In the movie Pulp fiction, the character Mia Wallace tells the following joke:
"Three tomatoes are walking down the street: a poppa tomato, a momma tomato, and baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind and poppa tomato gets really angry, goes back and squishes him, and says, 'Catch up!'"
I assume this joke only works in English, so how was it translated into non-English language markets?
I'm interested in examples in a few languages. It doesn't have to be a comprehensive list.
In french, it works with citron (lemon) and orange (orange):
"Papa Citron (orange), Maman Citron (orange), Bébé Citron (orange) traversent une rue de Paris (sic) où la circulation est complètement folle bébé citron (orange) se fait écraser par une voiture et papa Citron (orange) lui crie Presse-toi, Citron (orange) !"
It's the same story, and the translated punchline ("Presse-toi") means: "Hurry up!".
Lemons and oranges can be squeezed ('citron pressé' means 'squeezed lemon'), and people 'hurged', but the pun can't really be translated using tomatoes at my level of English :)
Translation and some (in French) explanations
The German word for "ketchup" / "catsup" is just the English loan word "Ketchup", pronounced just like in English.
In the German dubbed version (I never read the subtitles), the pun is translated literally … which makes it not a pun anymore but simply a non-sensical story with no punchline.
It kind of works, as the idea behind the story is that Fox Force Five was a bad pilot that didn't work, and thus the pilot having a bad pun that doesn't work and isn't funny fits the theme.
But it does feel jarring and out of place, and at least to me, it immediately felt like a bad translation and detached me from the movie for several minutes / scenes.
