's poem for its lack of rhyme, and as an example, she recites the first two lines of the ribald version: "There once was a man from Nantucket... Something something something... Suck it." Many jokes assume the audience knows the poem so well that they do not need to hear any actual lines to get the allusion: • In
Gilmore Girls season 3 episode 8,
Lorelai Gilmore jokes about carving something dirty into a bathroom wall by saying "What rhymes with Nantucket?" • In ''
Who's the Boss'' season 5 episode 23, there is talk about poetry class and Tony says about Angela "...last time she heard her name mentioned in a poem, it started with "There once was a man from Nantucket"..." • In the
Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Wheel O' Comedy",
Babs Bunny asks
Buster Bunny to say the magic chant before spinning the wheel, to which Buster begins reciting: "There once was a girl from Nantucket..." before she quickly cuts him off with: "Not
that chant!" • In a sketch from the
eighth season episode of
Robot Chicken titled "Not Enough Women", there is a moment when
J. R. R. Tolkien, writing the opening of the book
The Hobbit, comes up with the line, "In a hole of
Middle-earth, there was found a
Hobbit... whose dick was so long, he could slob it." • In the
fifth season episode of
The Simpsons titled "
Bart's Inner Child", there is a joke where
Krusty the Clown notes that he wants to include more dirty limericks in his act and begins to recite "There once was a man named '
Enos,'" before he is cut off by
Homer. Later in the fifth season, "
Deep Space Homer" features a gag where Homer begins to recite the limerick while performing cartwheels in the
NASA training gymnasium, but can only finish the first line before he collides with a wall. In the
tenth season episode "
Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo" Homer references the limerick, saying he once knew a man from Nantucket and telling "the stories about him are greatly exaggerated." • The 2012
Gravity Falls episode "Headhunters" features the line, "There once was a dude from Kentucky...". Disney's
Broadcast Standards and Practices department requested that the line be changed from “There once was a man from Kentucky”, which retained the sentence structure of the original limerick, arguing that "unsavory rhymes could be gleaned from it." • In
SpongeBob SquarePants season 1 episode 15a "Sleepy Time,"
Gary's dream is infiltrated by
SpongeBob, wherein the former recites a limerick starting with "There once was a man from Peru." In season 8 episode 157, SpongeBob, while preparing to recite an opera song, pulls out a piece of paper and reads, "There once was a man from Nantucket..." before the audience gasps in shock; he puts the paper back into his pocket, saying "Oops, wrong one", and afterward continuing with his song. • In the
Frasier episode "The Botched Language of Cranes",
Frasier Crane is eager to find some humor to break the ice as he takes the role of host at a high-stakes church fundraiser that he hopes can repair his damaged reputation. Frustrated at drawing a mental blank, he quips ironically, "Why don't I call Bulldog and ask him for a couple of limericks from his Nantucket series?" • In a
Star Trek TNG episode, Data starts to recite it as an example of poetry. ==References==