419: Forks and Spoons

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Forks and Spoons
Their biggest mistake was bringing Rachael Ray and Emeril to tour the lab and sign off on the project. That's when Spielberg caught wind of it.
Title text: Their biggest mistake was bringing Rachael Ray and Emeril to tour the lab and sign off on the project. That's when Spielberg caught wind of it.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: What does the fractions on each side of the spoon and fork mean? And what does the ruler - the binary fraction ruler - mean? The incomplete mark was removed a moment ago - but if you do not know anything about binary fractions or breeding programs, then this explanation is not complete. And as was stated previously - this is a very short explanation.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

The comic shows scientists testing a new technology: the ability to cross a spork (a mix between a spoon and a fork) with either a spoon or a fork to make a new implement that was three quarters fork and one quarter spoon or visa-versa. By blending these new fork-spork hybrids and their results together, the scientists could create any mix between a spoon and a fork. In the second panel, the amounts of spoon and fork are shown with fractions, the number on the left representing the amount of fork and the right the amount of spoon. The "fork-spoon spectrum" in between the third and fourth panels shows the complete spectrum of fork to spoon with some of the intermediate steps labeled, the numbers representing how much fork each contains. (so in the middle is a even 1/2-1/2; a spork, in between the spork and the spoon a 1/4-3/4 mix, in between that and the spoon a 1/8-7/8 mix, and so on) The comic begins like standard sci-fi fare, where amoral scientists request funding from mysterious benefactors. The dialogue of "You're toying with powerful forces here" and "We know what we're doing" is a (warning: TV Tropes links) classic trope, foreshadowing that things will soon go horribly wrong. It inevitably leads to the humorous incongruity of a sentient spork on a murderous rampage.

Rachael Ray and Emeril are celebrity chefs, and Steven Spielberg is a famous movie director. The joke seems to be that if the laboratory hadn't hired the two renowned chefs, Spielberg wouldn't have made a movie in which Rachael's and Emeril's characters are killed off horribly. The plot in the comic is very similar to the story in Spielberg's Jurrasic Park.

Transcript

Megan: A spoon crossed with a fork is a spork.
Off-panel Megan's voice: Our lab has successfully crossed a spork with a spoon. [Diagram showing the fractions of fork and spoon in each item.]
[Chart showing possible combinations of spoons a forks.]
Megan, facing audience: With your funding, we could create hybrids in proportions corresponding to any binary fraction.
[Fork-Spoon Spectrum.]
Audience member: You're toying with powerful forces here.
Megan: We know what we're doing.
Two weeks later:
[Picture of a destroyed lab with two dead bodies, blood everywhere and a spoon-fork hybrid hopping away.]
Hop hop hop.


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Discussion

What could the title text be about? 208.120.153.144 05:45, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Rachael Ray and Emeril are two celebrity cooks in America; he has a TV show (or did at the time this was drawn); she has her own magazine. Spielberg is presumably the movie guy. 24.61.10.104 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Speilberg is definitely "the movie guy" and most relevantly the director of Jurassic Park, with which Randall has a well-documented obsession (87:_Velociraptors, 135:_Substitute, and many others.) The overall plot -- disaster brought about by cocky scientists "toying with powerful forces" -- is the same as this comic's. Rachel Ray and Emeril would presumably be the stand-ins for JP's Drs. Sattler and Grant. --66.114.70.139 17:38, 28 October 2013 (UTC) It looks more like a spoork (stage 2 spork) in the last panel141.101.99.215 09:16, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

could it be a knife at the last panel? Imanton1 (talk) 03:39, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

It does look like a knife; one edge is completely straight and one is rounded. LogicalOxymoron (talk) 20:18, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

The first line of the explanation suggests that the spoon-spork hybrids are produced in manner "similar to Mendelian inheritance" is incorrect. In fact the process is far more similar to non-Mendelian inheritance. LordofMarzipan (talk) 06:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Might be going too deep into the charts... --flewk (talk) 16:26, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

"Should'a just stayed with the fork'n knife" "Huh?! What kind'a knife?" NerillDP (talk) 19:28, 1 April 2016 (UTC)Nerill

A sponife! 1/2 spoon and 1/2 knife! You don't need spoons anymore! Weirdly enough, I have a weird utensil that is a fork and knife on one side, and a spoon on the other side. It can be kind of weird to eat with it because you have to be careful to not cut yourself while using the spoon.

"I don't use a spoon or fork, i use a spork!" (Jurassic Park music starts playing)Dontknow (talk) 00:08, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Look up grapefruit spoons, those things are vicious! Jelsemium (talk) Jelsemium