Did you ever find yourself about to make an analogy to something in movies/TV or other pop culture, and then realizing nobody will have any idea wtf you’re talking about?
My job partially entails writing long, complicated technical reports in non-technical terms. Sometimes in my attempts to add clarity those reports sprawl out of control, and I can never actually finish them.
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Decades ago there was a TV show (and a movie) called “Paper Chase”, which featured an ensemble cast of 1st-year law students. One of them was this kid named Bell who was responsible for producing an outline of property law for his study group (“Bell on Property”) that episode-after-episode grew larger and eventually, yes, sprawled out of control. I can’t recall precisely what happened at the end, but it wasn’t good…he dropped it all and it blew away, or it was stolen, or something.
My point: sometimes in the middle of a long report I want to say “Christ, this is turning into Bell on Property”. But I don’t, because nobody will know what I’m talking about. And it’s depressing.
I find myself saying “By the way, don’t eat the figs” whenever figs are mentioned.
I once talked to a professor who took his class to a conference in Kansas City and came back admiring the new technology he found there. I said, “Well, everything’s up to date in Kansas City,” but he had no idea what I was talking about.
You know, the OP had the courtesy to explain his reference. I think your first one is from “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, but I have no clue about the Kansas City one.
When someone screws up, I like to say “Well, that’s no a full-share move”. Not many people watch “Deadliest Catch”, the Discovery Channel show about crab fishing boats. Each regular crew member gets paid one share out of the boat’s profits. New guys (greenhorns) get paid less than a full share, and have to learn and earn their way up to it. The more you screw up, the longer it’ll take to make it to being a full share crew member.
This thread will be a lot more interesting if I’m not forced to go do a Google search on everything that everyone mentions. Besides which, I’m not interested enough in yours, so it will just have to remain a mystery to this reader, I guess.
Mine is maybe not all that obscure, but a lot of times when something happens that is less than ideal, I’ll say, “Well, that’s certainly not Scottish.”
From the Mike Myers SNL skit a few years back - “If it’s no’ Scottish… it’s CRAP!”
I do the “Not-Scottish” reference sometimes, too. And before I had kids, when someone would ask what a particular thing was for, I’d usually say, “You put your weeeeeeed in it.” That was also a SNL skit from the same timeframe as Not-Scottish. Rob Schneider owned a Bohemian-type store full of all kinds of trinkets and such. Everything he sold had a secret compartment and every customer would ask what it was for. He would look around and quietly say, “You put your weeeeed in it.”
From attempts at analogies, I’m fairly well convinced that my brother and I are the only two people under the age of 35, or hell maybe under 45, who have any idea who Dobie Gillis is. sigh.
Well I did do a google search and it came back with four links. Two pointed back to this thread and the other two used the quote but didn’t reference the tv show/movie it came from. So apparantly it is everyones loss since you refuse to explain it.
The one I use is when someone is explaining something to me and it is going over my head is:
“I have no idea what you just said but you touch a brother’s heart.” which is a paraphrase from what Pimkin Escobar says to Jay in “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”.
The whole quote set is:
Jay: It’s a Miramax flick. We gotta bust up some people who were calling us names on the internet, even thought they’re not really talking about us but characters based on us, and at the same time find my ex-girlfriend-who-was-killed-by-a-car-explosion’s monkey. Pumpkin Escobar: Man… I don’t know what the FUCK you just said, Little Kid, but you’re special man, you reached out, and you touch a brother’s heart.
I do that one too, and I am sort of surprised when someone my age doesn’t get it. But then I remember that the only person I spoke to around the time that skit was shown was my brother, and HE got it.
I like to spout Kids in the Hall references from time to time, but no one ever gets those. My favorite is “I’m in the middle of a big bike race.” It’s from a sketch with a recurring character, Gavin, a precocious little boy who blathers on to strangers. In this sketch, he was blathering on as usual and when he wanted to leave he just said he had to go because he was in the middle of a big bike race.
I also like “A race! I am in a race!” from the movie Rat Race, as spoken by Rowan Atkinson’s (Mr. Bean) excitable Italian character.
I also do A LOT of Andy Griffith show references. My favorites are when Barney gets flustered because Andy has pulled a little joke on him. Barney will usually say something like:
“You think you’re pretty funny, don’t you!” Then follow it up with one of the below:
“Why don’t you go down to the old folks home and take the bolts outta the wheel chairs! That’d be pretty funny, too!”
“Why don’t we go to the hospital and wax the steps! That’d be pretty funny, too!”
“Yeah, old Laugh-A-Minute Taylor!”
“You oughtta carry a cane and put a flower in your lapel and get a job at the circus!”
I actually made a T-shirt of “Don’t eat the figs”. It has Sian Phillips’ picture in a mosaic tyle format over a bowl of figs. I now know that there’s at least one person who’d laugh at it, I just need to go to New York for the chuckle.
One I don’t find obscure but apparently is comes when I mention “Well, what family doesn’t have it’s ups and downs?”
Others, all from the same movie, include (in a very nelly voice): “My mind’s a blank”, “Shoot her in the hay-yud”, and “Well it ain’t a workin’!”.
You know, this is truly annoying. You’ve spent several posts trying to defend your refusal to enlighten everyone on obscure references you use, in a thread about people’s frustration when others don’t get their obscure reference. No one’s going to spoil your clubhouse fun - because these stupid “I know an obscure reference and you don’t!” games are tedious, and not just because “Oklahoma” references are lame.
This isn’t exactly obscure, but whenever I visit my mother and she complains when I turn on the bright light in her living room, I have to quote “A Streetcar Named Desire” to her – “I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.” The sad thing is, the reference is obscure to her (she’s seen the play but has a terrible memory), and she’s more like Blanche DuBois than anyone I’ve ever met.
