And by this I don't mean nes that visitors can see but ones only visible in access spaces or from angles only seen during maintenance or repair. I always appreciated these in clubs.
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Do you have an example to share?
Except that my under-table wiring could be considered a 'joke' in itself.....you know, no bundling of wires, no labeled connections, no color-coded consistency, no barrier block connections, etc., etc., blah, blah...what would constitute a joke? An under-table sign indicating that the access hatch is here,......when it's really somewhere else? A can of Leinie's and bag of chips for spelunker's survival when hopelessly tangled in the web of wires? A skeleton propped up in the far corner under the table....engineer's cap on the head, dead old flashlight in one hand, an empty "Billy Beer" can in the other? A sign from the wife stating..."I'm pregnant....again! Watch your head, Bubba!" Better yet, "You might want to stay under here, Sweetie! I found your latest acquisition from Lionel!! Your loving wife!
"?
Or, recalling a cartoon from an old Model Railroader magazine, how about a tub of water under the table with a rubber ducky floating on it? You know, every decent layout has a.....drum roll, please.....'duck under'!
More coffee, please....
Iron Mountain back drop hiding the cast iron drain pipe. An Aflac duck hanging under a duck under.
A couple quick and varied examples. A particuarly small and tight space built into a tunnel for accessing trains that derailed inside the tunnel had a small sign inside the tunnel (lighted and scale appropriate) that said "Abandon hope all ye who enter" which did approximate the odds of getting the train back on the track in under a half hour. Or a drunk figure urinating on the back of a building that was only visible if you used the scaffold to dust the display.
Tom Tee posted:An Aflac duck hanging under a duck under.
Nice! 
I've often wondered why the AFLAC folks haven't licensed their duck (sound button included) to a stuffed toy manufacturer. Seems to be the perfect cheer-em-up gift for someone (ages 5-105) spending a few recovery days in the hospital.
Another idea for under the table... A big red "Emergency Call" button. When pushed it plays a custom sound chip (email George at ITT Products) with a laugh track, cynical suggestion, etc..
Oh the possibilities....
I leave small patches of hair stuck to the layout top's cross members. Gotta think of something else soon, not much hair left!
I really like the AFLAC duck idea!
GREAT and let's have more!
Does a Tardis count as unusual?
Ours are out in the open, but contain a little subtlety. One is the McDonald's with a guy lying in the street being "jump-started" by a paramedic. Off to the side is the Grim Reaper arguing with a personal injury attorney over who gets him first.
The other is "Candie's Donuts", an homage to "Randy's Donuts", which is a local landmark in Los Angeles (I-405 at Manchester). Lined up for donuts are police officers, including a police dog (who has a donut in his mouth). The subtlety is that off to the side, someone is getting mugged.
AGHRMatt posted:Ours are out in the open, but contain a little subtlety. One is the McDonald's with a guy lying in the street being "jump-started" by a paramedic. Off to the side is the Grim Reaper arguing with a personal injury attorney over who gets him first.
Grim Reaper in O scale......YES!!! We put an HO one (Preiser) next to a roadside diner on our store HO layout. Takes some careful searching, but once discovered, it gets a BIG guffaw!
Also, put a nun on the station platform awaiting the next train. Her travelling companions/charges?......a group of penguins. Also gets smiles.
Along with the Grim Reaper though, would be an O scale version of an etched brass tongue-in-cheek HO offering from Gold Medal Models....featuring several 'roadkill' items: Lawyer, Republican, Democrat, possum, snake, feminist, chauvinist, etc.. Great for painting up and placing in the middle of a road/highway near the front of the layout! Wish Gold Medal had done it in O.
I also remember a vignette on a G scale layout which was part of the national G-scale convention on the Queen Mary in CA many years ago. It featured a poor, hapless hobo who, while apparently sleeping off a bottle of nighttime elixir while reclining on the track rails, never woke up. Instead, he was tri-sected, shall we say, and the local EMT's were there to clean up the......mess. A tad on the gory side, maybe, but it sure drew the attention....front-and-center on a table's-edge siding track.
I also recall one of our favorite contributors having a feature on his layout that I particularly enjoyed. There was an automobile parking ramp that featured cars driven by less-than-astute drivers who had driven through barriers, walls, collided with other cars, etc.. Next to the parking ramp is a taller building featuring a roof-top bar, from which the parking ramp mayhem below was drawing its inordinate share of attention/entertainment. What a hoot!!
BTW....I believe John Armstrong, a departed master of this hobby, had his silly side revealed in names he chose for many of the station stops on his layout plans. John Allen, too......e.g., his use of dinosaurs (Varney ads....a Triceratops) to assist in some of the switching duties.
THIS is what this branch of the hobby is all about to me.......Lighthearted FUN!! Thanks for starting the thread and encouraging thinking about bringing smiles to all of us with our layouts....and its hidden opportunities!
KD
The biggest joke on my layout, or should I say the smallest joke, is the slightly more than 1/8th scale mile of the loop of my layout.
Not so much a joke but whimsy, I have a toxic waste spill from an overturned tank car on my G scale outdoor layout with green ooze from the tank glowing (lit from below) with the Creature from the Black Lagoon rising from the ooze. Also have a T Rex skeleton half excavated in a rock face and graveyard with tombstones and freshly dug grave with opening casket (soon to be radio control operated with sound to scare the kids a little). My indoor O gauge layout has hobos living in the tunnels visible in windows cut out to show the tunnel innards and Godzilla wrecking part of the layout.
I am making little check off sheets for kids to try to find all the little oddities and check them off to win a boxcar or other fun prize. Helps keep the hobby interesting and fun to get the next, next generation excited about it.
Chris Sheldon
A guy in my area had a G gauge layout with a Wild West town with hookers on the balcony of the saloon. Kids didn't get it, but the parents sure did....
We had a monster that traveled from layout to layout years ago. When someone discovered it on their layout, they would hide it on someone else's next.
Main industry {so far} on my Marx 3-rail tinplate layout is a repainted Plasticville factory that says it is owned and operated by Soylent Green Inc. It has exterior tanks and pipes the original factory didn't have, plus it's surrounded by 027 sized trucks that were once snow removal vehicles but have since had their plows removed and their green bodies logo'd with "Soylent Green" on the sides. Also there's some parked tank trucks converted and redone in green and logo'd for this very busy looking company...
I guess the "hidden" joke here is right out in the open, in that if you hadn't seen the famous SF movie of the same name you might think that this was just another simple (but fairly realistic) 027 scale chemical factory, w/o any ominous overtones, hmmmm.?.
I have the Koldashel Meat Packing company with the company slogan - If it's frozen its KOLDASHEL!
