The first time I even heard the phrase “mice and/or men” was in a cartoon where someone asked a fearful crew “well, are you men, or mice?” and in unison they responded “we’re mice!” and turned into mice and scurried away. I didn’t know that that was a stock comparison before seeing the cartoon so I just thought it was one of those surreal cartoony things they did sometimes.
Spoilered just for space. I recognize a lot of them, but fans would more.
[spoiler]Michael Amott
Asesino
Jack Black
Richard Christy
Brann Dailor
Warrel Dane
Exodus
George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher
Ace Frehley
Marty Friedman
Billy Gibbons
Angela Gossow
Dave Grohl
Kirk Hammett
James Hetfield
Brent Hinds
Gene Hoglan
Scott Ian
Ihsahn
Arve Isdal
Mike Keneally
King Diamond
Grutle Kjellson
Herbrand Larsen
Jeff Loomis
Marco Minnemann
Mike Patton
Matt Pike
Cam Pipes
Samoth
Troy Sanders
Joe Satriani
Ben Shepherd
Silenoz
Slash
Steve Smyth
Kim Thayil
Trym Torson
Devin Townsend
Steve Vai
ICS Vortex
Dweezil Zappa[/spoiler]
Of mice and men might be a stock idiom now, but the line originated with Robert Burns and To A Mouse:
The comparison between men and mice, though, is much older.
I was that eight year old in 1970.
I obviously didn’t get all the references but I got several of them. Keep in mind that some of those actors were still active in 1970. And even those who were retired were still somewhat fresh in the public eye; we didn’t have DVD’s and Netflix back then so you watched movies on broadcast TV. And for economic reasons, a lot of those movies were several years (or decades) old.
The top answer on that page includes a link to an SD page.
The origin of the phrase is cool, but is not the same as the fact that the Bugs Bunny George and Lenny characters were based on Steinbeck, when the book and movie were new and widely praised and discussed. The phrase is not used in the cartoons.
Looney Tunes would often parody then- current actors that are very obscure today. Jerry Colonna showed up often. Hugh Herbert also was shown.
Christian Slater admitted to consciously parodying Jack Nicholson in Heathers. I noticed it, but few have commented on it before the revelation.
Back when goofy answering machines messages were a thing, I recorded Dr. KLAHN’s message onto my machine:
“Hello, this is Dr. Krahn. I’m not in right now. So leave a message when you hear the byip. You have our gratitude.”
The accent and inflection, not to mention that Dr. Klahn stereotypically can’t pronounce his own name, and the “beep” is the sound of a gong, is just comedy gold.
It only ran to four posts, so I bumped it.