In a few cartoons from the forties, some characters, after seeing something crazy, would say “Now I’ve seen everything”, and then shoot themselves in the head. Where did this cultural reference come from? Did somebody IRL at that time kill themselves after saying that phrase? I can understand saying “Now I’ve seen everything” out of shock, but it was always followed by perplexing self-execution. Why did animators think that audiences would accept characters blowing their brains out just because they saw a dog and a cat trying to have sex?
I’m not really sure why they thought it was a good idea, but it always seemed to me that the concept was that once there was nothing new left to see, well, what’s the point of going on? Personally, even if I had seen everything, I’d surely like to go see things that I thought were enjoyable a second or third time :D.
I think it’s like this: “Now I’ve seen everything. There is nothing left to see. I’ve experienced all there is to experience, so further life would be pointless. Since I’ve done it all and have seen it all, I can die a happy man having missed nothing.”
Yeah, but they’re never “happy” when they say that. They always look distraught. I see it more as either “I don’t see the point of going through the pains of life, anymore, after I’ve just seen ‘everthing’ (without the 'die a happy man’part)”, or “I don’t think I can stomach seeing anything crazier than that. It upsets me so much, I’ll kill myself before witnessing something more upsetting”.
I’ve never come across this, but I’d be curious to see to what you’re referring. Any chance there are some examples of this online? Were these cartoon shorts (such as those shown before the main feature), and were they oriented toward kids or an older demographic?
In a related question, it seems that in the old days (40’s? 50’s?) seeing something unusual was enough to drive someone crazy (which may be why they kill themselves).
In Five Million Years to Earth, the guy who has a vision of the aliens can’t speak to anyone–he just keeps saying “hopping, hopping” in that movie-crazy kind of way. Now you might say this is a bad example because he’s been touched mentally by the aliens, but I’ve seen the same sort of thing in many other movies: someone sees something horrible, they go nuts and are never rational again.
It this related to the OP’s question or is the specific phrase important?
Well, it’s because all of those scenes are edited out of the cartoons now (I guess they’re not acceptable to audiences anymore). But off the top of my head, one was in “Stupid Cupid” and “An Itch in Time” (a photo from that one is on the Censored Cartoon Page).
Please don’t shoot me for not being able to find a site, but I believe this joke did not originate in cartoons. There are a number of vaudeville jokes that end with a “suicide” of jumping into the orchestra pit.
Part of the comedy comes from the ideas other posters have presented. It’s also, and this is not a small thing, an easy way to end a scene.
Death is always an easy ending. Think of all the cartoons that end with the main character or characters drifting up to heaven, with wings and a harp.
I also saw this gag in the version of Dr. Suess’ “Horton Hatches the Egg” that Bob Clampett did. In it, a fish with Peter Lorre’s visage says, “Now I’ve seen everything,” and blows his brains out after seeing Horton sitting on an egg while in a tree that’s on a boat.
I’ve seen most of the Warner Brothers cartoons from the 1940’s and am familiar with most of their pop cultural references. However, I still have no idea where “Now I’ve seen everything–bang!” comes from. I’m actually more confused about how such a dark violent joke that was in deliberately bad taste got past 40’s censors not once but quite a few times.
Maybe Eve knows.
Unacceptable! Now, where did I put my rifle…
The OP reminds me of the death of George Eastman, which occurred in 1932, close enough to contemporaneity with the cartoons mentioned to have perhaps been their inspiration.