science

Larry the Lobster

Larry the Lobster is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Larry the Lobster rather than just read about it. In short: Larry the Lobster was the subject of a comedy sketch by Eddie Murphy that was aired live on Saturday Night Live on April 10, 1982. In an early example of interactive television, Murphy held Larry, a live lobster, aloft and declared that the show's audience would determine by televoting whether Larry lived or died.

Key takeaways

Larry the Lobster belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Larry the Lobster to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Larry the Lobster from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Larry the Lobster was the subject of a comedy sketch by Eddie Murphy that was aired live on Saturday Night Live on April 10, 1982. In an early example of interactive television, Murphy held Larry, a live lobster, aloft and declared that the show's audience would determine by televoting whether Larry lived or died.

Original episode Murphy read two "900" phone numbers, one for those who wanted to spare Larry, and another for those who wanted to see him cooked. Calls cost $0.50 each. Murphy tended to read the number to save Larry very quickly, as opposed to his giving the number to cook Larry very slowly and clearly. Updates on the voting were given by other cast members over the course of the episode, in the span of whose 30 minutes viewers made nearly 500,000 calls, sending phone traffic soaring. Larry was initially spared by about 12,000 votes: 239,096 callers voted to save him and 227,452 for him to be boiled.

Later episodes On the following week's episode during NewsBreak, however, Eddie Murphy raised the subject of Larry the Lobster again, saying that he had received letters protesting the crustacean's treatment the previous week, including one that contained the racist barb "that man is sick, and I thought those people didn't like seafood." In response to the letters, Murphy announced that Larry's stay of execution had been revoked, and then displayed a boiled lobster on a plate before proceeding to eat it, giving pieces to NewsBreak anchors Brian Doyle-Murray and Christine Ebersole. The following season, a similar sketch allowed viewers to call one of two numbers to decide whether or not to allow Andy Kaufman to continue appearing on the show. Several allusions to the Larry the Lobster sketch were made—Mary Gross at one point said it was "time to boil the water" when she saw that "Dump Andy" was in the lead.

Impact The heavy phone use stood as a record or near-record for many years. The spike in traffic perplexed AT&T employees, who eventually figured out that the program was responsible. Though the phone network survived the spike, it was sufficiently threatening to operations that AT&T established communication with the television networks so that they could be warned of potentially disruptive future events; this system remained in use until at least 2006. Larry the Lobster was still cited in the 2000s in discussions of classic comedy routines, cruelty to animals, and in rosters of famous animals.

See also Sniffy the rat Cheeseface A Death in the Family (comics), a Batman comics story line where the outcome was decided by phone voting, similarly to the sketch

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Larry the Lobster

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Larry the Lobster claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Larry the Lobster before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Larry the Lobster ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Larry the Lobster

In research: Larry the Lobster appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Larry the Lobster in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Larry the Lobster is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1982 in American television, Individual lobsters, Interactive television, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Larry the Lobster outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Larry the Lobster” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Larry the Lobster in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Larry the Lobster means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Larry the Lobster out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Larry the Lobster in simple terms?

Why does Larry the Lobster matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Larry the Lobster?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Larry the Lobster.