Ok, I’ve heard this line a few times this week and I can’t for the life of me remember where it’s from.
Help please?
Is it the whiney fat kid from The Simpsons?
The line came from a commercial for a system (Medic Alert?) in which the elderly could press a button when they had trouble and call for an ambulance. The commercial featured an old woman who commented, “Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!,” which soon became a national catchphrase.
My hat (if I wore one) would be off to you both. It was for an ad promoting LifeCall. Since I’m in Australia and not the US, I’ve never heard of LifeCall.
However, wikipedia makes mention of other uses of the phrase and since I used to watch Family Matters with Steve Urkel, that’s probably where I know it from.
If anyone has a link for the actual ad I’d love to see it.
Heh. Always thought it originated with Urkel. Chalk up another minor victory in the fight against ignorance.
“Where’s the beef?” didn’t originate on the Simpsons either.
As far as I know, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” was immediately hilarious to everyone who saw it. It quickly made its way into the lexicon.
Another company with a similar product has adopted the catchphrase. The commercial ended by saying something like “We’re the ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’ people.” I got a giggle out of that.
And here’s a story about an unintended consequence of that famous phrase and its variants:
A friend of mine, in his younger years, found himself in the position of having to give a presentation to the company bigwigs. He put on a white dress shirt, and realized that he needed an undershirt. He didn’t have any plain white ones, so he wore a white printed T-shirt. He was afraid the printing on the t-shirt would show through the dress shirt, so he wore it backwards. He failed to consider that his back would be turned to his audience as he explained the charts and graphs. So every time he turned around, the company bigwigs were treated to the sight of the following showing clearly through his shirt:
I’VE FALLEN, AND I CAN’T REACH MY BEER!
Fortunately for him, the company was kind of an ol’ boys club, and the bigwigs thought it was hilarious.
The full length commercial is surreal. I remember seeing it very, very late on Saturday night/Sunday morning for the first time. One elderly person takes a tumble down the stairs and is shown struggling and in awful pain. A second elderly person takes a tumble, activates her LifeCall (uttering the now famous line) and is shown being saved by paramedics. Cut to the original non-Lifecall owning person-- paramedic is there shakes his head and covers the head of the now dead elderly person with sheet.
Me to my husband: Did you see that? Oh my God! That’s the funniest thing I ever saw! Was that a real commercial or a parody?
Hubby: Huh? ( he was asleep)
After that, I don’t think I ever saw the full length commercial again. The cut out the part with the dead old lady at the bottom of the stairs.
Now that I’m thinking about it, the dead elderly person was a man. Also, for those of you who have never seen the commercial and think I’m the most evil person ever for laughing at dead old men-- you are right. I’m eeeeviillll.
But the commercials are so cheesy and badly acted, it’s not like you believe for a minute that there are old dead people at the bottom of the stairs.
Such bad taste, such horrible acting-- genius advertising!
As I remember it, the woman was lying on the floor, flailing her arms and legs while yelling “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” She was like… gymnast-granny or something.
At your service. (Said commercial is about 1/2 way down the page)
Wasn’t there a song about this commercial?
“Poor Mrs Fletcher
There was no one there to catch 'er…”
Okay, I will have you know that this TOTALLY grosses me out.
I hit puberty during Nadia Comaneci’s beam routine at the '76 Olympics.
Please DO NOT associate gymnastics with grannies.
PLEASE!
I can’t take it.
That must have been a parody you saw. The commercial I remember is the one Skammer linked to. My friends and I preferred to use the other line from the commercial “I’m having … chest pains!”
Joke: Jesus Christ returns and visits a disco, but his dancing is atrocious, so he exclaims, “Help! I’ve risen but I can’t get down!”
No, not a parody. The full length commercial that played perhaps twice in the early '80s. I’m sure it was cut because it was in such bad taste.
I just watched the ad, and I had not remembered the family member’s amazing hairdo. Wow!
If it’s the one I’m thinking of, it has a guy claiming to be Mrs. Fletcher’s son.
You may be in for some karmic retribution. (So, for that matter, may I.) I’m reminded of an episode of Roseanne about that time, where she was painting her toenails and her back seized up and she couldn’t move. “I can’t get up and I don’t have one of those things! I shouldn’t have laughed at that old lady on TV!”