# Obvious things about a creative work you realize after the millionth time (OPEN SPOILERS POSSIBLE) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 24, 2009, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117 "2009-07-24T13:20:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 273
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5447 "2023-07-24T17:52:32Z")
Holy crap. 😲 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2023, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5448 "2023-07-24T19:56:47Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Don’t feel bad. I didn’t get the BEATles referred to a drum beat until I read it here. It wasnt that long for me, but at least a decade! ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5449 "2023-07-25T03:40:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I thought it was a reference to the beatnik movement (even though they weren’t really part of that movement). > [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > As I wrote above, it’s probably inspired by several things, like the group The Crickets, the word “beat”, the word “beatnik”, a motorcycle group named “the Beetles” in the 1953 movie _The Wild One_ , etc. AIUI John Lennon said it was because groups like theirs were referred to as beat groups, and he wanted another insect name like The Crickets. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5450 "2023-07-25T05:15:16Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > John Lennon said it was because groups like theirs were referred to as beat groups, and he wanted another insect name like The Crickets. And Paul McCartney said that the origin was “clouded in mystery”: > **[Even Paul McCartney Thinks the Origin of The Beatles' Name Is 'Clouded in...](https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/even-paul-mccartney-thinks-origin-the-beatles-name-clouded-mystery.html/)** > > Paul McCartney has a theory about the origin of The Beatles' name. However, he thinks it's largely 'clouded in mystery.' ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5451 "2023-07-25T05:49:14Z")
That article doesn’t invalidate the other possibilities. It doesn’t even get the group’s preceding name right: The Quarrymen, not the Quarry Men. “_Yeah, well my online reference can beat up your online reference!_” > [@Wheelz](#): > > There are five different introductions, each one corresponding to a day of the week. And speaking of Beetles, I recall reading that Mort Walker used a day-of-the-week theme in the Beetle Bailey comic strip. The example given was the Miss Buxley character, and I remember noticing a few times that it panned out. ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5452 "2023-07-25T15:56:30Z")
From that article. > While Paul thinks the actual origin of The Beatles’ name is “clouded in mystery,” he does have a theory about it. According to his memory, they were “striving to find something with a dual meaning because of The Crickets.” > > **There was cricket the game and crickets the little grasshoppers.** Paul wrote, “What if we could find an insect that also had some double meaning? Perhaps in Great Britain that would be a double meaning, but would a Texan like Buddy Holly refer to “Cricket” the _game_? So, it’s kind of interesting that the most iconic name in Rock and Roll was likely founded on an assumed but mistaken impression. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2023, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5453 "2023-08-07T00:11:49Z")
I put on _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ last night to take up the time until the news, and I noticed something that I hadn’t before. When Marion and Indiana are alone in the stateroom aboard the ship, after kissing him on his “not sore” spots, he lies back and she grabs his fedora by the brim and casually flips it over her shoulder… …and that’s the last time he wears it for the rest of the film. Oh, he does appear in a fedora when he’s in Washington, and speaking on the steps with Marion. But it looks like a new and clean fedora. Even if it somehow is the one he’d been wearing through the film, we only get that glimpse of it. But when he’s hiding from the Nazis on the ship, or swimming out to the sub, or skulking around the Nazi base, threatening to blow up the Ark, and then stands tied to a stake with Marion, he’s hatless for a twenty minute or so stretch. It’s jarring to realize, because it was something of a running joke throughout the Indiana Jones films that Indy was rarely without his hat, particularly during action scenes (You could understand his not wearing it during the dining scenes in Temple of Doom, or at Donovan’s party in Last CRusade.) He’s shown grasping it from underneath a sliding rock trap, or it stubbornly staying on his head during a horse chase. And when it comes off his head just before the tank goes over the edge in Last Crusade, it conveniently blows back up so he can put it on. These were supposedly due to the difficulty of maintaining continuity in the movie serials that inspired the Indiana Jones series. So they simply avoided any lack of continuity by having the characters always wearing their headgear. But that lack of the characteristic Jones fedora during that last action scenes in the very first Indiana Jones movie is surprising. I suppose they did it because it would’ve been hard to believe that Jones swam out to the German Submarine, still wearing his hat. Although I note that he kept the damned thing on when swimming through the river to escape the Jovitos at the very beginning of the same film. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2023, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5454 "2023-08-07T02:35:15Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > When Marion and Indiana are alone in the stateroom aboard the ship, after kissing him on his “not sore” spots, he lies back and she grabs his fedora by the brim and casually flips it over her shoulder… > > …and that’s the last time he wears it for the rest of the film. I was watching it yesterday, too. When Indy is fighting with the Nazis on the truck taking he Ark to Cairo, he get thrown through the windshield and winds up sliding along the road under the truck. He wedges the handle of his whip into the bottom of the truck, the slides out the back and climbs up the tailgate. He doesn’t bring the whip with him, although it stays attached under the truck. I didn’t notice if he’s shown with the whip in the rest of the film. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2023, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5455 "2023-08-07T03:13:46Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I didn’t notice if he’s shown with the whip in the rest of the film. that sorta bothered me, too. But he could’ve retrieved the whip from under the truck after he drove it into that garage in the square (where the locals quickly disguised the garage as a fruit stand, flummoxing the Nazis). Notice that throughout his ordeal on the truck, he kept his hat. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2023, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5456 "2023-08-08T13:41:17Z")
> [@](#): > > And any plan where you lost your hat iz… > > A bad plan? ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2023, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5457 "2023-08-08T14:35:47Z")
Is that a quote from _Girl Genius_ or did they steal it from someplace else? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2023, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5458 "2023-08-09T16:07:30Z")
Well, I got it from Girl Genius. And I’ve never seen it in earlier works, but you’d have to ask the Foglios to be sure. I’d guess that it was original to them, based on the role of hats in Jäger culture, but then again, that was from fairly early in the strip, so maybe that exchange was the genesis of the importance of Jägerhats. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2023, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5459 "2023-08-09T16:09:29Z")
Oh, and a new entry for the thread: The youngest Simpson child is named after her mother. Margaret Simpson I and Margaret Simpson II. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2023, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5460 "2023-08-09T16:13:57Z")
Marge is short (in this case) for Marjorie, not Margaret. Maggie, however, is short of Margaret. [Marjorie Jacqueline “Marge” Simpson (née Bouvier)](https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Marge_Simpson#cite_note-was-11) [Margaret Evelyn Lenny “Maggie” Simpson](https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Maggie_Simpson) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2023, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5461 "2023-08-09T17:18:39Z")
I re-watched **The Sting** recently, but this time with captioning on. I’m amazed how many lines and words I missed, simply because they were unfamiliar slang said quickly. In particular, I missed that Redford’s Johnny Hooker called Lonegan’s two henchmen “Mutt” and “Jeff”. If you’re not familiar, “Mutt and Jeff” was a long-running (1906-1983) comic strip about a tall guy (“Mutt”) and a short one (“Jeff”) . Apparently the names slipped into police slang for a tall guy and a short guy pair. Hooker, though, calls the shorter guy “Mutt” and the taller one “Jeff”, probably because he encounters them in that order. ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2023, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5462 "2023-08-09T19:32:08Z")
I was about to reply that ‘Mutton Jeff’ is cockney rhyming slang for ‘deaf’ (e.g. ‘he’s a bit mutton’) but it actually seems to be a corruption of exactly this, ‘Mutt and Jeff’. So that’s something I didn’t know until now. ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2023, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5463 "2023-08-12T16:00:06Z")
Adding to something I posted here a few months ago about the film Se7en: > [@alovem](#): > > There’s an outstanding shot of John Doe, before we know it’s him, standing over Mills after hitting him from above (he’s hiding on top of a truck). Remember that scene? He’s reflected in a pool of water on the ground. It’s incredibly ominous, but the shot lasts maybe a second, and I would have liked to see the camera linger. The reason for not lingering is probably that a very similar shot appears toward the end of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, when the Mexican bandits surprise Bogart’s character at a waterhole. I assume director David Fincher or cinematographer Darius Khondji or somebody thought it would be better to keep the shot brief so that it would be interpreted as a homage or nod to John Huston’s film (rather than being interpreted as shamelessly stealing the idea). In any event, I still think the shot in Se7en could have been just a second or two longer. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2023, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5464 "2023-08-12T17:51:32Z")
In the same vein - A clip from **Avengers: Age of Ultron** just popped up on my Youtube feed. It’s the scene where the Avengers arrive at Hawkeye’s safe house and meet his family. Thor has a vision and walks outside to leave. Steve follows him. After Thor rockets off, Steve turns to enter the house, then stops. He stands there for a minute, framed by the door, then turns and walks away. The exact same setup and framing as the end of John Ford’s **The Searchers.** ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2023, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5465 "2023-08-12T19:02:25Z")
Oh, yeah, that one’s been used in many films. I can’t name any, but I remember seeing the scenes on some TV program about cinema. There must be something about that on YouTube. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2023, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/5466 "2023-08-16T17:35:26Z")
I just realized that “Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll” is just the modern equivalent of “Wine, Women and Song”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117.md?page=272) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117.md?page=274)