People ask me, they say, "Carrie, you're the expert, and you're so good looking, what is the most played out joke ever written?" This is my reply.The thinking-the-potpourri-is-trail-mix joke is officially the most played out joke ever written, at least for the screen. It works like this:
There are a group of characters standing around. One of the characters, usually the "dumb" one, is eating something out of a bowl with his hands, the audience assumes it's some kind of chips. There are a few seconds of unrelated dialog and then the character eating says either, "This trail mix is great" or, "This trail mix is terrible" and another character says, "Dude, that's potpourri." Then, the character eating can either shrug and continue eating or dramatically spit out the potpourri. Works every time.
This joke has been written into every single movie, TV sit-com and TV drama to come out in the last 30 years. Off the top of my head, I've seen it on Friends, my beloved Scrubs, and in a movie trailer for a movie that just came out that I'm probably not going to see. It's the most played out joke ever. It's not that funny and I implore writers to think of other, more creative ways to work potpourri into a script.