# Seeing stars, sure. But birds??

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-stars-sure-but-birds/3486>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 25, 1999, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-stars-sure-but-birds/3486 "1999-09-25T11:24:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 1999, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-stars-sure-but-birds/3486/1 "1999-09-25T11:24:00Z")

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And now, in the running for one of the sillier threads of the week, I bring you…:

You know how cartoons often have a scene where someone gets clouted round the head, and they see stars? Well, that’s cool, because I’ve seen stars before - little points of light that zip around in your field of vision. (no violence required)

Buuuuut, the other standard for clout aftermath is to have **birds** tweeting. Now that’s something that may have originated not in cartoons but in the early slapstick movies shorts of the early part of the century, the Mack Sennet era.

Was it based on anything real, do you think? Do people see or hear birds when they get knocked about? Or was it just a convenient cliché representation?

Told you it was silly. 😉

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**Author:** ![Joe\_Burns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3da27b/32.png) [@Joe\_Burns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Burns)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 1999, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-stars-sure-but-birds/3486/2 "1999-09-25T12:50:00Z")

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Although I have no scientific support for this, I would assume it came from the statement that some one is coo-coo. (You know, like the clock).

When Sylvester gets bopped on the head by a fridge, he goes into a drunken coo-coo state, thus the birds.

I’m probably wrong, but it seems logical.

Joe

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You can become a captain of industry and rich beyond your wildest dreams, but to your family you’re still that dumb kid they tricked into eating a worm. - Dennis Miller

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**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 1999, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-stars-sure-but-birds/3486/3 "1999-09-27T16:03:00Z")

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I think the birds is there to represent the “ringing in the ears” sound that a hit person might hear. Of course, bells would work better as representation, but birds are close (in sound) and look significantly cuter.

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Chaim Mattis Keller  
[ckeller@schicktech.com](mailto:ckeller@schicktech.com)

“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the  
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be  
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.  
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”  
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective

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**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 1999, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-stars-sure-but-birds/3486/4 "1999-09-27T16:45:00Z")

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In the immortal words of F. Leghorn:

It’s a joke, son.