It’s like the Never Talk to Cops video. Never hurts to link when appropriate.
A man with a toothache with his head wrapped in a cloth with a knot at the top
A crazy person unfolding paper dolls cut out with scissors
A crazy guy who thinks he’s Napoleon, wearing a hat with the letter N on it and having one hand tucked inside his coat
A pregnant woman knitting booties
Kids spying through a knothole at a ballgame
A man indicating he’s broke by turning his pockets inside-out
A poor person selling pencils in a tin cup
A boy running away from home with his possessions tied in a bundle at the end of a stick
A string tied around someone’s finger to remind him of something
Someone pulling a bad tooth with a string tied to a doorknob
A man climbing a ladder to a woman’s window so they can elope
A drunk wearing a lampshade at a party
All good ones.
An enlisted man telling a sea story? That’s unpossible
Or a couple heading to the bedroom, cut to curtains blowing in the window.
I’d also like to know the origin of this trope as well. Was there a time when the banana eating public frivolously tossed the peels around? I’m sure someone will bring up vaudeville, but if so, where did they get the idea?
About the tropes, and how “everyone knows” about scorpions and tarantulas and black widows and quicksand being fatal, how do these ever get started? Tarantulas won’t bite you unless you provoke them, and scorpion stings and black widow bites (especially) can make you wish you were dead, but are rarely fatal. And does quicksand as portrayed in the movies even exist?
So how did these become tropes in the first place? it’s like saying tick bites are fatal. Anyone that’s ever been bitten by a black widow or a tick knows the truth.
PS does the legendary Vietnamese “two-step” poisonous snake even exist?
PPS I’m glad TV shows no longer show the treatment for rattlesnake bite is to cut the skin and suck the venom out. That used to be very common in TV and movies, even past when it was no longer recommended.
In last week’s episode of Doc Martin, the good doctor ordered hot water and towels while a woman was giving birth. Of course, the episode was filmed around ten years ago…
The best example of this that I can think of is in 1963’s Mutiny on the Bounty when Fletcher Christian is about to bed his Tahitian beauty, then a slow dissolve to the prow of the ship standing proudly erect against the morning sky as a chorus vocalizes in the background:
“Oh, oh-oh, OH! oh-oh! Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh.” My girlfriend laughed and pictured a choir of shocked nuns shaking their fingers at all the naughtiness that was going on.
People still do it. Littering was more common in the past. When this trope started a different species of banana was common and it was much oilier and slippery than modern banana peels. A number of past threads discuss this.
Some think banana peels were a stand-in for horse shit. In the days when there were lots of horses in cities, there was also a lot of horse crap, and people would slip on it. You couldn’t show that on vaudeville stages, though, so they used banana peels instead.
I don’t know if there’s any evidence for this. It could just be a legend.
That bundle is called a “bindle” and that trope was used in a recent Liberty Mutual commercial.
Apparently black widow bites were more commonly fatal back when outhouses were more common. Black widow builds its web around the opening to the outhouse, because there are lots of flies there. Man goes into outhouse and sits down, and his dangly bits dangle down into the black widow’s web. Black widow thinks “Oh, I caught something in my web” and instinctively runs over and bites its “prey”. The man gets a black widow bite on a very sensitive part of his body, and apparently a bite on the penis is more likely to be fatal than a bite on, say, the arm. And that’s the most common theory as to why “everyone knows” black widow bites are fatal.
Several sitcoms from the dawn of television into the '70s – the last one I recall having one of these episodes was Brady Bunch – had a “small town speed trap from heck!” episode. There may be pre-television cartoon versions too. The movie 'Nothing But Trouble" (Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, John Candy) is similar to this trope but obviously darker than the sitcom version.
The family, couple, or group of friends that’s the show’s regular stars are out for a ride in the country far from any Interstate when a small-town cop pulls them over. The driver wants to pay the fine or post bond, but the cop hums and haws that the judge won’t hear their case until tomorrow, and in the meantime they can stay at the (wooden, Old-West-Style) “hotel”. Which is run by the cop’s uncle. Or the cop himself, who’ll comedically take off his police cap and put on a desk clerk’s green eyeshade. Our protags grumble about the jacked-up price but reluctantly agree.
Then one of our protags asks if there’s anyplace to get dinner around here. The innkeeper points to a modest dining counter nearby in the “hotel.” Another relative appears. Or the cop/desk clerk comedically takes off his eyeshade and puts on a cook’s apron. The protags pay through the nose for a mediocre meal, often something sloppy in a tin pie plate, then shamble off towards their room, which turns out to be a dump. Can’t sleep/noise/bed collapse hijinks ensue.
Our protags wake up the next morning, having gotten almost no sleep, and drag themselves to court, In some versions, court’s being held in the lobby of the inn/restaurant. The judge turns out to be one of the relatives they already met. The cop in a black robe if the writers are going for maximum absurdity. Courtroom hijinx ensue, the driver (or his outspoken wife) narrowly avoids contempt and a night in the cells for complaining about their treatment, and they pay a hefty fine.
Our dejected protags shuffle off to their dusty car. Sometimes one of the relatives, or the cop now in a gas-station-attendant’s cap, offers to sell them gas, at an inflated price. The driver declines and they drive off, vowing never to return again. In some versions, the episode ends with the car clunk-clunking out of gas before they’ve gotten away from the speed-trap town.
A black widow bite was the diagnosis for the patient in a recent episode of The Pitt, a medical drama on the MAX streaming service.
Modern Family did exactly that. Even down to Mitch feeding the birds (and playing chess with a retired guy in the park).
So, not dead.
Although I suspect when a show like Modern Family does that, it’s with a knowing wink to the fact that it’s a dated trope. (And of course in this case, he might have kissed his husband goodbye when leaving the house.)
This essentially happened on I Dream of Jeannie last week. (I work at home, so I get to watch lots of old TV shows.) Of course, Jeannie was able to get Tony and Roger out of their predicament.
And of course, small-town speed traps still exist.