posted
It's driving me crazy. Does anyone know where that line is from? "Duh, which way do I go, George? Which way do I go?"
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
James Arness of Gunsmoke passed recently, in his time he delivered the line "get the hell out of Dodge" that we still use today. In fact he left a beuatiful letter for his fans before passing away at the age of eighty-eight.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
You know, there's this line that's been bugging me recently...I can't for the life of me remember where it's from. It goes something like, "It doesn't do anything, that's the..."
nah....forget about it. Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Strider: You know, there's this line that's been bugging me recently...I can't for the life of me remember where it's from. It goes something like, "It doesn't do anything, that's the..."
I had always known it from several WB cartoons like these ones, and I always assumed they were in some way parodying Of Mice And Men.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Strider: You know, there's this line that's been bugging me recently...I can't for the life of me remember where it's from. It goes something like, "It doesn't do anything, that's the..."
nah....forget about it.
Did no one post that the source to this quote has been found?
At last, the Internet can stop wondering.
Posts: 650 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Wrong. It has been found, but it was in an episode of Burke's Law that aired December 9, 1964. Link.
Did you know that the question, which caught fire and spread all over the internet, actually started here on Hatrack?
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
No, I doubt that it did. In the way that I doubt that as I child I actually invented the phrase: "Guess what, chicken butt," even though I believed that I had.
And please, don't bring this crap up again. That line did not exist prior to the 70's, when it was included in a psych experiment, to see how people would react to a familiar sounding phrase. It doesn't appear anywhere except *in reference* to that original source. It has become a common figure of speech- that is why it sounds familiar.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: That line did not exist prior to the 70's, when it was included in a psych experiment, to see how people would react to a familiar sounding phrase.
Can you provide documentation for that claim? It's the first time I have heard it.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
No, I don't remember where I read it. Let me see if I can find it.
ETA: Nope, can't find where I read that claim.
As far as I *can* tell, the internet buzz surrounding that particular item got started around 2004 on IMDB, but in 7 years, no exact source *predating* that posting has been found. To muddy the waters, there are a number of antedating sources that are often offered as solutions.
Basically, whether you believe the thing about the experiment or not, my theory on this is that the phrase is just calculatedly familiar, in such a way as to peak your interest. You've heard a thousand variation of it, and you *have* heard the two parts of it separately many times, just never together (well, you hear them together constantly now). Also, you and probably most people have heard someone, or more than one person, say that particular phrase, or something quite like it, during the normal course of your life. It's striking in a way, and so when you're asked *where* you'd heard it, you are bound to assume it must have been something in popular culture, when it could as easily have been a friend.
Like if I asked you where you'd heard the *exact* phrase: "An apple never rots on the branch," in such a way as to suggest it was not *me* who invented it off the top of my head, you might start wracking your brain to figure out where that came from. It sounds like, "an apple doesn't fall far from the tree," or "die on the vine," or "go out on a limb," or a thousand other phrases. But you can play a fun game with google scholar and see how long it takes to generate versions of common sayings that do not appear in any database google searches.
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: As far as I *can* tell, the internet buzz surrounding that particular item got started around 2004 on IMDB, but in 7 years, no exact source *predating* that posting has been found. To muddy the waters, there are a number of antedating sources that are often offered as solutions.
Actually, it really took off from IMdb, but it started here. The first IMdb discussion about it was posted by SSYWAK (Boothby171) who brought it there from here.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Yeah, that was fun times. We really scoured the internet and many sources trying to find the source of that quotation, before roughly reaching the conclusion you're coming around to, that there probably was no original source (as the only close ones are ones not nearly enough people are familiar with), but that the particular phrasing just plays off of enough common threads that everyone thinks they've heard it before.
posted
Haha, I remember posting that on NYC Craigslist in 2003. I still have the email responses saved.
Part of me still believes it's from the old Hoppy Turnbow skit called "Once I Ate Seventeen Quarters At A Hotel In Cleveland"
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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