Don’t worry, I’m not actually going to kill you, at least not deliberately. Not you, not the person next to you. I don’t want to.
Lots of movie quotes have entered the language and mutated into new forms, but I’m curious to know where this one comes from. People invariably deliver it in a Mexican accent, along the lines of the classic “I don’t have to show you any stinking badges” or “say hello to my leedle fren’”, because angry Mexican people are funny.
My theory is that it doesn’t actually come from anything, and that it’s just made up. But Google returns several thousand results for (verbatim) “I keel you all”, and several million for “I kill you all”, albeit that there are several million more for “I will kill you all”.
Only 18 for “I have killed you all”.
Eleven for “I kill you, Paul”.
None for “I, Jill Pugh, fall”.
Or perhaps it was a throwaway line from Ren & Stimpy. I don’t know. I just don’t know. But perhaps you do. In which case tell me. And everybody. Here. Now.
That may be the most recent popularisation, but the phrase, especially the specification of a Mexican accent are way way older - my friends at Uni were all using “I keel you.” back in the late 80’s. We had it associated in our minds with Speedy Gonzales - whether that’s a true connection or something we just made up, I don’t know.
It may go back to the earliest days of television. The Texaco Star Theater Television show was hosted By Milton Berle, who used a number of characters. One of which was a crazed egyptian pharo type character who would scream as a catch phrase “I kiw you, I will kiw you all a miwwon (million) times!”. In an accented voice.
Allow for people distorting the accent and losing the “million times”, after source/context was lost and forgotten, and you have a probable source.
The closest thing I can think of offhand was the movie “Let’s Make Love” (1960) in which Milton Berle teachss Yves Montand to say, “I will kill you! I will kill you a million times!,” but pronouncing the L’s like W’s, so it was more like “I wiw kiw you! I wiw kiw you a miwyon times!” Montand obviously was French, so he would have said it with some accent.
Took me fkn forever to find it. But yes, he says this ’ I keel you!! I keel you - a thousand times I keel you!!!" And then later he says “now… I keel you… UNTIL YOU DIE FROM IT!” it’s hilarious and it’s got Charlie Sheen. I literally made an account and did 25 minutes of research to answer my own question.
Troi as a cake, Beverly sucking fluid out of Riker’s head through a straw, Worf eating cellular peptide cake (with mint frosting), Data having a mid 20th century telephone inside his chest and Sigmund Freud insisting to Picard he should “Kill zem! Kill zem all!” are all truly memorable providing shocks and laughs