The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)… the source of many good ones, including “Big Boo-tay!”, “John Parker is dead, he fell on his head”, “Lithium is no longer available on credit” and my personal favorite, “No, no, no, no. Don’t tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to.”
Can you identify a woman laughing, barely able to say “It looks like Michael still has his keester.”
Ah, yes, Eddie Izzard. “'allo, Sue. I’ve got legs! D’ya like… bread? I’ve got a french loaf! PHHBBBT! Byyyyyeeee… I love you!”
That has been the content of too many answering machine messages between my friend and I. Much more interesting than, “Oh, I guess you’re not home.” Also gets weird looks in the supermarket, especially if you run away with flailing arms during “byeeeeee” and chirp “I love you!” from the opposite end of the aisle.
A favorite source for obscure quotes nobody gets is The Flintstones and Hogan’s Heroes. As far as movies go, I highly recommend That Thing You Do! with Tom Hanks.
I have others.
Chris W
One of the nicer things about raising children is that you can use all kinds of lines around them and they think it’s perfectly natural!
So, when the Bun-Bun (age 4) runs and trips on the carpet, I can say, “He’s no fun, he fell right over.”
If they’re too slow doing what I want done, I’ll approach them humming the theme from “Jaws.” (when I’m in a good mood, that is).
One of their favorite lullabys is “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” Only now, they’re catching onto the words and asking me, “Daddy, what’s a margarita? What’s bulgar wheat? What’s Heinz 57?”
In time, though, as they grow older, they’ll learn that their dad is weird. Worse, they’ll come to understand with rising horror that they carry my weird genes BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
“Get it?”
“Got it!”
“Good!”
“…I don’t get it.”
“I made a funny! AH HA HA HA HA!”
One which I think is from the old cartoon series: “Come on! We’ve got some ninja-ing to do!”
My entire life is one long pop-cultural reference. Sad, but there it is. A few I can remember:
When freshly shampooed, my husband always says ‘gee, your hair smells terrific!’
If we are being sneaky in some way, it’s ‘ancient Chinese secret, huh?’
A song with a lot of percussion: ‘more cowbell!’
If a Neil Diamond song comes on the radio: ‘this reminds me of that time I killed a drifter to get an erection’.
(These quotes are obviously really obscure in New Zealand, where we live now. No old American ads or SNL here!)
Oh, and I’m another Lina Lamont quoter. ‘I am a shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament. It says so. Right there.’
But possibly the most opaque-in-meaning thing we often quote is ‘one thing he did know a lot about was writing songs for animated films’. It was originally a particularly awkward narration segue in a VH-1 bio of Elton John, and now we use it as shorthand for ‘the writing on this show is terrible!’
“And that’s when the CHUDs came for me” (The Simpsons), used to punctuate any story dealing with a string of misfortunes.
Relating to women troubles: “All the kung fu in the world isn’t gonna help when it comes to women.” from The Bodyguard from Bejing (bad Hong Kong subtitles are great for this).
“So you’re saying I’m redundant, I repeat myself, I say things over and over!” Frasier Crane, Cheers.
“It’s a dog eat dog world, and I’m wearing Milkbone underwear” Norm Peterson, Cheers, used in response to any person unfortunate enough to greet me with “How are you doing?”
Pre 70’s: I’ve gotten strange looks when referring to a pool as a “cement pond”, so I guess it’s not quite as commonly known as I thought.
I would think this would be the other way around; most of the Marx Brothers movies pre-date the Warner Brothers cartoon era.
Larry Mudd:
Is that from Greaser’s Palace?
“You can’t leave! All the plants are gonna die!” -Comes right before No Clue Boy’s Stripes reference.
“I been everywhere. I been to Nashville.”
“They come in here, tryin’ to be like the R-E-M”- both from the little-known Athens, GA Inside-Out
It’s made of people.
There’s a pre-1970’s?!
Did I flew?
Nope. You falled.
I smell…, I smell…, Ducky!
You got a pretty flat head for a flat head, Flat Head.
All from The Land Before Time. Often times an entire conversation between me and my cousin.
**Would you say I have a plethora?
Look… cows!!!
You started it. You invaded Poland**
and a (I think) pre-70’s one…
You’ve got trouble? Wait, don’t run…
Ooh…Transformers, the Movie! I like it. And it’s a great source of quotes.
I prefer, when having car trouble, “Don’t worry…she’ll hold together…Hear me, baby? Hold together”
“Huh-huh, you can’t grow steaks.” From the MST3K version of Mitchell.
Usually said to Max Carnage whenever we’re waiting for something, or we hear a rednecky comment.
Well, here’s a pop culture media reference from the 70s:
When someone is curious as to how I did a certain job, but I don’t want to get bogged down in all the boring details (unless they are working for me), I say: Ancient Chinese secret.
Working on stilts one day, I lost my footing and did a face plant into the wall. Over the next several days, as the shiner and lacerations around my left eye healed, people would ask how that happened. I would say: I’d rather fight than switch.
And of course, after a big meal: I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!
Here’s a fun one to use! Try to work into your conversations at least five times this weekend: I am NOT a crook!
The 70s were good for so many things…
And though it’s already been mentioned by the lady herself, I’d like to mention for Eve’s sake that I too say, “T’ain’t funny, McGee.”
Often.
Like twice a day, at least.
The Skeezling, y’see, is convinced that if she makes a funny fast enough, it’ll distract me from whatever she did just before the funny thing, that she’s about to get in trouble for.
Ahhhh, Nick Danger, Third Eye!!! I do that one from time to time too!
My Dad drove me and my sister crazy with his quotes from the Firesign Theater. Especially when we were angry with him.
“Leave me alone!”
“How much do you want? 10? 20?”
“Remember me?” often gets a reaction of “You’re the kid that had the report due on space!” from me, as well. If I’m looking things up in the library, I always manage to use the line “I always wondered where my mandible was.”