My charming wife just showed me a delightful monolog about the word “fuck” on YouTube. When she first described it to me, I felt sure that it was one of the late George Carlin’s works of genius. But, after viewing it on YouTube, I doubted that it was written by Carlin. The audio has a fine narrator and seems, to me, to be made several decades ago. It feels like it was made in the seventies, in the “Groove Tube” era. The video animation was new (and not so good). When I went looking for it with the direct quote keywords “the one magical word which just,” I found many examples of it in text on the web (often revised), but no author credited. I’d like to know who wrote it and who narrated it. My poor powers of investigation have failed me, so I turn to you, the community of Straight Dopers, for answers.
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I’ve moved your question to General Questions from ATMB.
samclem Moderator
A link to the video in question may help us answer your question.
I typed in “about the word fuck” without the quotation marks and seven pages of links come up. Try checking some of them.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=about+the+word+fuck&aq=f
A decades old book, A Handbook of Good Manners for Little Girls, by Pierre Louys Zebra has a section:
This is frequently, and I believe incorrectly, attributed to Monty Python. Many also claim it is George Carlin’s work which I also do not believe is the case.
There are so many of these false attributions out there it is hard to sift through them and locate a credible origin.
The first time I remember hearing it was about 1997-98’ish as a sound file emailed around the office. No video was included
Seven pages hardly narrows it down to the particular video the OP is talking about.
Perhaps Dan in Florida could check back in with a link.
Is it the one where the guys says, “Why don’t you go play hide and go fuck yourself?”
Hereis an example of the original sound file that I heard 10-12 years ago and believe to be the piece to which the OP refers. (*NSFW warning or something like that - it is a movie about the word “fuck”. It declares it both “loudly, and proudly”).
I’m pretty sure all these videos are user-created videos that splice the original sound track into their own movies.
I thought he watched it once but didn’t save the link and when he went to find it again, he couldn’t. Seven pages ain’t bad and there’s not that many links per page. He only has to look at a few seconds of each one until he finds the right one.
Not Monty Python or George Carlin. The Vivaldi-backed version linked above is, so far as I can tell, an embellished re-recording by Jack Wagner (“The Voice of Disneyland”) of an older, shorter recording of unknown origin. (link, other link; of course, given the history of false attributions, take this one with a grain of salt as well)
Jack Wagner,eh?
whale oil beef hooked.
Thanks to all of you who have given your attention to this issue.
The video I watched was found by going to youtube and typing in
“the “f” word.”
I watched the one with a black background and little skull-like animated characters. You have to sign in and verify your age, due to the “f” word.
Yes, it clearly exists as an audio piece prior to the video added.
And yes, I could see someone attributing this to Monty Python writers. Sorta.
But it was the voice of the narrator that made me curious. And man! I think you called it right! Jack Wagner, the voice of Disneyland. When I read that I thought he might have been a narrator on some cartoons (“Slow down there Goofy!”), but then I looked him up and he’s the voice of the park! He’s even the voice of the WDW monorail system. I was just there last month and his “Please stand clear of the doors” sounds to me like the same voice that says “Why don’t you go play Hide and Go Fuck Yourself.”
When I went out looking with -Jack Wagner and “the F word” I found several places on the web agreeing that it is his voice. (Even speculating on the crossover -“Keep your fucking arms inside the ride at all times.”) They seem to think he wrote it. They also say that he was a sort of pioneer of audio recording in that he had a studio in his home. He could get a phone call, go down the hall, record a clip and beam it to Dineyland or Walt Disney World in minutes, before such things became commonplace. And it has the feel of a late night joke made by a professional on professional equipment.
Now I want to know whether this really is Jack Wagner.
I still want to know who wrote the piece.
And I am curious about how it got out there.
But honestly, I feel like the mystery is solved. Well solved enough for me.
New York street poet/singer David Peel recorded a version of this called “Fuck is Not a Dirty Word”. It’s on the album, “The Pope Smokes Dope” on Apple records, from 1973. Don’t know if he is the originator, though.
I have listened carefully to both with headphones and Jack Wagners voice is much smoother and not as deep or gravely as the one who did this recording. You can listen to Jack Wagner here: http://www.soundofmagic.com/sounds/tributes/JW/jw_monorailesp.mp3
If Jack Wagner is indeed proven to have done the V/O “Usage of the word F” recording he must have been sick when he did it.
The first time I heard it was on the Opie and Anthony radio show in the late 90s. With many beeps.
Interesting. I have most often seen this Jack Wagner skit attributed to George Carlin, not Monty Python. Of course, to know Carlin at all, one would be sure that it is clearly not. Still, people adamantly insist that it is he.
We know better though, don’t we?
My question is this: When?
[QUOTE=Glove And Boots]
Fafa, better call the Orkin man. We’ve got zombies again.
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