# Things everybody "knows" are cliches, that aren't **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 24, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129 "2009-02-24T00:14:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/61 "2009-02-26T15:27:57Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Dwight Fye came back to play a twisted asistant in the second film, **Bride of Frankenstein** , who wasn’t named Igor, either. Dwight Frye also played Renfield (“the blood is the life, Mr. Renfield”) in the 1931 Dracula. Just thought everyone should know. ---
**Author:** ![DogMom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9c0ed/32.png) [@DogMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DogMom)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/62 "2009-02-26T17:23:40Z")
The Monster wasn’t named “Frankenstein”. The Monster was just…well… **The Monster**. But yet everyone seems to think that the Monster _is_ Frankenstein. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/63 "2009-02-26T17:28:11Z")
> [@DogMom](#): > > The Monster wasn’t named “Frankenstein”. The Monster was just…well… **The Monster**. But yet everyone seems to think that the Monster _is_ Frankenstein. Or perhaps “Adam”, as Shelley apparently did outside the actual book. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/64 "2009-02-26T17:33:16Z")
> [@](#): > > The Monster wasn’t named “Frankenstein”. The Monster was just…well…The Monster. But yet everyone seems to think that the Monster is Frankenstein. True, but to be fair, in the program for Peggy Webling’s play (It was reproduced in one of my books on Frankenstein), the Monster IS explicitly referred to as “Frankenstein”. So it’s a designation with at least semi-official roots. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/65 "2009-02-26T17:37:47Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > Has there ever been a Superman story where he actually had to flex his chest and make some chains burst? I don’t know about a story, but the image does come from the first comic. [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/yeung/actioncomics/page13.html](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/yeung/actioncomics/page13.html) ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/66 "2009-02-26T21:36:11Z")
The cliche that men never ever read directions on how to assemble something out of the box (furniture, stroller, etc.). I always read the directions and follow them when putting something together. I don’t know anybody that doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/67 "2009-02-26T22:24:19Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > I don’t know about a story, but the image does come from the first comic. > > [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/yeung/actioncomics/page13.html](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/yeung/actioncomics/page13.html) 😃 I’m amused that, in that picture, the chains aren’t actually binding him in any significant way. Notice that his arms are free. Absent an unseen pole to which the chains may be attached in some way, that’s clearly a half-thought-out idea they decided to draw. ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/68 "2009-02-26T22:45:06Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > The cliche that men never ever read directions on how to assemble something out of the box (furniture, stroller, etc.). > I always read the directions and follow them when putting something together. I don’t know anybody that doesn’t. Or, for that matter, asking directions. Okay, granted, if I’m in my own hometown I may try and find something on my own if I can. But thinking I can find something in Spokane when I’ve never been to Washington before would be… well that’s not conceited, that’s just dumb 😉 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/69 "2009-02-26T22:55:21Z")
The thing about asking directions comes from the fact that Male gas jockeys were wont to play practical jokes on their fellow males, and bend over backwards to help women. Some of my buds who worked at the local gas station in HS got big yucks from doing this. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/70 "2009-02-26T23:10:06Z")
Augustus Gloop (gluttonous visitor to Willy Wonka’s factory) is German. Both films portray him as such, but the book makes no mention of his nationality. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/71 "2009-02-26T23:34:44Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > 😃 > > I’m amused that, in that picture, the chains aren’t actually binding him in any significant way. Notice that his arms are free. Absent an unseen pole to which the chains may be attached in some way, that’s clearly a half-thought-out idea they decided to draw. Nah, it’s a carnie stunt. Think Circus Strongman. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2009, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/72 "2009-02-26T23:36:03Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > Nah, it’s a carnie stunt. Think Circus Strongman. Gotcha. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/73 "2009-02-27T02:45:56Z")
The monstrous Edward Hyde, from Robert Louis Stevenson’s _Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde_, is popularly depicted as some sort of misshapen simian beast, all sneering fizzog and bulging veins, akin to a more hirsute Hulk with depraved appetites. The only reference even close to this popular image of muscular hairiness in Stevenson’s story, however, is the sentence “But the hand which I now saw… was lean, corded, knuckly, of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth of hair.” So Edward Hyde is darker and hairier than Henry Jekyll, a man described as “a large, well-made, smooth faced man of fifty”: Jekyll’s hand is “large, firm, white and comely”. But Hyde the bulging malformed beast? On the contrary, he is variously described by witnesses as “a little man”, “very small and plainly dressed”, “a very small gentleman”, “particularly small and particularly wicked looking” and even “pale and dwarfish”, which seems to contradict the swarthiness earlier attested to. So Hyde is an merely evil-looking piebald shrimp in need of a wax, and not a befollicled Herculean brute. But as to any bodily malformity? He’s surely at least physically misshapen, since he creates such a strong impression on witnesses. Well, none is specified, although all are positive there is _something_ wrong with him: “He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point. He’s an extraordinary looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way” and “Only on one point, were {the witnesses} agreed, and that was the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive impressed his beholders”. The revulsion of onlookers, then, seems to be more of a moral repugnance then due to any specific physical characteristics: indeed, from the descriptions of Hyde furnished by the author it seems that Steve Buscemi would be better casting than say Richard Kiel or Rondo Hatton. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/74 "2009-02-27T17:48:42Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Augustus Gloop (gluttonous visitor to Willy Wonka’s factory) is German. > > Both films portray him as such, but the book makes no mention of his nationality. By that logic, wouldn’t giving him ANY nationality be a mistake? 😉 I mean, the kid has to be from somewhere, no? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/75 "2009-02-27T17:59:08Z")
> [@](#): > > The monstrous Edward Hyde, from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, is popularly depicted as some sort of misshapen simian beast, all sneering fizzog and bulging veins, akin to a more hirsute Hulk with depraved appetites. The only reference even close to this popular image of muscular hairiness in Stevenson’s story, however, is the sentence “But the hand which I now saw… was lean, corded, knuckly, of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth of hair.” In fairness to the depictors, Hyde is described as walking over a child and almost killing her, and as beating Sir Danvers Carew to death with a walking stick. One must presume that, although a dwarf, he’s a pretty muscular dwarf, and no pushover. I don’t know of any films that actually depict a short and misshapen Hyde. I think it’s because it’s easier to be frightened by someone of normal or greater height. One of these days, somebody really should try the “Evil DWarf” approach – I think it’d be really creepy.They do, of course, have to depict him as monstrous, somehow. I personally think that Rouben Mamoulian ended up making Fredric March look like a proto-Jeff Goldblum in the classic 1932 version. Of course, the “Enormous Incredible Hulk” version of Mr. Hyde got its start from Alan Moore and his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, aided and abetted by the film **Van Helsing**. Since people get a lot more information from movies than books, I suspect this literary anomaly will be with us for a long time. It’s interesting, because now we have an Edward Hyde who turns into a huge beast when he gets angry, in imitation of the Hulk, who turned into a huge beast when HE got angry. Yet the Hulk originally didn’t do that. At first he could control his changes, or changed for no discernable reason (just like Jeckyll/Hyde in Stevenson), and it was only later that they decided it was triggered by intense emotion. That’s the version that got enshrined in the TV series. I think that they changed that in the comics (I haven’t read Hulk comics in ages, so I’m not sure) I haven’t seen either Hulk movie, so I’m not sure if they extendede the bit to those, either. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/76 "2009-02-27T21:12:02Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > In fairness to the depictors, Hyde is described as walking over a child and almost killing her, and as beating Sir Danvers Carew to death with a walking stick. One must presume that, although a dwarf, he’s a pretty muscular dwarf, and no pushover. You’ll note, however, that he confines his outrages to a little girl and a feeble old man: this isn’t Goliath of Gath that we’re dealing with. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/77 "2009-02-27T23:19:38Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > In fairness to the depictors, Hyde is described as walking over a child and almost killing her, and as beating Sir Danvers Carew to death with a walking stick. One must presume that, although a dwarf, he’s a pretty muscular dwarf, and no pushover. > > I don’t know of any films that actually depict a short and misshapen Hyde. I think it’s because it’s easier to be frightened by someone of normal or greater height. One of these days, somebody really should try the “Evil DWarf” approach – I think it’d be really creepy.They do, of course, have to depict him as monstrous, somehow. I personally think that Rouben Mamoulian ended up making Fredric March look like a proto-Jeff Goldblum in the classic 1932 version. > > Of course, the “Enormous Incredible Hulk” version of Mr. Hyde got its start from Alan Moore and his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, aided and abetted by the film **Van Helsing**. Since people get a lot more information from movies than books, I suspect this literary anomaly will be with us for a long time. > > It’s interesting, because now we have an Edward Hyde who turns into a huge beast when he gets angry, in imitation of the Hulk, who turned into a huge beast when HE got angry. Yet the Hulk originally didn’t do that. At first he could control his changes, or changed for no discernable reason (just like Jeckyll/Hyde in Stevenson), and it was only later that they decided it was triggered by intense emotion. That’s the version that got enshrined in the TV series. I think that they changed that in the comics (I haven’t read Hulk comics in ages, so I’m not sure) I haven’t seen either Hulk movie, so I’m not sure if they extendede the bit to those, either. I seem to recall reading that the explanation for the large Hyde was that he was an expression of the dark side of Jekyll and the longer he was given free reign and the more he dominated the personality the bigger he got. I am not sure if that was one of Moore’s developments, or something older. As for the Hulk, he changed a lot over the years. He started out gray, then became green (originally due to a printing error). At first Banner turned into the Hulk only at night. They brought back the gray hulk in the 80s. He was smaller than the green Hulk, but a lot smarter. For a long while (and maybe still), the canon was that gamma radiation, if it didn’t kill you, would bring out an aspect of your personality. Banner’s suppressed rage(green) and dark side (gray), his cousin’s repressed personality, the Leader’s ego, the Abominations self loathing, Doc Sampson’s hero complex, and some teenagers need to fit in (she would take a similar form to whatever gamma powered individual was closest). Eventually, Banner managed to integrate all three of his personalities and became an intelligent version of the Hulk full time, until he was split into by Onslaught. Jonathan ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/78 "2009-02-28T02:16:24Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > Kirk didn’t bang any green chicks, and the evidence for any of the other dozens of women is pretty slim as well. > > Only two are certainties while the rest are arguable. > > [http://allyourtrekarebelongto.us/kirkgirls.htm](http://allyourtrekarebelongto.us/kirkgirls.htm) I dunno why they credit him for Deela but not Drusilla. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/79 "2009-03-01T10:06:16Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > One NPR critic said that, in Stars Wars The First, the good guys, mostly, were Americans, and the bad guys were British. We may be civilised but we never said that we weren’t evil. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129/80 "2009-03-01T10:36:28Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > One NPR critic said that, in Stars Wars The First, the good guys, mostly, were Americans, and the bad guys were British. That was done at least 17 years earlier. In _Spartacus_, the slaves seeking freedom were played by Americans, while the Romans were played by English actors. Varinia was supposed to be played by a German woman, as I recall, but problems ensued and they ended up casting Englishwoman Jean Simmons. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-everybody-knows-are-cliches-that-arent/487129.md?page=5)