What’s the cultural reference in older cartoons, Bugs Bunny and the like, when a character (usually female) will say something like “I just love this little board. Reaaaallllly I do” in what seems to be an upper-crust type tone?
Is this a Katherine Hepburn thing?
That was always my assumption. Raaallly it was.
::flutters eyelashes::
And see, I thought it was a reference to Scarlett. In the same vein as “I doooo declare.”
Definitely Katherine Hepburn. She turns up as Bo Peep in an old Merrie Melodies with that exact intonation (probably Mel Blanc again). I think it’s the one where book covers come to life.
But did Hepburn ever speak that way in a movie? I seem to recall her voice as more in line with the high-pitched clipped staccato that was common to actresses of that day.
It wasn’t meant to be 100% dead-on accurate but rather a comic impersonation that purposely exaggerated her tone and inflection. Hepburn was familiar enough with the general movie-going public during the 1930s and 40s that they were able to get the impersonation.
Incidentally, when they had a Katherine Hepburn caricture in a Warner Brothers cartoon, I’m pretty sure Mel Blanc didn’t do the voice. Unfortunately, the female voice-overs for these cartoons was uncredited.
Cheese is probably my favourite food.
I cannot … cannot mention liking cheese, or even encounter a piece of cheese without at least hearing, in some not-so-far off corner of my mind, “Cheese. I just love cheese. Raaally I do.”
While it amuses me to no end and is a fun reminder of childhood, sometimes it eeks out verbally. You should see the looks I get. Somewhere between super-poophta and spooky inappropriate humour-dude.
I wish just once someone would have recognized it rather than backing away slowly.
Thanks for the thread/validation!
Check out the scene in Alice Adams where she confides to Fred MacMurray something like this: “Some people in this town gossip dreadfully, really, they do”. It doesn’t sound unnatural or weird when she says it, it just sounds like the rest of her acting in this role, but I think that’s the germ of the caricature.
Roddy
I hate to quote your entire post, but I’m posting from my phone and this is easier. But I say “Raaaally, I do” all the time. My daughter now says it and has never watched merry melodies or loony tunes, which is sad in itself.
Daffy Duck in Hollywood from 1938 might be the earliest appearance of this trope.
The voice was done by Sara Berner.
No, no, no! A Disney Silly Symphony! Mother Goose Goes Hollywood. Bo Peep is the very first character shown.