Quote of the Day (Lillian Stone, on Family Relations at Christmastime)

“Your extended family includes grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. It also includes Enzo, your cousin's cousin's cousin, who owns the Italian place down the street and proudly displays a signed photo of Bernadette Peters above the cash register. Every time you walk by with your dog, he gives you a wink and screams, ‘Proud home of preferred manicotti of Bernadette Peters!’ Enzo, too, is family.”— Humor writer and journalist Lillian Stone, “Shouts and Murmurs: Obscure Familial Relations, Explained for the Holidays,” The New Yorker, Dec. 9, 2024

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Elf,’ on Meeting a Fake Store Santa)

Buddy [played by Will Ferrell]: “You stink! You smell like beef and cheese—you don’t smell like Santa!”—Elf (2003), screenplay by David Berenbaum, directed by Jon Favreau

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Young Frankenstein,’ On the Correct Pronunciation of Names)

Igor [played by Marty Feldman, pictured]: “Dr. Frankenstein...”

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein [played by Gene Wilder] [correcting him]: " ‘Fronkensteen.’"

Igor: “You're putting me on.”

Frederick: “No, it's pronounced ‘Fronkensteen.’"

Igor: “Do you also say ‘Froaderick’"?

Frederick: “No... ‘Frederick.’"

Igor: "Well, why isn't it ‘Froaderick Fronkensteen’?”

Frederick: “It isn't; it's ‘Frederick Fronkensteen.’"

Igor: “I see.”

Frederick: “You must be Igor.”

[He pronounces it ee-gor]

Igor: “No, it's pronounced ‘eye-gor.’"

Frederick: “But they told me it was ‘ee-gor.’"

Igor: “Well, they were wrong then, weren't they?”— Young Frankenstein (1974), screenplay by Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks, based very, very loosely on the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, directed by Mel Brooks

Fifty years ago this week, Young Frankenstein was released in the U.S. Following on the heels of Blazing Saddles, it solidified Mel Brooks’ mid-Seventies status as Hollywood’s parody master par excellence.

TV Quote of the Day (‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ As Larry Vents About Calling Doctors on Weekends)

Larry David [played by Larry David]: “Why don't we just call your doctor?”

Cheryl [played by Cheryl Hines]: “You can't call my doctor on the weekends, unless it's a life-threatening emergency.”

Larry: “What?”

Cheryl: “Yeah, if you call his machine, it'll tell you you can't page him.”

Larry: “You called up and that's what it said?”

Cheryl: “Yeah.”

Larry: “That is obscene, you know that?” [imitating the doctor] " ‘Can't disturb the doctor on the weekend! Don't call Dr. Zeppler on the weekend unless it's life-threatening!’"

Cheryl: “Okay, okay.”

Larry [imitates the doctor's wife]: " ‘Norman, is someone calling? Who's calling? We're in the middle of dinner, Norman!’"

Cheryl: “Larry…”

Larry: "‘This better be life-threatening or you're not gonna leave this house!’"

Cheryl: “Larry, please. I'm begging you!”

Larry: "‘Norman! Unless they were burned in a fire I don't want you getting up from your chair. Do you understand, Norman?’"—Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 1, Episode 9, “Affirmative Action,” original air date Dec. 10, 2000, teleplay by Larry David, directed by Bryan Gordon 

Quote of the Day (Garry Shandling, on His Supposed ‘Intimacy Issue’)

“My friends tell me that I have an intimacy issue—but I don't think they know me.”—American stand-up comic, writer, director, producer, and actor Garry Shandling (1949-2016), quoted by Tad Friend, “Annals of Hollywood: The Eighteen-Year Itch,” The New Yorker, Apr. 13, 1998

The image accompanying this post, of Garry Shandling with then-girlfriend Linda Doucett, was taken Aug. 1, 1988, at that year’s Emmy Awards, by Alan Light.

TV Quote of the Day (‘Cunk on Shakespeare,’ on School in The Bard's Day)

"School in Shakespeare’s day and age was vastly different to our own. In fact, it was far easier because he didn't have to study Shakespeare."—English actress and comedian Diane Morgan, with her favorite line as ill-informed interviewer Philomena Cunk, on the BBC mockumentary “Cunk on Shakespeare,” original air date May 11, 2016, teleplay by Charlie Brooker, Jason Hazeley, and Joel Morris, directed by Lorry Powles

Quote of the Day (Dave Barry, on What It Takes to be a Top Executive)

"I don't mean to suggest for a moment that all it takes to be a top executive is a custom-tailored European suit. You also need the correct shirt and tie." —Humor columnist Dave Barry, Claw Your Way to the Top: How to Become the Head of a Major Corporation in Roughly a Week (1986)  

TV Quote of the Day (‘Friends,’ on a Thanksgiving Necessity)

Joey Tribbiani [played by Matt LeBlanc]: “You can't have Thanksgiving without turkey. That's like Fourth of July without apple pie, or Friday with no two pizzas.”—Friends, Season 8, Episode 9, “The One with the Rumor,” teleplay by Shana Goldberg-Meehan, directed by Gary Halvorson

Movie Quote of the Day (Robert Benchley, As a Psychoanalyst Futilely Interacting With a Patient)

Psychoanalyst [played by Robert Benchley]: “Ah, you think both your father and mother were normal?”

Patient [played by John Butler]: “How should I know? They looked all right to me!”

Psychoanalyst: “Was either one of them ever psychoanalyzed?”

Patient: “No, of course not.”

Psychoanalyst: “Just how would you describe your phobia?”

Patient: “My what?”

Psychoanalyst: “Your phobia—this fear that you seem to have—uh, what it is you're afraid of.”

Patient: “Oh, I seem to be afraid of falling all the time, falling off things.”

Psychoanalyst: “You're afraid of falling off high places.”

Patient: “Huh? Uh, no—off of low places.”

Psychoanalyst: “Would you please explain that a little more fully?”

Patient: “Well, whenever I get on anything low like a milking stool or a suitcase—you know, [motioning toward his knee] about that high—I'm just afraid I’ll fall off, that's all.”

Psychoanalyst: “Well, it's a clear case of gluctophobia. Have you ever actually fallen off a milking stool or a suitcase?”

Patient: “Oh, sure—all the time.”

Psychoanalyst: “Very interesting, very interesting. When did you first notice this?”

Patient: “When I first fell off.”— Mental Poise (1938), film short written by American humorist and film actor Robert Benchley (1889-1945) and directed by Roy Rowland

Quote of the Day (Damon Runyon, With a Female Example of ‘The Underworld Complex’)

“Waldo Winchester says the underworld complex is a very common complex and that Basil Valentine has it, and so has Miss Harriet Mackyle, or she will not be all the time sticking her snoot into joints where tough guys hang out. This Miss Harriet Mackyle is one of these rich dolls who wears snaky-looking evening clothes, and has her hair cut like a boy's, with her ears sticking out, and is always around the night traps, generally with some guy with a little mustache, and a way of talking like an Englishman, and come to think of it I do see her in tough joints more than somewhat, saying hello to different parties such as nobody in their right minds will say hello to, including such as Red Henry, who is just back from Dannemora, after being away for quite a spell for taking things out of somebody's safe and blowing the safe open to take these things.”—American short-story writer and sportswriter Damon Runyon (1880-1946), “Social Error,” originally printed in Furthermore (1938), republished in New York Stories, edited by Diana Secker Tesdell (2011)

If the name in that quote sounds very vaguely familiar, it’s because the socialite described here shows up as one of the characters in the not-terribly-well-known 1989 film Bloodhounds of Broadway, a mashup of several Damon Runyon short stories including “Social Error,” and featuring Julie Hagerty (pictured) as Miss Mackyle.

Runyon is best known for the musical Guys and Dolls, adapted from two of his other stories. He made a tidy sum in the Thirties and Forties with Hollywood transferring some of his properties to the screen, not always successfully.

I think you really must read his words on the page rather than seeing them on a screen to appreciate their unusual quality.  Films convey the funny patois of his characters but not the danger and menace that sneak up between the colorful phrases, like “tough joints,” “blowing the safe open” and “Dannemora” (for readers outside the tristate region, an upstate New York maximum security facility).

Runyon himself had something of an “underworld complex.”  Much of the considerable money he earned as a New York sportswriter and short-story writer was spent at the racetrack, where he met many gamblers and absorbed the speech patterns that later figured so prominently in his work.

Some of those people turned up as thinly disguised people in his stories, including:

*Bat Masterson, who became Sky Masterson;

*Walter Winchell (Waldo Winchester);

*Arnold Rothstein (Nathan Detroit);

*Texas Guinan (Miss Missouri Martin);

*Harry Morgan (The Lemon-Drop Kid);

* Otto Berman (Regret);

* Frank Costello (Dave the Dude);

*Johnny Broderick (Johnny Brannigan)

I haven’t been able to discover the original inspiration for Harriet or Red Henry, but they must have been something else.

TV Quote of the Day (‘Cheers,’ As Sam Gets to Meet Diane’s Mom)

 

Sam Malone [played by Ted Danson]: “I just want to say it's nice to finally meet you, Mrs. Chambers.”

Mrs. Helen Chambers [played by Glynis Johns]: “It's nice to meet you, Sam. Diane's told me about you. You're almost as handsome as she says you think you are.”

Sam [feeling insulted]: “There's a compliment in there someplace, I'm sure.”—Cheers, Season 1, Episode 20, “Someone Single, Someone Blue,” original air date Mar. 3, 1983, teleplay by David Angell, directed by James Burrows

TV Quote of the Day (‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ With Larry Overjoyed About Figuring Out His Navigation System)

Larry David [played by Larry David]: “I can't wait to call my parents. They are gonna be so proud of me! When I tell my father I figured out that navigation system, he's gonna flip his wig! And he's got one too!”

Cheryl [played by Cheryl Hines]: “Can we turn on the radio?”

Larry: “Oh, he's gonna be very proud of Larry figuring out the navigation system!”

Cheryl: “Please!”

Larry: "‘Daddy, I'm not so stupid!’"—Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 1, Episode 9, “Affirmative Action,” original air date Dec. 10, 2000, teleplay by Larry David, directed by Bryan Gordon

TV Quote of the Day (‘Arrested Development,’ on the Unlikely Start of a Video Franchise)

Lindsay Bluth Funke [played by Portia de Rossi]: “You two have always fought. I think I have a video tape of that.”

Michael [played by Jason Bateman]: “You and half of Orange County.”

Narrator [voice of Ron Howard]: “As children, George Sr. would often provoke the boys to fight one another. He believed it created a competitive spirit. He also thought tapes of the footage would be a big hit in the burgeoning home video market. He soon franchised the concept with such titles as ‘Boyfights 2,’ ‘A Boyfights Cookout,’ and ‘Backseat Boyfights: The Trip To Uncle Jack's 70.’"—Arrested Development, Season 3, Episode 8, "Making a Stand," original air date Dec. 19, 2005, teleplay by Mitchell Hurwitz, Chuck Tatham and Karey Dornetto, directed by Peter Lauer

TV Quote of the Day (‘McHale’s Navy,’ As an Officer Laments His Eternal Plight)

Captain Wallace Binghamton [played by Joe Flynn] [repeated line, with eyes thrust towards the heavens]: “Why is it me? Why is it always me?”—McHale’s Navy (1962-1966)

In the late Sixties and early Seventies, on what seemed never-running reruns at the time but are much harder to find now, the sitcom McHale’s Navy poked lighthearted fun at the often-deadly business of fighting World War II.

Much like other military service comedies of the era such as Sgt. Bilko and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.—and in stark contrast to the later M*A*S*H—it was only mildly anti-authority, with much of the humor directed not at the top U.S. naval brass so much as at a middle manager: bespectacled, by-the-book, beleaguered Captain Binghamton.

Character actor Joe Flynn, who perfected a snarl in front of the cameras that was nothing like his warm offscreen personality, was born 100 years ago today in Youngstown, Ohio—and, whenever possible, the show’s writers dropped references to his hometown into their scripts.

An even more constant feature of the show’s 138 episodes in which Flynn appeared was the quote above—a signature line as characteristic and inevitable as Jimmie Walker’s “"Dyn-o-mite!" on Good Times or Peter Falk’s “Just one more thing…” on Columbo.

Poor Binghamton: It was bad enough that a war wound in his backside earned him the nickname "Old Leadbottom," or that he was allergic to goldenrods. He also had to put up with what he waspishly termed the “gang of pirates” of PT-73, who always foiled his inept attempts at harsh discipline.

Forget about Albert Camus with his myth of Sisyphus, or Job railing against God. Binghamton was the person who taught millions of baby boomers about an unfair universe—and all they could do was laugh at his predicament.

Life was ultimately unfair to Joe Flynn, too. Unlike other cast members of McHale’s Navy who lived into their 80s and 90s like Ernest Borgnine, Tim Conway, Carl Ballantine, Bob Hastings, and Gavin Macleod, Flynn died when he was only 49. He had suffered a heart attack and was found at the bottom of his swimming pool, weighed down by a cast on his broken leg.

Well, while he was alive he enjoyed favor from casting directors. Though typecast by his short stature and great near-sightedness (during indoor shooting, he did without lenses in his thick glasses to minimize glare from lighting), he made the most of his opportunities, claiming to have acted in more Disney films (13) than anyone else in the history of the company, and appearing even more often as a guest on Merv Griffin’s talk show (52).

He also maintained warm friendships with other actors, notably Conway, with whom he co-starred in another (short-lived) sitcom several years after McHale's Navy went off the air.

A fine summary of Flynn’s life and career can be found in this December 2020 post on the blog “Silver Scenes.”

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Tootsie,’ on How a Woman Experienced ‘A Wonderful Party’)

Sandy Lester [played by Teri Garr]: “Well, good night, Michael. It was a wonderful party. My date left with someone else. I had a lot of fun. Do you have any Seconol?”—Tootsie (1982), story by Don McGuire and Larry Gelbart, screenplay by Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal, with an uncredited Barry Levinson, Robert Garland, Robert Kaufman, and Elaine May

Remembering Teri Garr (1944-2024), Oscar-nominated for her role in this classic comedy. 

TV Quote of the Day (‘Yes, Minister,’ on Public Subsidies for the Arts)

James Hacker [played by Paul Eddington, left]: “Why should the rest of the country subsidize the pleasures of the middle-class few? Theater, opera, ballet—subsidizing art in this country is nothing more than a middle-class rip-off!”

Sir Humphrey Appleby [played by Nigel Hawthorne, right]: “Oh, minister—how can you say such a thing? Subsidy is about education preserving the pinnacles of our civilization, or haven't you noticed?”

Hacker: Don't patronize me, Humphrey. I believe in education, too. I’m a graduate of the London School of Economics, may I remind you?”

Humphrey: “Well, I'm glad to learn that even the LSE is not totally opposed to education!”—Yes, Minister, Season 3, Episode 7, “The Middle-Class Rip-Off,” original air date Dec 23, 1982, teleplay by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, directed by Peter Whitmore

TV Quote of the Day (‘Designing Women,’ on the REAL ‘Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia’)

[Sugarbaker family nemesis Marjorie Lee Winnick, having just made catty comments about Suzanne, a former beauty contest contestant, thinks incorrectly that she’s now the only one in the room.]

Julia Sugarbaker [played by Dixie Carter]: “I’m Julia Sugarbaker, Suzanne Sugarbaker’s sister. I couldn’t help over hearing part of your conversation.”

Marjorie Lee Winnick [played by Pamela Bowen]: “Well, I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was here.”

Julia: “Yes, and I gather from your comments there are a couple of other things you don't know, Marjorie. For example, you probably didn't know that Suzanne was the only contestant in Georgia pageant history to sweep every category except congeniality, and that is not something the women in my family aspire to anyway. Or that when she walked down the runway in her swimsuit, five contestants quit on the spot. Or that when she emerged from the isolation booth to answer the question, ‘What would you do to prevent war?’ she spoke so eloquently of patriotism, battlefields and diamond tiaras, grown men wept. And you probably didn't know, Marjorie, that Suzanne was not just any Miss Georgia, she was the Miss Georgia. She didn't twirl just a baton, that baton was on fire. And when she threw that baton into the air, it flew higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before, hitting a transformer and showering the darkened arena with sparks! And when it finally did come down, Marjorie, my sister caught that baton, and 12,000 people jumped to their feet for sixteen and one-half minutes of uninterrupted thunderous ovation, as flames illuminated her tear-stained face! And that, Marjorie—just so you will know—and your children will someday know—is the night the lights went out in Georgia!”— Designing Women, Season 1, Episode 2, “The Beauty Contest,” original air date Oct. 6, 1986, teleplay by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, directed by Jack Shea

Quote of the Day (Washington Irving, on Ichabod Crane)

“The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.” — American fiction writer, biographer and diplomat Washington Irving (1783-1859), “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” in The Complete Tales of Washington Irving, edited by Charles Neider (1975)

The image accompanying this post shows Will Rogers as Ichabod Crane and Lois Meredith as Katrina Van Tassel, in the 1922 silent film The Headless Horseman.

At five feet 11 inches, Rogers was not the beanpole imagined by Irving. But the lovable humorist was already well launched on a career that would make him one of Hollywood’s most highly paid stars before dying in a plane crash in 1935, so that made him a box-office draw.

Quote of the Day (Lena Dunham, Defining ‘Brat’)

“Brat is walking down the street with headphones on and eyes closed, knocking over passersby and refusing to say you're sorry.”— American writer and director Lena Dunham, “Shouts and Murmurs: A Guide to Brat Summer,” The New Yorker, Sept. 2, 2024

When I was a youngster, if I heard my father refer to me as a “brat,” the last thing I would do was revel in the term.

But this year—and specifically, around mid-to-late summer—“brat” had acquired far different connotations than that of a rotten little kid who needed discipline.

Now, according to Russell Falcon of the Los Angeles TV station KTLA, a “brat summer” “encourages enjoying life as much as you can in spite of the struggles you’re facing.” Or, put another way, according to another online dictionary site: It means “confidently rebellious, unapologetically bold, and playfully defiant.”

Heck, in the groundswell of euphoria following Kamala Harris’ ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket, the Veep was being described as “brat.”

Well, baby boomers are likely to react to this new bit of slang with the same impatience voiced by Regina George to one of her breathless hangers-on in Mean Girls: “Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen! It’s not going to happen!”

“Brat” has been hard-wired into boomer consciousness for so long that dislodging it is probably out of the question now. Maybe that is partly why the 50-64 and 65+ age cohorts are also the most immune to the candidacy of Ms. Harris.

I’m afraid for many of these older voters, “brat” is going to fall as flat as “phat.”

(The image accompanying this post, of Lena Dunham at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival premiere of The Russian Winter, was taken Apr. 20, 2012, by David Shankbone.)

Movie Quote of the Day (‘The Pink Panther Strikes Again,’ As Inspector Clouseau Excuses a Disastrous Mishap)

[Inspector Clouseau has accidentally reduced a piano to a pile of splinters.]

Mrs. Leverlilly [played by Vanda Godsell]: “You've ruined that piano!”

Clouseau [played by Peter Sellers]: “What is the price of one piano compared to the terrible crime that's been committed here?”

Mrs. Leverlilly: “But that's a priceless Steinway!”

Clouseau: “Not anymore!”— The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), screenplay by Frank Waldman and Blake Edwards, directed by Blake Edwards