# The mind-boggling movie quote? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 19, 2005, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mind-boggling-movie-quote/304608 "2005-05-19T17:51:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2026, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mind-boggling-movie-quote/304608/161 "2026-04-14T23:50:54Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > He probably wasn’t even born when this thread started! He graduated college in 2024, so he would’ve been 3 or 4 at the time. 🙂 His channel is great - he does deep dives into a lot of topics that it might never occur to you to think about, such as; - The founder of the Nation of Islam - The life of the Beach Boys’ drummer, Dennis Wilson, and his run-ins with the Manson family - The origins of the myth of the Juggernaut - How different languages evolve words to describe colors - The life story of the guy from the “This is democracy manifest!” video Etc. I actually contributed a bit to an upcoming episode he’s making about Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party. > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I thought it was solved back in 2007, with a link to the video? Burke’s Law appears to be the origin of the basic concept, but the phrasing of it that became a meme seems to have originated with this thread’s OP. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2026, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mind-boggling-movie-quote/304608/162 "2026-04-15T03:22:31Z")
I will politely disagree with his point about “Burke’s Law” never having been in reruns, as it was in syndication at least until the mid 1970s. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mind-boggling-movie-quote/304608/163 "2026-04-16T12:42:51Z")
And I’m going to posit one more thing concerning the origin. So far the earliest citation for that exact quote comes from this message board, but when this first started circulating there were all sorts of other sites like geocities and tripod, and IMDB had their own forum for ‘lost movie’ identification, so it might possibly have shown up there, too, but now lost to history. Just some speculation. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2026, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mind-boggling-movie-quote/304608/164 "2026-04-18T18:40:16Z")
I’m guessing no one happened to notice a comment on that video from someone called stantonification ten months ago: “Shadow World by Clifford D Simak 1957 - ‘But what does it do?’ Thorne spat derisively. ‘Nothing. That’s the beauty of it.’” I’m not a Simak expert, and don’t know any of his books, but I’m sure someone here does. How about it? ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2026, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mind-boggling-movie-quote/304608/165 "2026-04-18T19:03:59Z")
[Hmmm. .](https://imgur.com/a/itcv3TC) Almost sounds a little like Burgess Meredith’s contraption! ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2026, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mind-boggling-movie-quote/304608/166 "2026-04-18T23:27:39Z")
Oh my god. This is the SDMB second instance like this. My OG thread on the NONEXISTANT alternate ending to Big was also cited elsewhere as an early online reference to ithat. Anyway, I’m glad to see this come up again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-mind-boggling-movie-quote/304608.md?page=8)