WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 1, Episode 6, "Decommissioned," now streaming on Disney+.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 1, Episode 6, "Decommissioned" contains a joke that is so bad, it's good. With bounty hunters on their trail, Clone Force 99 is on the run and in need of money. Fortunately for them, Cid, the informant, is there to supply it. She hires the Bad Batch to bring back the head of a Separatist Tactical Droid from a decommissioning facility in Corellia. Things, of course, go sideways, and they run into the Martez sisters who are also after the droid. Under heavy fire, the two parties are forced to temporarily team up.
Pinned down by a wave of Police Droids, Trace Martez says, "We need a diversion." Not two seconds after, her sister Rafa parrots and ever-so-slightly rephrases her plan, proclaiming, "What we need is a diversion!" as though she is breaking new ground. Incredulous, Trace asks Omega, "Is there an echo in here?" At which point, Echo responds in kind with an affirmative, "Yes." An astonished Trace asks, "What?!" thinking he must be joking. The dead serious clone confirms that "Echo" is indeed his real name.
Perplexed, or perhaps too fed up with this whole charade to dig any deeper, Trace rolls her eyes and concocts a plan to create a distraction. The unadulterated confidence in Dee Bradley Baker's delivery as Echo sells the entire joke. This bit verges on corny, but his sheer earnestness turns this potentially groan-worthy moment into a genuinely funny scene.
This whole scene is somewhat of a Star Wars take on the iconic "Who's on First?" routine pioneered by Abbott and Costello. The famous comedy skit revolves around a misunderstanding about baseball players' peculiar names. In the sketch, Lou Costello fails to understand that Who and What are names of players, not questions, and Bud Abbott, the straight-man, refuses to clear up the miscommunication so that the humor can escalate further.
The iconic bit has roots in vaudeville and burlesque sketches from the 1930s. While the original sketch was about baseball, the premise is so universal that it could be applied to any situation, leading to countless parodies nearly a century later and becoming a common trope in all forms of entertainment.
SCTV and Animaniacs both did similar spoofs regarding rock bands The Who, Yes and The Band. Likewise, Airplane introduced confusion with "We have clearance, Clarence" and "What's our vector, Victor?" Additionally, The Simpsons did an incredible spoof of the routine with Superintendent Chalmers and Principal Skinner, who ruins the bit immediately. Chalmers asks, "Who is on first?" to which Skinner replies, "Yes! Not the pronoun, but rather a player with the unlikely name of Who is on first!"
The Bad Batch's take on this routine was more abridged than the original, but it was certainly an endearing and hilarious reprieve in an otherwise action-packed episode. Playing on this well-worn trope added much-needed humor and personality to one of the Bad Batch's more underrated members. Thus, Echo echoed the comedy legends of yore in this episode's best moment. Roger, Roger.
Created by Dave Filoni, Star Wars: The Bad Batch stars Dee Bradley Baker, Andrew Kishino and Ming-Na Wen. New episodes premiere Fridays on Disney+.