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And I Quote: The More Obscure, The Better

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By AMANDA HENRY

Tribune correspondent

Published: November 2, 2008

Someone is always trying to sell us a line.

Whether it's the shrill shilling of a soda commercial, the catchy mantra of the reality TV sidekick, the catchphrase of the latest crop of "Saturday Night Live" players or even the thudding sincerity of the public service announcement, the landscape is littered with sound bites desperate to become the next "Whazzzuuup?"

Fortunately for the marketers of the world, our minds are basically blank slates, uncluttered by the chunks of verse and prose that would have been committed to memory by earlier generations. After all, who needs to remember the state capitals or a few lines of Robert Frost when there are very special episodes of "Blossom" to quote? A taste for nostalgia, combined with lifelong media saturation, has turned recent generations of Americans into trivia magnets, living their lives as one extended metaphor - just as Molly Shannon's uptight Catholic schoolgirl viewed existence through the prism of made-for-TV-movie monologues.

In a famous essay about language, novelist Umberto Eco pointed out that the postmodern man who doesn't feel comfortable with an outright declaration of love can always say, "As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly." But instead of wondering whether the Dorothy Parkers and Oscar Wildes of today will be reduced to reciting their favorite lines from "The Simpsons" and "South Park" rather than crafting original witticisms, let's look on the bright side: There is something reassuringly random about the way people regurgitate this pop cultural chum.

It's one thing to fondly recall a favorite one-liner from an obvious source, aligning yourself with the millions of other people who saw the same show - "Seinfeld," for sure, or "The Office" - and recognize the same punch line. But what about the obscure, throwaway phrases that linger in your active vocabulary long after their source has been consigned to the great VHS scrap heap in the sky?

Instead of slavishly parroting someone else's message - or trying to impress with careful references to Kafka and Proust - we unconsciously make a verbal stew of audio samples, often with surreal results. Anthropologists of the future could study these patterns for an understanding of social groups, in the same way they look at charcoal and animal bones today. If someone begins a conversation with me by saying, "So, Lonestar ..." there's a 99.9 percent chance that it's a member of my family, since we've all seen "Spaceballs" way too many times. When I told my sister what Nicole Kidman had named her baby, the inevitable response was "Sunday, Sunday, Someday!" I knew, of course, that she was referencing Strong Bad from the "Homestar Runner" Web cartoon.

Geeks? Perhaps. But we can go broader. While I lay in bed with a mouth full of bloody gauze after having my wisdom teeth removed, my brother took great pleasure in sticking his head through the door to announce, "Nigel, I told you, no cookies in bed." I barely had the strength to muster the necessary response: "It's not a cookie, it's a Fruit Newton."

When my parents got a pair of big, scruffy, not-too-bright dogs to combat that empty nest feeling, it was clear to everyone that we were in the company of Rodents Of Unusual Size (R.O.U.S.'s), to borrow a phrase - one of many - from "The Princess Bride."

Sometimes the source is so obscure, or becomes so perverted with use, that it's almost impossible to identify. There was a particularly fine "TV Funhouse" cartoon on "Saturday Night Live" many years ago, featuring Ross Perot in various contexts - including in a hot tub - with a giant white rabbit that would periodically emit an eerie squawk. After quoting this nonverbal bit for a while, my brother and I started to replace it with various words uttered in the same uncanny tone, so that he would pick up the phone and hear "Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaacks," and I would get "Bloooooooood." At least, I think that's why he says "Blooooood" that way.

Even when the sources don't say much for our taste, the repetition of favorite lines is a pleasurable form of shorthand, recalling not so much the product in which it was placed as the time we all watched it together - or separately, but with the same twisted sensibility.

Try These
Toss out an obscure quote today and see who "gets it." You might find a new friend, a fellow geek or someone who "completes" you.
Here are a few of our favorites:
"I have Cherlindrea's wand, Bavmorda!" ("Willow")
"These bleads here?" ("The Kids in the Hall" blooper)
"Gosh, you're an upbeat lady." ("Groundhog Day")
"What am I, Oswald?" ("The Ref")
"Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen." ("Aliens")
"That's a tall order, Nordberg." ("The Naked Gun")
"Tae in a wind." ("Nell")
"Pretty sneaky, sis." (old "Connect Four" commercials)
"Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!" ("Ghostbusters")
"I thought you said, 'Earn more sessions by sleeving.'" ("Roxanne")
"Stop. You may not pass. Return to the abyss prepared for you." ("The Fellowship of the Ring")
"Go back to the abyss! Fall into nothingness that awaits you and your master!" ("The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King")
"You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you." ("The Last of the Mohicans")
"Swing away, Merrill. Merrill … swing away." ("Signs")
"That's not happiness to see me is it?" ("A Perfect Murder")
"And I will love him and hug him and squeeze him and call him George." (Bugs Bunny cartoon)
"I crush your head." ("The Kids in the Hall")
"There was abuse in my family, but it was mostly musical in nature." ("A Mighty Wind")

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