Sorry, OP - you can’t get out of it now.
I concur w/MrKnowItAll re: Curly in “Idle Roomers”. Fyi - the scene involved the Wolfman – and I’m posting on Halloween!!
Since the thread has been resurrected, can I cite Aristophanes’ Clouds, 400+ BC?
12 and a half years. Still don’t care.
Some of you seem to be much to young…I think I first heard this from “The Bowery Bots” (1946-1958), Terrance Aloysius “Slip” Mahoney (Leo Gorcey).
Except we’ve already mentioned (a couple times) an earlier cite than that – Curly in the Three Stooges short “Idle Roomers,” 1944.
This site’s earliest find in print is from December 1940, quoting dialogue from the movie “Melody Ranch”
“MELODY RANCH.”
(Now playing at the Tower.)
The motion picture reviewers who saw “Melody Ranch” at the Hollywood premiere had the following opinions:
[…]
“Melody Ranch” is no ordinary Gene Autry 1 western. It has many extra favors. Long-legged Tap-Dancer Ann Miller 2 swings through a lively dance routine, croons a torchy ballad. Jimmy Durante 3 garbles his Bronxese with dialogue like, “I resemble dat remark! . . . . Dat’s libel . . . . It’s libel to make me mad!”
Curiously, the Three Stooges short is not mentioned, but this researcher seems to have only looked in print sources. The July 1944 instance in a syndicate newspaper column that is cited suggests it being a well-worn joke by then:
“I want a little more security than a 20th Century contract, a Racing Form and a hotel room,” she growled beautifully.
“I resemble that remark,” I said, stealing a line from several hundred masters of ceremonies. “Georgie has a beautiful home in Hollywood or Beverly Hills or somewhere.”
The Bowery Bots were truly far ahead of their time.
Jimmy Durante is a perfect candidate to say it. We all (and I mean me too) forget how huge he was back in the 20s and 30s, when he was the king of nightclubs during Prohibition and a favorite for radio and movies (later television). If you can’t hear it coming out of his mouth, you’re missing a treat.
A book of English phrases I found earlier on Google Books dates “I resemble that (remark)” to “c.1920”, but does not provide a source, unfortunately, so I left it out of that post.
Thanks for the update. I knew it went back further than “The Bowery Boys,” that’s just the first time I remember hearing it.
:Flash from the past:
I started from the thread beginning, not noticing dates; and got ambushed by a post by Eve, haven’t seen that name in a long time.
Personally, I associate the phrase with Bugs Bunny, but I also know that he’s almost certainly not the source, because most of what Bugs said and did were references to older entertainers.
And it’s a malaprop of a malaprop. It should have said
I represent that remark.
Ninjaed by 11 years!
Ohhh… Wise guy, eh?
You probably won’t see much Quickdraw nowadays, on account o’ his leetle sidekick.
My favourite Grouch:
[Pearl-Clutching Matron]: “Why I never…!”
[Groucho]: “There’s your problem. Maybe you should once in a while.”
Years ago my step-sister told me to stop teaching her kids that line. “They still have elderly great-aunts who talk like that.”
Again, I’m 99.9% sure that Groucho never said that.
I’m about 49% certain I once heard Redd Foxx respond with “And you probably never will!”