Marthter! From what abominable, blathphemouth, necromantic thourthe cometh "Igor English"?

Cafe Society
1

We’re all familiar with it – it’s a kindasorta British English as used by Bobby “Boris” Pickett in “The Monster Mash,” sometimes with lisping added, especially in the Discworld Igor version.

The Igor comes mainly from two early Universal Frankenstein movies: Fritz, the hunchbacked lab assistant in Frankenstein; and Igor, the broken-necked grave-roppber in Son of Frankenstein. But neither of them talks like that; neither does Ygor in Young Frankenstein. I’m thinking the voice was already an established trope when Pickett did it back in the '50s, but where did he get it from?

2

Charles Laughton, the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

3

Another example is the speech of the one-eyed hunchbacked hangman in Blazing Saddles.

4

Try Boris Karloff.

Whenever I read a Pratchett Igor out loud, that’s the voice I use.

I recall watching Johnny Carson once riffing with a guest about Karloff’s voice, and he said Boris would have made a great waiter at an Italian restaurant. “Would you like thome ahnti- PAHTH-to?”

Probably sounded funnier to me than reading it looked to you.

5

Well, the “Igor English” trope-voice is not quote how Karloff talks as Ygor in Son of Frankenstein – he sounds more Early-Hollywood-East-Euro than Brit. Even though Karloff was British.

6

Except that Ygor was played by Bela Lugosi in Son of Frankenstein. Karloff played the monster; IIRC, he spoke like he had in Bride – haltingly.

Karloff did use the more cultured accent in The Body Snatcher, but with not lisp.

7

Bobby Pickett is certainly doing a Boris Karloff impression.

I’m fairly sure that Ethilrist is right about the “lisping hunchback” connection being Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo (via countless comedy impressions).

I don’t know that the two are necessarily connected, though. Hunchbacks and lisping, yes – Boris Karloff voice, not so much.