Tequila Mockingbird. SMACK sigh.
I just told my mother (in Boston) the “Frugal Fannie/Cheap Ass” one. I could swear that, even through 8,000 miles of telephone cable, I could hear the coffee squirt out her nose.
Ok, one of my own. I read the following joke when I was about 4 or 5 years old.
Teacher: “Johnny, make a sentence containing the following words: detail, defeat, deduct, defense.”
Johnny: “Defeat of deduct went over defense before detail.”
Me (for the next 15 years): “Huh?”
–sublight.
As a boston doper, the frugal fannies thing is a gigantic smack to the forehead. Sweet lord.
zgy, thanks for the assist…
If I may repeat, there is no thing about Cecil’s name, just what turned into (I think) a very funny running joke, that has reached it’s end…there really is nothing else to be known, thinksnow, redboss, and I were pulling your leg. When I said his middle name was “Snipe”, I was referring to a “snipe hunt” – a practical joke version of a wild-goose chase. OK? :rolleyes:
For those of you who will continue after this to believe that there is SOMETHING that we’re holding back from you…go rent a copy of “Alien Autopsy” and relax. (BTW, about 32 minutes in there’s a quick shot of some of the remains of the alien craft and you can just make out on the left near the charring, the letters CCL-ADMS. Coincidence? You decide…)[/sub] 
And zgy, thanks for my very own forehead slap – ziggy stardust? How did I miss that?
Paul
And also “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.”
And you do know who wrote that little ditty, don’t you?
Aaahhh, no…Robert Conrad?
OK, I guess I’m jsut stupid, but I really don’t get these…
Ooh, that reminds me: There’s a radio commercial running here with music in the background for “The Bear Went Over The Mountain,” and every time I hear it I end up whistling “TBWOTM” for hours. But the script for the ad makes the point that a “jolly good fellow” would use [whatever service they’re shilling, and I don’t remember what that is]. So I’ve thought repeatedly – “‘Jolly good fellow’: what an strange, almost archaic phrase to drop in the middle of an American radio ad. That’s so odd.”
Until I realized that the tune for “TBWOTM” is also the tune for “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow.” Duh.
Okay, add me to the list. The ABC/Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star thing just completely blew my mind. I had no clue. I am approximately 2 months from a college degree and did not know this. Damn, I feel like a dork.
Kaz, don’t feel bad–I just didn’t want to type 'em all out at the time. Like I said, almost no one seemed to notice these (in some cases, just because they aren’t funny). I suppose my real point was that a lot of the things that <whoosh> us do so just because we aren’t paying attention, or don’t have the same background as the originator (like Fawkes the phoenix–the reference is obvious to most Brits, obscure to Americans). I’ll clarify, then you can go astound any Harry Potter fans in your vicinity.
I think I explained “Cassandra Vablatsky” well enough–it’s a play on the names of two famous seeresses.
“Flourish” refers to adding some elaborate embellishment to something you’ve hand-written–a big, looping signature or the like. Back when quills were in more common use, most people used a “blotter” to get excess ink off of the quill before writing, to avoid making blots or blotches of ink on the paper. Big desk calendars with space for doodling follow in this tradition.
“Spore” is a play on fungal spores, hence the connection to the title. “Switch” wrote the book on “switching spells” and other transfigurations. “Newt Scamander”, with its amphibian first name and soundalike last name, invokes images of salamanders, which would fall under the “fantastic beasts” heading. “Trimble” wrote about things that made Quirrell “tremble”. These didn’t strike me as funny, so I glossed over them.
“Remus Lupin” is a double reference–Remus was the twin brother of Romulus (after whom Rome was named); they were suckled by a wolf. “Lupin” is a play on “lupine” or “wolflike”. After Hermione provided his name, I was just waiting for him to were-out.
“Sibyll” is a much more obscure reference than I made it out to be. Merriam-Webster defines “sibyl” as:
In a book of New Yorker cartoons, I spent an hour puzzling over one page.
A man is driving on a highway. The road sign in front of him says SCOTLAND 5 MILES. Just ahead is an overpass with a sign SCOTLAND 8 MILES>
I’m sure many of you have already figured it out, but I went over and over that darn drawing for the longest time until a character in a movie sang "Loch Lomond’ at which point a little light bulb clicked on over my head.
It was Mozart, right?
Sappo: Welcome to my world.
dr. hermes: Could you explain further, I still don’t get it.
Kinsey & Protesilaus: Is the Mozart thing just a tidbit of info, or am I missing something even bigger?
Well, since SINsApple didn’t get this joke, I believe “Lock Lomond” is the song that goes “You take the high road and I’ll take the low road and I’ll be in Scotland before ye…”
Ryan W. Mead®
AFAIK, it’s just a tidbit. If there’s something bigger, I’m right there with ya.
After thinking about it for awhile, I suppose Kinsey could be referring to the music to a song about sheep being written by a guy named Wolfgang, but that’s just a guess.
No, just a tidbit of useless information. Call it Today’s Trivia Question.
Most people are usually surprised to find out Mozart wrote “Twinkle, Twinkle” but I figured the Dopers would know.
Actually, the piece is called “12 Variations on ‘Ah! Vous dirai-je, maman’”. (I don’t mean to sound like a smartie-pants if I have come across as one.)
Wow, I feel proud that I knew most of these things (I’ve known the ABC/Twinkle/baa baa thing for years, and I sort of caught on that there is no Cecil thing…) But…
A few weeks ago I was at a friend’s house listening to an MP3 of Peter Frampton singing “Do You Feel Like We Do” live. The only time I’d heard the song was 5 seconds of it from The Simpsons (I had that episode on tape…) It wasn’t until I listened to the whole MP3 that I realized…wait a minute, that’s no cheap microphone trick, he’s doing that with his guitar! Oh my god! That’s amazing! I can’t believe I never realized it until I listened to the MP3. They even have a little joke in that episode of The Simpsons where Jimbo says “Man…that guy’s guitar is talkin’!” I always thought he was just so stoned that he thought the guitar was making the noise, I never got that the guitar was ACTUALLY MAKING THE NOISE! (In my own defense, I did figure it out the first time I listened to the song.) I have a whole new respect for Frampton now.
Another South Park name pun that I didn’t get at first (mostly because I just didn’t pay attention): The black kid (in “Cartman’s Silly Hate Crime 2000”) is named Tokin! As in “The token black guy!” smack! Of course!
just catching up here, from page 1…I also took YEARS to decipher the “what has 4 wheels and flies [a garbagetruck]” joke. Ditto with “what’s black and white and red all over”. For many moons whenever I heard that joke I’d silently frown to myself: “NEWSPAPERS aren’t RED!”
Those whacky literalist childhood years.
Now I feel dumb. That moment right when you finally get the joke, realize what you’ve missed is known to the British as “the penny drops”.
My best example is when I got a printed invitation to a rave. All sorts of info, ya know: the date and time, the DJs spinning, drugs permitted, weapons forbidden, security by whatever company, and finally, a phone number to call on the day of the event.
But what, I wondered, is the address? I went to look for the girl who gave me the invitation, and thankfully, before I found her I was stopped dead in my tracks and thought, “DUH!”.
Then the other day my buddy told me regarding a girl on a diet, “If she doesn’t watch her figure, no-one will.”
About two minutes later… oh. I get it now.
Tequila Mockingbird. DAMN I feel dumb.