# Origin of "I'm only three and a half years old"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 31, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158 "2003-07-31T16:09:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Topologist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/topologist/32/3208_2.png) [@Topologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Topologist)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/1 "2003-07-31T16:09:27Z")
Most of the catchphrases in the old loony tunes cartoons originated elsewhere, in popular radio shows, etc. This one has been driving me crazy for a while: I can’t find any information on the net. So, where did the phrase “I’m only three and a half years old”, used in several Bugs Bunny cartoons in particular, come from? ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/2 "2003-07-31T16:43:24Z")
Maybe Fanny Brice’s “Baby Snooks” character? ---
**Author:** ![racinchikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@racinchikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racinchikki)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/3 "2003-07-31T16:58:48Z")
[http://members.aol.com/EOCostello/i.html](http://members.aol.com/EOCostello/i.html) > [@](#): > > \*\*I’m only three and half years old \*\* > > Line associated with Lou Costello and used quite a bit in WB cartoons in situations just after some act of child-like mischief. Examples include: one of the Hubie/Bertie mice in Trap Happy Porky (Jones, 1945) after skillfully robbing a rat trap; a tiny gremlin shattering airplane instruments with a hammer in Russian Rhapsody (Clampett, 1944), Grover Groundhog, just after Porky discovers Grover has been feeding him lines in One Meat Brawl (McKimson, 1947), one of the ancient batters for the Tea Totallers in Baseball Bugs (Freleng, 1946), who says he is only 93 1/2 years old, and a bawling hippo in Baby Bottleneck (Clampett, 1946) who says that he is only 3 1/2 seconds old. I was unable to find any other information about it, or what it has to do with Lou Costello. ---
**Author:** ![slipster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@slipster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slipster)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/4 "2003-07-31T20:25:03Z")
Actually, it has to do with Little Audrey. Obviously played by an adult actress, she was a recurrent character on the Abbott & Costello radio program, and this was her familiar catch phrase, often used as a walk-on line. Thus: Abbott: Costello, that’s not funny! Audrey: Well, I thought it was amusing, but I’m only three and a half years old. Abbott: "Why, it’s Little Audrey!!! (Thunderous applause from the studio audience). IIRC, the character was generally depicted as being just a couple of notches above Costello in mental acuity. ---
**Author:** ![NubgummerySnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NubgummerySnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NubgummerySnr)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2017, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/5 "2017-08-13T07:24:34Z")
16 years later and I’ve just come across this thread. With regards to the phrase originating with the Abbott and Costello show, this is simply incorrect. Abbott and Costello filmed their show for TV from 1952 onwards. As mentioned before in this thread already, Bob Clampett’s 1944 Merry Melodies cartoon Russian Rhapsody features a small gremlin smashing at the instrument panel of a plane with a mallet before uttering the exact same line, as can be seen [here](https://youtu.be/oojwhmVae14?t=4m30s). so unless there’s been some time travel involved, the gremlin couldn’t have possibly heard the line from watching Abbott and Costello on TV when it was 8 years prior to the TV shows actually existing. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/6 "2017-08-15T13:43:16Z")
Slipster said it comes from their \*\*radio \*\*show, which started in [1942](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_and_Costello#Radio). ---
**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 15, 2017, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/7 "2017-08-15T13:56:38Z")
As I pointed out in a thread several months backj, “Little Audrey” was the name of a character in a series of actually pretty sadistic and mostly dirty jokes in the early 20th Century: > [@](#): > > Little Audrey had a long career in folklore as the butt of a series of mostly dirty jokes, some going as far back as the First World War. > > In folklore and juvenile humor[edit] > > According to B.A. Botkin’s A Treasury of American Folktales: > Little Audrey is a folk-lore character about whom thousands of nonsensical short tales during the past five or six years — have been told. Sometimes Little Audrey parades as Little Emma or Little Gertrude, but she usually is recognizable by a catch phrase ‘she just laughed and laughed’. The amusing incident is typically a catastrophe.[3] > > Pierre Berton, in The Dionne Years: A Thirties Melodrama (1978), offers this example of a Little Audrey joke as was in fashion around the time of the Dionne Quintuplets birth in 1934: > Little Audrey’s mother asks her to buy some groceries at the Safeway, and she laughed and laughed because she knew there was no safe way. > > One of the most famous goes like this: > One day, Li’l Audrey was playing with matches. Her mother told her she’d better stop before someone got hurt. But Li’l Audrey was awfully hard headed and kept playing with matches, and eventually she burned their house down. > > “Oh, Li’l Audrey, you are sure gonna catch it when your father comes home!” said her mother. > > But Li’l Audrey just laughed and laughed, because she knew her father had come home early to take a nap. > > As nasty as some of these jokes were, they were extremely popular, and it became inevitable that someone would appropriate the name of the character. > **[Little Audrey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Audrey)** > > Little Audrey (full name: Audrey Smith) is a fictional character, appearing in early 20th century comics prior to starring in a series of Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios cartoons from 1947 to 1958. She is considered a variation of the better-known Little Lulu, devised after Paramount decided not to renew the license on the comic strip character created by Marjorie Henderson Buell (a.k.a. "Marge"). Despite some superficial similarities between the two characters, the Famous animators were Prior... I stumbled across this in looking up old humor, and was startled because my first acquaintance with “Little Audrey” was with the Famous Studios cartoon character (which they started advancing as a substitute for Little Lulu. They had to pay roylaties to use Lulu, but not on Audrey). It seemed believable, but kinda nasty, that the idiot subject of salacious humor would be cleaned up and used as a kiddie cartoon character. I had no idea that she’d been used previously as a character in a radio show starring a couple of vaudevillians. But it makes an even more plausible transition. a lot of vaudeville humor was kinda blue and came in by way of burlesque. Even a lot of Abbott and Costello’s material was essentially cleaned-up burlesque material. I could see them naming a sweet character “Little Audrey”, and I could see some Fleischer Studio/Famous Studio animator or gag man in turn re-using it as a cartoon character’s name. And as for _Warner Brothers_ cartoons directly lifting a gag from radio, they did that all the time. “Foghorn Leghorn” himself, and his whole “southern bluster” act, is a direct ripoff of Kenny Delmar’s “Senator Claghorn” on _The Fred Allen Show_. They basically stole his act. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/8 "2017-08-15T15:08:12Z")
Christopher Miller has a section on Little Audrey in his [American Cornball](https://www.amazon.com/American-Cornball-Laffopedic-Guide-Formerly/dp/0062225189/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502809525&sr=1-1&keywords=american+cornball), an encyclopedic look at oddball things that once tickled funny bones in American popular culture. He does seem to take his examples from Botkin, though, so I’m not sure he has much to add. I just wanted to recommend the book, which is new yet obscure. As an encyclopedia, read it in bits and pieces. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/9 "2017-08-15T15:19:43Z")
Since this is about a cartoon catchphrase, let’s move it to Cafe Society, which didn’t exist when this thread was started in 2003. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/10 "2017-08-15T16:45:12Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Christopher Miller has a section on Little Audrey in his [American Cornball](https://www.amazon.com/American-Cornball-Laffopedic-Guide-Formerly/dp/0062225189/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502809525&sr=1-1&keywords=american+cornball), an encyclopedic look at oddball things that once tickled funny bones in American popular culture. He does seem to take his examples from Botkin, though, so I’m not sure he has much to add. I just wanted to recommend the book, which is new yet obscure. As an encyclopedia, read it in bits and pieces. [Abebooks has a lot of hardcovers for less than $4 including shipping.](https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&an=&tn=American+Cornball%3A+A+Laffopedic+Guide+to+the+Formerly+Funny+&kn=&isbn=) I just bought one. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/11 "2017-08-15T17:37:36Z")
I wonder if Little Audrey was the inspiration behind Lily Tomlin’s “Edith Ann” character? “My name is Edith Ann, and I’m only five and a half years old.” ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/12 "2017-08-15T19:26:08Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > I wonder if Little Audrey was the inspiration behind Lily Tomlin’s “Edith Ann” character? > > “My name is Edith Ann, and I’m only five and a half years old.” Originally on Laugh-In she said she was five years old, not five and a half. I doubt that Little Audrey inspired Edith Ann. The styles of humor are very different. ---
**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 15, 2017, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/13 "2017-08-15T19:28:08Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Christopher Miller has a section on Little Audrey in his [American Cornball](https://www.amazon.com/American-Cornball-Laffopedic-Guide-Formerly/dp/0062225189/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502809525&sr=1-1&keywords=american+cornball), an encyclopedic look at oddball things that once tickled funny bones in American popular culture. He does seem to take his examples from Botkin, though, so I’m not sure he has much to add. I just wanted to recommend the book, which is new yet obscure. As an encyclopedia, read it in bits and pieces. I bought a copy of this a couple of months ago. I found a hard cover copy on sale, which is better because it has a lot of the illustrations in color. It’s a hoot. I think I wasted a week on that book. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/14 "2017-08-15T21:39:51Z")
When I opened this thread I thought it was going to be about [Munro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNgiWU9LY7A), an animated short about a child mistakenly drafted into the Army, despite his continued protests that “I’m only four.” ---
**Author:** ![Civil\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d78d45/32.png) [@Civil\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Civil_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/15 "2017-08-15T21:58:53Z")
Another Little Audrey joke, which I somehow remember having seen in my mom’s high school yearbook - mid 1930s, maybe: “Little Audrey saw a mail-order catalog listing for a bed that was 7’ by 7’, but she just laughed and laughed because she knew that was a lot of bunk.” Silly and formulaic, sure, but I wouldn’t have called it particularly nasty. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/16 "2017-08-15T23:02:20Z")
> [@Civil\_Guy](#): > > Another Little Audrey joke, which I somehow remember having seen in my mom’s high school yearbook - mid 1930s, maybe: > > “Little Audrey saw a mail-order catalog listing for a bed that was 7’ by 7’, but she just laughed and laughed because she knew that was a lot of bunk.” > > Silly and formulaic, sure, but I wouldn’t have called it particularly nasty. Nobody would have allowed anything nasty in a yearbook. Not in the 1930s and not in my 1960s. I’ll bet very few if any yearbooks would allow most Little Audrey jokes in today’s 2010s. ---
**Author:** ![NubgummerySnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NubgummerySnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NubgummerySnr)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2017, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/17 "2017-08-15T23:14:09Z")
Sorry folks, My mistake. I didn’t read the thing properly. Yes, it makes sense if it comes from the radio show as that originated before the Looney Tunes version. Here in Australia we only had the TV show when I were a lad so I was unaware of the radio version. We might have had it on the airwaves, but completely before my time. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/18 "2017-08-16T00:35:27Z")
The listing on Tv Tropes for the WB cartoon [Russian Rhapsody](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/RussianRhapsody) says > [@](#): > > The gremlin who says: “I’m only three and a half years old!” is a reference to the character Martha (played by Billy Gray) on Abbott and Costello’s radio show. Costello was known for saying “I’m a baaaaaaaad boy.” ---
**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 16, 2017, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/19 "2017-08-16T12:52:05Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > The listing on Tv Tropes for the WB cartoon [Russian Rhapsody](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/RussianRhapsody) says > > The gremlin who says: “I’m only three and a half years old!” is a reference to the character Martha (played by Billy Gray) on Abbott and Costello’s radio show. > > Costello was known for saying “I’m a baaaaaaaad boy.” This stands in disagreement with **slipster** ’s post above: > [@](#): > > Actually, it has to do with Little Audrey. > > Obviously played by an adult actress, she was a recurrent character on the Abbott & Costello radio program, and this was her familiar catch phrase, often used as a walk-on line. > > Thus: > > Abbott: Costello, that’s not funny! > > Audrey: Well, I thought it was amusing, but I’m only three and a half years old. > > Abbott: "Why, it’s Little Audrey!!! > > (Thunderous applause from the studio audience). > > IIRC, the character was generally depicted as being just a couple of notches above Costello in mental acuity. So, which is the real situation? 1.) Slipster’s memory has slipped, and the character wasn’t named “Little Audrey” 2.) TV Tropes is wrong, and the character wasn’t name “Martha” 3.) They’re both right – the show used two differently-named characters with the same catchphrase 4.) They’re both wrong. The character’s name was \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ 5.) Everybody’s wrong. The catchphrase didn’t come from Abbott and Costello’s show, but from \_\_\_\_\_\_. I never heard any of A&C’s radio shows, so I don’t know. A quick search of the internet doesn’t find anything associating either Little Audrey or Martha with the show. Billy Gray was born in 1938. He really WOULD have been three and a half years old during the A&C show’s run, but his Wikipedia page gives him no credit for it (although he did appear – with his mom – in the A&C film _Abbott and Costello meet the Killer_, years later).(He was the boy in the original **Day the Earth Stood Still** ) He’s still around, btw. > **[Billy Gray (actor)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Gray_(actor))** > > William Thomas Gray (born January 13, 1938) is an American actor, competitive motorcycle racer and inventor, known for his role as Bud on the television series Father Knows Best (1954-1960). > Gray began acting at five years old. He appeared with his mother in the 1949 horror comedy Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (in separated scenes). He acted in more than 200 movies. He acted with stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Doris Day, Bob Hope, William Holden, Michael Rennie, Judith Ander... ---
**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 16, 2017, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158/20 "2017-08-16T12:54:36Z")
Okay, it was apparently a different Biily Gray: > [@](#): > > Gray acted on the Abbott and Costello radio show in 1942-43. He played a girl named Matilda, whose catchphrase was “I’m only three-and-a-half years old.”[4] He also appeared on stage with Abbott and Costello in their appearances at military bases during World War Two. > **[Billy Gray (comedian)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Gray_(comedian))** > > Billy Gray (born William Victor Giventer, March 17, 1904, New York City, New York – January 4, 1978, Los Angeles, California) was an American comedian, comedy club owner and an actor. > Gray was studying law when he won a dance contest, and decided to enter show business instead. Gray was the onetime owner of the Band Box, a comedy club at 123 North Fairfax Avenue, in Los Angeles, which was previously owned by Lou Costello, who purchased it in 1942 from Pete and Billy Snyder and installed Gray as ... This assertion, unlike the others, comes with a citation: (4) Variety, January 12th, 1943, pg. 7. Okay – another possibility. Was it really **Matilda** , not Little Audrey or Martha, who said the phrase? Inquiring minds want to know. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-im-only-three-and-a-half-years-old/192158.md?page=2)