I’ve been wondering about this for a while. In TV shows (most notably The Simpsons and movies, when someone is supposed to be stoned they will say:
“Have you ever looked at your hands? They’re huge! They can touch everything but themselves!” (Or something to that effect)
and, in response to any question:
“Dave’s not here, man”.
Where did these come from? Are they a reference to something or just examples of drug-induced rambling?
“Dave’s not here” is from a routine on the first Cheech and Chong album.
“Have you ever really looked at your hands” was used in Doonesbury in the '70s, but I don’t know if it originated there.
There’s a Simpson’s where Otto is looking at his hands and he says, “They call 'em fingers, but I never seen 'em fing.”
The Dave thing is C&C as Biffy pointed out.
Also, the first time I ever heard a stoner say “What if C-A-T really spelled dog?” was in Revenge of the Nerds (pt 2?). It blew the nerds’ minds.
It is just a characterization of the meaningless “revelations” or “deep thoughts” some people have when they ingest THC.
A similar one is “Whoa, like, what if our entire universe was just one atom in, like, a giant’s fingernail? WHOA! And then what if he lived in a universe that was in an even BIGGER Giant’s fingernail!?”
And about that time I really started staring at my OWN fingernail…
The looking at your hands is a pretty common event when under the influence of psychotropic substances… or so I’m told 
Under the influence, suddenly you notice they don’t seem to move the way the used to, and since you’re pretty familiar with how your hands look, it pretty much jumps out at you.
All sorts of things look “different” when using. My personal favorite thing to look at was things with patterns of texture. Textured celings, pavement, concrete, carpeting. I saw “waves” moving through them. YMMV, though I don’t recommend any of it. (but what a time it was to be young)
If ya don’t mind, I’m gonna piggyback this one (although I don’t think it’s a stoner phrase, but it’s said in that “accent”):
“Game over, man!”
That one’s from Aliens–Bill Paxton freaking out about how they’re all going to die. And I first recall hearing the “atoms in the fingernail” in Animal House.
If I recall, the bit went something like this:
Knock knock knock
“Who’s there?”
(muffled, through the door) “It’s me, Dave.”
“Dave’s not here, man.”
And so on.
Dave’s Not Here - A guy bearing drugs named Dave is furiously pounding on the door to get in.
It goes something like:
Stoner: Who is it?
Dave: It’s Dave, man, let me in!
Stoner: Who?
Dave: It’s Dave, man, come on, open the door!
Stoner: Who?
Dave: Dave!!!
Stoner: Dave?
Dave: Yeah, Dave.
Stoner: Dave’s not here.
Dave: No man, I’m Dave!
pounds on door
Stoner: Who is it?
and so on…
I first heard “They can touch…anything, but themselves!” on Futurama. It happens in the episode with the Popplers, after Lrrr eats a hippie who had taken a few too many drugs beforehand.
I always like to change the “hands” thing when my cats are high on catnip.
Dude! My paw. I can paw things with it, and it is a paw. It could paw itself! No wait…
Are you sure it isn’t older than that?
Then there’s that Delphic oracle of demented wisdom from Withnail & I, Danny the drug dealer:
“I don’t advise a haircut, mate… all hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hair are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos and transmit them directly to your brain. This is why all bald men are uptight…”
“If I medicined you, you’d think a brain tumor was a f@cking birthday present.”
“London is a country coming down from its trip. We are ninety-one days from the end of this decade [the '60’s] and there’s going to be a lot of refugees.”
“I told him, there’s no question of paying rent on a property cut with rodents. He takes exception to this.”
“Find your neutral space.”
“Sit down, mate. Take control.”
“You have done something to your brain. You have made it hot. If I laid 10 mils of Diazepine [sp?] on you, you would do something else to your brain – you would make it love. Why trust one drug and not another… That’s politics, innit?”
“So they made this car that runs on water…it runs on WATER MAN!”
-That '70s Show
I’m pretty damn sure.
I’m not 100% certain but I think the line - or something very similar - is in an episode of The Twilight zone from 1985. The episode was A little peace and quiet which was thew pilot of the new series. When the nukes are about to strike, there’s a voice on the radio that says something similar. Aliens came about a year later, I believe.
Anyone have a copy and can check?
I have little doubt that someone used the phrase “Game Over” before, but the point is that everyone doing the “game over, man, game over” line in that whiney, pleading voice was riffing on Bill Paxton in Aliens.
I just checked the DVD and the radio announcer just says “It’s over. It’s over.” but not in the stoner accent.
Ah, thanks. Well, its similar but not exact.
The phrase “Game Over,” of course, comes from video games. It dates back to at least Space Invaders in 1978.