Posted here because I assume this is a reference from a movie or other pop culture.
The title says it all: where does this line come from? I’ve repeatedly run into it in the last 6 or more months on message boards, magazine articles, blogs, and in many other places. Googling is hopeless, because I can only find instances of more people riffing on the gag, not the origin.
FYI, the first time I remember hearing that line was when playing GTA: Vice City, and on one of the “talk radio” stations one of the guests says “well, I for one welcome our new Russian masters!” Which I thought was pretty funny. But I can’t imagine that that was the original source.
I associate this quote with “The Simpsons.” I think the pompous TV anchorman Kent Brockman once said something like “And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.”
Auggh. Too late to be edifying again. Sorry.
Its from the Simpsons, an episode where Homer has become an astronaut. In the course of the shuttle mission, he breaks the glass on the Ant Farm Experiment, and when tv cameras turn on in the shuttle, earth folks see what appears to be giant ants in control of the shuttle.
Eventually, Kent Brockmann goes on tv and says its obvious we’re all doomed and starts in with the ‘I for one welcome our new insect overlords…’
He has to recant said statement when the mistake is discovered. classic episode.
So that’s where Hail Ants gets his/her username from.
Here is the scene in question. Homer has shattered a glass cage in which the astronauts hoped to see if ants could be used to sort tiny screws in space. A camera picks up one of the ants in extreme close-up making it look huge and menacing.
Asked and answered, and darned quick, to boot.
Thanks, all!
Reminds me of one of the funniest exchanges in the first Austin Powers movie:
Basil Exposition: Austin, the Cold War is over!
Austin Powers: Finally those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, eh? Eh comrades? Eh?
Basil Exposition: Austin… we won.
Austin Powers: Oh… smashing, groovy… yay capitalism!
This is like the second thread about this in the last week or two and yet I almost never hear this phrase said anywhere! I always thought it to be way too obscure.
Oh, and Best. Episode. Ever.
Nah. The episode where Lisa becomes a vegetarian is the “Best.Episode.Ever”.
But it’s a good runner up.
Stranger
Freedom! Horrible, Horrible Freedom!
I, for one, welcome our new knowledgeable SDMB overlords.
I’ve heard it quite a lot on the SDMB lately. Examples from just the last couple of months:
SteveG1: I for one welcome our new llama overlords
legion: I, for one, welcome our new Linux overlords
Eutychus: I, for one, welcome our new slimy overlords
John Mace: Personally, I welcome our new tomndebb overlords.
Dragwyr: I, for one, welcome our new cardiac-powered machine overlords
Knorf: I, for one, welcome our new comma overlords
CynicalGabe: I, for one, welcome our new Robitic Panda overlords
Tapioca Dextrin: I, for one, welcome our moderator overlords
Ludovic: I for one welcome our new goatse overlords
Merijeek: Well, I for one welcome our new Duchy of Grand Fenwickian overlords
It may be obscure in some circles, but not around here.
What I found odd was that I first heard this phrase within the last six months, and yet the episode aired twelve years ago. The DVD collection for season 5 (when it aired) wasn’t even out yet, at least not in the US.
There’s probably material for a Ph.D. thesis in that – something about the speed-of-propagation of pop-cultural memes . . .
Actually, it came out over a month ago.
In that Simpson’s episode there is also the bit with James Taylor that I find quite funny.
They have invited him in to play for the astronauts, but the broken ant farm is causing problems and the NASA guys are trying to figure out how to fix the problem.
James Taylor is like: “Oh, ant problems? When Art Garfunkel had ant problems we used a vacuum pump to pump all the air out of his house and sucked the ants right out!”
They go with this plan and the day is saved by an inanimate carbon rod.
This is a day of coincidences alright (or maybe a week) I was putting my sister’s Simpsons cast poster back up on the wall the other day and had my face looking right at the ICR which I’d never noticed till then 