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Clarke and Dawe - The Front Fell Off

ClarkeAndDaweCited 20× on HN, 2017–2026
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comedy · general · evergreen · 2017–2026 on HN

A classic Clarke and Dawe sketch from 1991 in which an Australian senator evasively discusses an oil spill, famously saying the front fell off.

Used almost entirely as a joke reference when HN threads involve accidents, failures or evasive official statements.

12 comments from Hacker News

@autoexec2026-03 · in “Picking Up a Zillion Pieces of Litter”

I'm starting to suspect I might be cynical. I was pretty impressed at the "1,000,000 cigarette butts that I removed from the environment" but I couldn't help but think "moved into what?" which brought this ( ▶ this video ) to mind: [Interviewer:] Into another environment…. [Senator Collins:] No, no, no. it’s been towed beyond the environment, it’s not in the environment [Interviewer:] Yeah, but from one environment to another environment. [Senator Collins:] No, it’s beyond the environment, it’s not in an environment. It has been towed beyond the environment. [Interviewer:] Well, what’s out there? [Senator Collins:] Nothing’s out there… Also, I couldn't help but wonder if he was removing trash at a faster rate than it was being added. Picking up litter is a good thing certainly, but we really need to get people to stop creating it in the first place. Even properly disposed of all that trash is a massive problem, but I'd love to see more effort getting people to clean up after themselves. A very long time ago I'd see PSAs with owls imploring us to "Give a hoot" and fake indians crying. Was that helpful? Does that kind of thing even exist today? Now that nobody watches TV are they pushed at kids on tiktok?

@esafak2025-01 · in “Waymo to test its autonomous driving technology in over 10 new cities”

I stopped using Lyft after two close calls with drivers who must have faked their papers. One Lyft drive ran a red light into a postal truck at an otherwise empty intersection causing the front to fall off, like that Australian ship: ▶ this video

@mucle62024-06 · in “Waymo issues software and mapping recall after robotaxi crashes into a pole”

My best guess is they're lying, or they model curbs to have a "low damage score" so its okay if the ai thinks theres a 10% chance a path will hit a curb. I'm excited for self driving cars, but I have reservations about a system that has to hard code "don't hit a telephone pole". It reminds me of this skit ▶ this video

@PH95VuimJjqBqy2024-02 · in “Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution”

I'm with you on this one. consider this conversation actually happened, this video is just a recreation of it. Clarke and Dawe - The Front Fell Off ▶ this video Not all of them are so extreme but the idea is the same.

@ceejayoz2024-01 · in “Alaska Airlines 737 Max makes emergency landing due to depressurization”

> Would have to guess that there was a defect in this one though... "The Front Fell Off" ▶ this video