Speaking of Mahna Manha. There is a video of the song that ends with the two old men, Statler and Waldorf, talking. One of them asks the other something like “The question is, what is a Mahna Mahna”. The other one says “The question is, who cares”.
So now anytime anyone on a show says "the question is… , I blurt out “the question is, who cares”.
Whenever I’m in a car that narrowly makes a light, gotta say “You’re crazy Spicoli, that light was red!” from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
My friend always knew the appropriate response: “It was yellow a minute ago”.
Any mention of Key Lime pie evokes the opening of Natural Born Killers.
“I haven’t had Key Lime pie in… ten years”
“When you had it, did you like it?”
“Nah, but that don’t mean much. I was a completely different person back then.”
Whenever I’m ninja’ed at the Straight Dope, I’m all “Missed it by that much!”
My employer used “Kraken” as a code name for a product they were developing years ago. So when it was time to do a release, you know what everyone said.
On the 1990s show Muppets Tonight they replaced “Mahna Manha” with the word “phenomenon”. So now whenever I hear the word “phenomenon”, I have to respond “do dooo do do do”.
Someone else beat me to it earlier in the thread, but I also think “Lisa needs braces” whenever I hear about anything about a dental plan.
And I mentioned in the Simpsons thread, whenever I hear President Biden say we need to move forward (something that came up fairly often early in his presidency), I expect him to end with “and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.”
Further speaking of Mahna Mahna:
There is a city in western Wisconsin named Menomonie (pronounced muh-NOM-ih-nee). We used to drive up to the Twin Cities fairly regularly, taking Interstate 94, which goes right past that city. When we’d see the sign for it, we would invariably sing, “Menomonie, dah dah dah dah-dah!”
… a song whose international debut was in a soft-core adult film: Reddit - Dive into anything
I never saw the Muppets Tonight version but I did figure out the similarity of the two words. My version is if someone says “phenomenon” I respond with “mahna mahna”.
There’s a street called Hercules in a city where I worked. Every day, to and from work, when I’d pass it I’d clap my hands and say “Hercules! Hercules” , a la Mama Klump. God that was an awful job; those 20 seconds were the best part of my day for the entire time I worked there.
At my current job(when we were actually in the office) we answer a group phone line and when I turn it on each day I alternate between:
Release the Kraken
Release the Hounds
May the odds be ever in your favor
Fire in ze hole
Under his Eye
May the lord open
Let’s be careful out there
All right everyone; gird your loins
I give you the Griswald family Christmas tree
Too obscure for general use, when someone doesn’t want to do something: “You’d do it for Randolph Scott.”
Quite often, we would get yellow or red warnings for weather conditions at my place of work; going to red alert would often prompt the response
“Are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb!”
Shouldn’t you reply with “Do do do do do”?
Watching the British baking show and their “illusion” cakes last night reminded me that I can’t hear the word illusion without going into Arrested Development mode. “I do Illusions”
Though I shorten the whole “A trick is something a whore does for money (or candy!)” thing down to just “Hookers do tricks, I do Illusions” for quip purposes.
^ I don’t get a chance to use this one often enough (Thanks, Jophiel for reminding me):
More of a sight gag. When someone like my wife or friends ask for directions and the person says, “walk this way.”; I do the one foot drag shuffle by EYE-gore in Young Dr. Frankenstein. Among those who might be watching, the guys seem to get it immediately. The gals, not so much. Gals seem to be more in tune with dialogue, the guys with stupid physical humor. [Just IMHO, and just in general]
This scene also inspired the title for a song by Aerosmith for their Toys in the Attic album, which became one of their biggest hits.
My usual response to “Walk this way” is “If I could walk that way, I wouldn’t need the after shave!” (Or “talcum powder”.)
Saw the poster for “Forbidden Planet”, and my mind started singing
“Ann Francis stars in
[Deep Throat 2]
Forbidden Planet”
“You’re killin’ me, Smalls!”
What I notice is that I’ve gone through phases where I might have a Three Stooges catch phrase, a Pink Panther catch phrase, etc. Most of them peak and fade.
And stop calling me “Shirley.”
Have goggles ever done anything?
This one is indirect and obscure. In high school, early-mid 90s, I was into the rave scene. I had a tape with a song that had a sample that repeated a high pitched question: “What is going on?” and I listened to it over and over and over. At a few points, it follows up with “And why are you being so nice nice?” It working in the context of the song but I didn’t recognize the source of the samples. A few years later, my younger brother (who was often subjected to my music) and I were chilling at (our parents’) home and Coming to America was on but we weren’t actively watching it. Toward the end of the movie, when Eddie’s character is being discovered for who he is, Eddie’s love interest, Lisa, asks, “What is going on?” and “Why are you being so nice to Akeem.” My brother and I looked wide eyed at each other. We’d heard it in the song hundreds of times and it finally clicked.
So “What is going on?” is always replied to with “And why are you being so nice nice?”
Same, but for “Buffalo”.
For me, it’s “SPACESHIP!”. And sometimes when the occasion warrants “It’s Freedom Friday! But still on a Tuesday!”