As Tess Trueheart is about to go over the falls our hero punches the villain right thru his Sussquehanna hat. The way I understand it is you gotta be at east a month behind in rent , unless the lease specifies some shorter rental time period, then the landlord files eviction, then the tenant has a month to come up with all rent due , then the sheriff shows up and stands guard as the landlord moves your furniture out. he can’t take it for payment or lock it up in the house. he doesn’t have to store or even cover it he can leave it on the side walk. but he has to take ‘due care’ in moving it out.
Hole in the bucket, that’s from Sesame street right? Vhy a duck? Vhy a no chicken? Who’s on first? Does any body else feel sorry for Larry Fine? All he ever got to do was say " AH, leave him alone."
“Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx
Well, I guess the simple, boring, Zoom-style, moustache thing is the original. BUT.
I remember a distinclty different version of this from my days as a Boy Scout in central Massachusetts (that would be something like two or three years ago…). We had a 2 gentlemen and a lady (at camp there were a few young ladies whom we were always trying to get to do something with us, so a stupid campfire skit was a darn good idea) standing around. They each bounced up and down on their knees so they looked like uniformed trolls with whirling disease. Then one of the guys would say, “Who’s got the money for the mortgage on the farm?” And the next guy would say, “She’s got the money for the mortgage on the farm.” And the pretty young lass would conclude, “The cow ate the money for the mortgage on the farm.” Then the three would join together for the tear-jerking refrain of “Sob, sob, sobsobsob.” And then they would start again, only talking in slow-mo or as if they were under water or something. Big laffs, especially the 957th time you’ve seen it. But regardless, at least it is a tad more entertaining than “I’ll pay the rent.”
When I was in high school (1971), we did a silent melodrama using a strobe light and dialogue cards, along with live piano music. Every imaginable cliche was used, from “Marry me and I’ll tear up the mortgage!” to “No, no, a thousand times no!” It ended with the lumberjack-type hero beating the crap out of the Snidely Whiplash–type villain and jumping into the arms of the heroine.
I learned this at a Mother/Daughter dinner at my church when I was growing up. Each person performed all the parts, using a napkin as a bow, mustache, and bow tie.
I think this was almost a tradition any time we had cloth napkins, so mainly Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I remember my babysitter going through the entire routine.
Dudley Do-Right and Snidely Whiplash were a parody of those old-time melodramas, but they also had a more specific precursor, the newspaper comic strip Hairbreadth Harry by Charles Kahles. All-American boy Harry (Harold Hollingsworth) contstantly had to rescue Beautiful Belinda (Belinda Blinks, beautiful boilermaker) at the last moment from Relentless Rudolph (Rudolph Ruddigore Rassendale). He went on to all the other media of the day.
At a co-ed writer’s workshop in 1972 we played a slightly different version of the scenario, which we knew we didn’t invent.
Villain: You must pay the rent!
Damsel : But I can’t pay the rent!
Villain: You must pay the rent!
Damsel: But I can’t pay the rent!
Villain: You must pay the rent!
Damsel: I’ll do anything to pay the rent!
Villain, with a leer: ANYTHING?
Damsel: I’ll pay the rent!
This being 1972 amongst college-aged kids, sometimes the rent did not get paid and ANYTHING ensued.
High school sophomore year Drama Club put on an “ecology” musical, presented as a, “Perils of Pauline” pastiche. I, of course, played The Villain (slick back hair, cape, handle-bar mustache, top hat) because villains have all the fun – heck, I had two henchmen, one of whom just stared off into space when he wasn’t pulling the wings off flies. At the climax, The Hero bounded onto the stage with a roll of Reynolds Wrap and (this had not been rehearsed) proceeded to cocoon the three of us in shiny aluminum, after which I got to holler You-know-what. Amazedly, it brought down the house!
I was the villain in a similar melodrama in ninth grade English class. No strobe light, dialogue cards, or live music. But we did videotape it, which must have been something of a first. I had a painted-on handlebar mustache, slicked-down hair, and a vinyl raincoat (the darkest garment I owned). I also had a dimwitted sidekick named “Baby Face,” which described him perfectly.
The only lines I remember are:
“Come with me, and we’ll live in my villa-ha in Mexico!”
“Oh, Baby Face! Are you going to Mexico?”
“Nah, the Boss wants me to stay here.”
Or words to that effect. In the end, Baby Face got the girl.
And then along came Jones
