# Is Walter Mitty a well-known character in US culture? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 30, 2013, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504 "2013-12-30T19:42:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/21 "2013-12-30T21:18:02Z")
I was familiar with the character but not as familiar as I thought I was. For some reason I mixed up Danny Kaye and Don Knotts in my head. So Walter was a fish. Go figure. Or maybe he was Wally Cox. ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/22 "2013-12-30T21:29:20Z")
I’m under 40 (although not by much), and I read the story about him in high school. I would be inclined to assume that most other people read the story when they were in high school. That said, I wouldn’t call Walter Mitty a well known character in US culture, because prior to this movie coming out, I don’t know of anything other than the original story which referenced Walter Mitty. Although there probably are dozens of things referencing him, and I just don’t remember them, because I’m bad at remembering pop culture stuff. ---
**Author:** ![tonyfop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/85f322/32.png) [@tonyfop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tonyfop)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/23 "2013-12-30T21:30:17Z")
43 years old here. I had to read the story in school, but don’t remember what grade. I believe that we also watched the Danny Kaye movie. My wife, however, is 38 and loves all things 40’s and 50’s (she had White Christmas on repeat last week) never heard of it. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/24 "2013-12-30T21:31:26Z")
Never heard of it til I started seeing ads for the new movie ---
**Author:** ![Cognitive\_Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Cognitive\_Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cognitive_Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/25 "2013-12-30T21:33:52Z")
I enjoyed reading the original short story at school. Loved the Danny Kaye movie too. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/26 "2013-12-30T21:37:04Z")
The character sounds vaguely familiar. I never heard of the author before. The book was not a reading requirement for me in school. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/27 "2013-12-30T21:38:02Z")
I’m 33, and had never heard the name until I caught an ad for the recent film. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/28 "2013-12-30T21:49:22Z")
OK, good to know. I was in honors and then AP English, and I even ended up with a bachelor’s in English Literature (although I concentrated on the Romantic era of poets) yet somehow never came across the name. I vaguely know who James Thurber was (I knew he was a writer or journalist of some sort; I had no idea he was also a cartoonist, though), but looking through a list of his works, I don’t recall ever reading any of them. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/29 "2013-12-30T21:54:20Z")
40, was assigned some Thurber over the years in school but don’t believe this was among them. Familiar with the Danny Kaye movie. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/30 "2013-12-30T21:54:45Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Every so often, I need a cultural reality check. Most of the SDMB threads I’ve seen here seem to indicate that “Walter Mitty” is a fairly well-known character in American culture. Apparently, it even appears in some dictionaries to refer to a quixotic type of character. (Yes, the “quixotic” cultural reference I know.) > > I’ve never heard of this character before this movie, and I didn’t find out until I Wikipedia’d it early this morning. Is this just one of the big, gaping black hole of cultural knowledge I have, or is it more of a regional term, or possibly age-related (I’m 38). > > Just curious. Maybe his name has faded with time. In the 1970s, a children’s program on network TV (not PBS) was called “The Secret Life of Waldo Kitty” [The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Lives_of_Waldo_Kitty), presumably with the expectation that the kids would recognize the reference (I did). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/31 "2013-12-30T21:58:20Z")
Thurber in his heyday was the Great American Humorist. His collections of short pieces, his cartoons, and his children’s books all sold like crazy. He died in 1961, and the 50s weren’t his best work in any case. He hated everything new and he would really have been out of place in the 60s, when humor suddenly was radically different outside of the pages of the New Yorker, which hung on to the past in a deathgrip. I can’t think of any good reason why younger people should remember him. I was already an oddball in college in the late 60s for knowing and caring about the older humorists. If he was going out of style then, he’s a historic curio today. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/32 "2013-12-30T22:06:30Z")
I wasn’t assigned this particular story, but I did read it in high school because I’d enjoyed a Thurber story I was assigned, “The Night the Bed Fell”. Earlier, I’d read a story with essentially the same plot about a character named Sylvia Smith-Smith. (Coincidentally, both her parents were named Smith, and her mother insisted that their daughter use “both” their names.) I can’t remember the author, and can’t find it on Google. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/33 "2013-12-30T22:20:49Z")
I remember the series, read him in school and read him out of school - my parents had a few books with stories by Thurber in them and a couple of books by Thurber. And the old American Movie Classics used to play the Danny Kaye movie fairly frequently, as did regular non cable TV stations in the 60s and 70s. I think that I have seen the movie at least 3 or 4 dozen times over the years [born in 1961, and I can remember seeing a LOT of Danny Kaye movies on TV in the 70s.] ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/34 "2013-12-30T22:23:56Z")
Just remembered a Saturday morning TV series called **The Secret Life of Waldo Kitty** , about a daydreaming cat. (He was Captain Kirk, once.) I only got the joke after reading Thurber’s story. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/35 "2013-12-30T22:28:06Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Maybe his name has faded with time. In the 1970s, a children’s program on network TV (not PBS) was called “The Secret Life of Waldo Kitty” [The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Lives_of_Waldo_Kitty), presumably with the expectation that the kids would recognize the reference (I did). Here’s the Google Ngram for Walter Mitty [Google Ngram Viewer: Walter Mitty](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Walter+Mitty&year_start=1800&year_end=2010&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CWalter%20Mitty%3B%2Cc0) - the name is still referenced fairly commonly, but less so than in previous decades… ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/36 "2013-12-30T22:29:18Z")
52 years old and very familiar with the story. Until I read this thread, I assumed it was a pretty iconic story and character, and that anyone reasonably well-read would be familiar with the name. Anyway, I love Thurber. He is in the select group of writers that I actually laugh out loud reading. “The Dog that Bit People.” “The Night the Bed Fell.” “If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox.” Great stuff. I still occasionally chide my Basset and Labrador Retriever by saying, “Ba-a-a-ad Scotty dogs!” They never get the reference, though it always amuses me. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/37 "2013-12-30T22:29:50Z")
I thought that Walter Mitty the character had long since transcended the story, so that people knew what it meant to call a person Walter Mitty whether they had read the story or not. (Just like everyone–I think?-- knows what a Horatio Alger story is, even though damned few people nowadays read Alger.) Perhaps I was wrong. ---
**Author:** ![planetcory](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/planetcory/32/1032_2.png) [@planetcory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/planetcory)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/38 "2013-12-30T22:30:36Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > I’m 48. I never read the Thurber story, nor saw the Danny Kaye movie, but I’d heard of the character, and had a fuzzy knowledge of the gist of the story (i.e., an average guy who daydreams about doing something much bigger). I’m 38 and not even American, but this. Knew of the character and the general idea of his story, including the firing squad. Not sure from where in the ether I plucked the knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/39 "2013-12-30T22:36:51Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Every so often, I need a cultural reality check. Most of the SDMB threads I’ve seen here seem to indicate that “Walter Mitty” is a fairly well-known character in American culture. Apparently, it even appears in some dictionaries to refer to a quixotic type of character. (Yes, the “quixotic” cultural reference I know.) > > I’ve never heard of this character before this movie, and I didn’t find out until I Wikipedia’d it early this morning. Is this just one of the big, gaping black hole of cultural knowledge I have, or is it more of a regional term, or possibly age-related (I’m 38). > > Just curious. Not really [quixotic](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quixotic), since Walter Mitty only _dreams_ of being heroic. His life remains mundane and colorless. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2013, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504/40 "2013-12-30T22:39:45Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > I’m going with age related. Everyone fifty and older seems to know the character, no one forty or younger is familiar with him. What about those of us between forty and fifty? I read the story in school and possibly others by him. Perhaps I remember it partly for being set in Connecticut? > [@Andy\_L](#): > > Here’s the story on the New Yorker magazine’s website (where it was originally published) [“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” by James Thurber | The New Yorker](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1939/03/18/390318fi_fiction_thurber?currentPage=all), by the way. Well, I doubt it was originally published on a _website_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-walter-mitty-a-well-known-character-in-us-culture/677504.md?page=3)