Oh, easy one. Rodney King during the L.A. riot.
I think by the time Mrs. Lovejoy said it, it was a parody of a line used seriously in earlier movies. Something like The Birds (1963).
“X? What is this X of which you speak?” sounds like one of the King’s lines from The King and I.
From Plato’s Republic, Book VI:
Wow! that must be one of the worlds oldest catchphrases!
I’ve got some as well:
- … makes the baby Jesus cry.
- Oh! The humanity!
Or are these SDMB-culture instead of popular culture? (not that there is anything wrong with that
)
TTT, I believe that “Oh the humanity!” comes from the radio annoucer’s hysterical (not in a funny way) description of the Hindenburg as it went down in flames. It’s usually repeated sarcasticly in response to someone making a tragedy out of something reletively minor.
Crying Baby Jesus is yet another from the Simpsons. “Lies make baby Jesus cry,” from one of the Flanderses.
As for “think of the children,” it may well be a spoof of The Birds, but I would guess that just about everybody using it is referring to the Simpsons, so in my view that makes it “from” The Simpsons even if it wasn’t the first ever use of the phrase in history.
Boo-yah?
Popularized by SportsCenter anchor Stuart Scott.
What I’ve seen cropping up, and which I hate, is “I’ve made a bad.”
I might not have the exact phrase correct, but whatever it is, it’s pathetic and childish, and sounds like it came from some bottom-feeding show like “Friends.”
There are some “catchphrases” that should have their feet whipped.
Heh . . . you SDMB people are too young. I forget the actor’s name, but he was from “Marcus Welby, M.D.” (welby=well-be–get it?) and he was the avuncular proponent of some long-forgotten drug.
That brings to mind the old “Four out of five doctors recommend . . .”
tonbo0422,
Sorry, but it was not an actor who played a doctor on Marcus Welby. It was one of the actors who played a doctor on General Hospital. I remember the ad quite clearly.
[hijack]
Jokes that only older people “get:”
“What’s green and carries a black bag?”
“Mucus Welby.”
[/hijack]
So far, this thread has been nothing but wild guesses, (which can be fun), but I’d love to see some cites! And Wendell, if you remember the ad quite clearly, any guesses on the product being advertised? I’ll write to them to verify that they did indeed coin the catchphrase.
I know that IMDB has a pretty good database of famous movie lines, but there must already be a page that collects and researches “catchphrases?”
OK: here’s my “wild guess”:
X? What is this X of which you speak?
sounds to me like the cliche from 50s sci-fi movies where the alien from Mars says “Love? What is this ‘Love’ of which you speak?” And probably it helped if spoken by a beautiful, voluptuous Martian to the clean-cut American astronaut.
Aren’t old memories fun?
It was Robert Young who played Marcus Welby (might as well be Marcus Welby, as we used to say) shilling for Bufferin, or maybe Excedrin.
Originally a Chick Hearn-ism. There are a number of people who doubt the number of common basketball terms he coined but this was certainly one of them.
And hey, great pull Nametag on the Colonel Flagg reference!
'Four out of five dentists", of course, is in the Straight Dope Archives.
I knowed it was Robert Young. Sorry, Wendell ol’ buddy, but my Alzheimers seems to be more reliable than your Alzheimers.
You beat me to it! The late Chick Hearn was the long-time radio and TV voice of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Interstingly, this has been revived in recent Dentyne commercials. The new spots spoof the catch phrase, though.
“I loves me some X”, I’d bet a dollar to a doughnut, is just an imitation of what’s commonly perceived as African-American speech. It’s likely that it was popularized on a show with a prominent African-American cast – In Living Color is a probable suspect.
Jomo Mojo, got any more of these? This is an interesting topic.
No, it was not Robert Young. I’ve just done a whole bunch of Googling, and I’ve finally come up with the actor who did the commercial where he said “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.” It was Peter Bergman, who played a doctor on the TV series “All My Children”. The ad was for some cough syrup and it was done in 1986. Here’s a webpage that refers to it:
http://www.holecity.com/tooth/adhole_f.html
Here’s another webpage:
http://www.soapcentral.com/y&r/theactors/bergman.php
Aso look at Peter Bergman’s biography page in the IMDb:
http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Bergman,%20Peter%20(II)
It’s possible that Robert Young did some advertisement in which he said something similar, but that was later that the advertisement that Peter Bergman did.
Wow, Wendell! Nice site cites.
I was all ready to pop off about how memory plays trick on you. I now can pop off how memory plays tricks on me.
So what the heck product did Robert Young push on some commercial? I know he did some ads. Geritol? Depends?