He was also the only cast member to have actually met Tolkien:
I’m not sure I’m if this could be considered “obvious”, but I was probably in my 30s before I learned that a Deuce Coupe, as in the Beach Boys’ “Little Deuce Coupe”, means a 1932 Ford Coupe. Apparently that was a highly sought after car for turning into a hot rod. It wasn’t obvious to me, but I’m guessing that term was well known to teenagers in the 1960s, since the Beach Boys wrote a song about it. Actually when I was a kid I misheard the lyric as “goose scoop”. I probably figured out the real words in middle school from the track listing on a Beach Boys cassette, but it still took decades after that before I figured out what a Deuce Coupe was.
I used to think the line in the ELO song was “Don’t bring me down…Bruce”. But the final word is actually groos. Which doesn’t mean anything; it’s a nonsense word that Jeff Lynne uses when he’s writing a song to fill a gap in the lyrics. But in this case, he decided to keep it in the final song.
Huh. I always thought the word was Bruce, too, and never understood it. I never liked the song enough to look up the words either. Now I really hate it.
I love the song, but …groos? That’s a pretty serious flaw.
That scene is even better once you realize that the hapless boy and his poor date are named after George and Mary Bailey from It’s A Wonderful Life.
I too have always heard it as “Bruce.”
I’d always heard “groos”, but I figured I was mishearing “Bruce”.
If I had heard “groos,” I would have thought I was mishearing “goose.”
They now sing *Bruce. *
Don’t feel bad. There are plenty of people out there that think the lyric says “big slip” instead of “pink slip.” These are the same people who jack-light deer, use Clamato for their Bloody Marys and talk in the theater.
A groos error, you’d say?
And the pharmacist is Mr. Gower (at 1:38). The girl isn’t Mary, but another character from IAWL: Violet. The boy clearly calls her by that name near the beginning.
In The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Dirk Gently is obviously key in solving the case and bringing about the ultimate outcome, even though he keeps taking damage, is by the end of the book reduced to recuperating in a hospital bed, and never talks to Thor or Odin. (Even Kate’s actions can be indirectly traced back to Dirk’s impetus.) This is a consequence of the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.
I always thought it was “roose,” as in Charlotte Russe, IOW French for Russian. Although why he would be saying that, I had no idea.
I always thought it was “Oops!”
But “goose” wouldn’t make any sense. “Bruce” would have… kinda. Jeff Lynne was also rolling his Rs pretty heavily. For once in my life I heard something correctly. I just didn’t believe it. Figures.
Here’s Wiki on the subject: Don't Bring Me Down - Wikipedia
“Goose” would make a heckuva lot more sense than “groos.”
SO I have no idea how many times I have seen The Godfather. I was watching it today while I was on my elliptical. Tom Hagan goes to Hollywood to intervene with Jack Woltz for Johny Fontaine. Tom is walking through Woltz’s castle and gardens and Woltz shows him his 600,000 dollar racehorse. It is all class and opulence. In the scene where Jack Woltz and Tom Hagan are eating dinner in the flawlessly decorated dining room and being waited on, the camera angle is from behond Tom Hagan and on Jack Woltz. At Woltz’s place setting, there is a bottle of ketchup…