Anyway, a bit of a do.
But the other night I was out with a couple of delightful friends and somehow we got talking about lines from TV shows...not favorite lines, not lines that you found memorable or even well-written, but lines that fucked you up.
I'm talking game changers here ... earworms that flipped across the transom of your mind and never left. They just stayed, and took up permanent space in the mindscape like kudzu.
For me there's two. One comic, one dramatic.
The dramatic one is one that I still think about just about every day. It hit me like a hammer and I feel like I'm still vibrating from the impact.
It's when the ghost/phantasm of Nate from Six Feet Under appears over Claire's shoulder as she prepares to get into her brand new Prius in the show's finale.
"You can't take a picture of this," Nate/Claire's inner Nate/Whatever tells herself. "It's already gone."
Messed me up.
Then there's the great comic construction from 30 Rock, the sensei/grasshopper moment that is funny and I'm not even sure why.
It's when Tracy Jordan tells Kenneth:
"Well well, the manatee has become the mento."
Laugh? I thought I'd die. And I'm not even sure why.
So I'll throw it open to you. Not your favorite line. Not the line you wish you'd written. The Television line that fucked you up.
27 comments:
One word, which means nothing without the pop culture context (yes, it's from The Simpsons), but had me on the floor.
"Maris?"
So much is about context, isn't it? But I'll go with a line from "Sports Night" (there are a ton of great ones...). Casey McCall to Gordon: "You're wearing my shirt."
Chills still, all these years later!
Comedic:
"I'm gonna eat that man's eyebrows!" -- Harry Stone, NIGHT COURT. I don't know why this line stuck with me, but I have not been able to get it out of my head for literally twenty years.
Dramatic:
I am a woman. I am all women. -- STAR TREK, episode "Catspaw." I barely remember what happened in the episode, but I've been parsing that statement for half my life.
Trust Weinman to get it immediately.
I had the same reaction to that line from Catspaw, Jaime. And you know what? I have no idea what that episode's about.
Peter, Jennica - see my idea is I'm talking about lines that are NOT context dependent.
Both of the lines I chose don't really require you to know the context in which they were presented to make you perk up and take notice. Peter, I'm as big a Simpsons fan as has ever been but if I remember the line you're talking about, it's a Frasier in joke, right?
And the Sports Night ref is at the end of a whole long thing and the payoff is that Casey saying "You're wearing my shirt," is some payoff that tipped off Casey that Gordon was cheating on Dana, right?
See you need to recall the specifics of the show to make those things linger.
Whereas anybody could walk up to you when you were taking a pic and say, "You can't take a picture of this it's already gone" and have it have impact.
And I think -- though I cant' be sure -- that half of the joy of the 30 Rock line is just the deliciousness of the sound "the manatee...and Mento..." playing on your knowledge of "the student has become the master."
See that's context, from outside the show context... it brings your knowledge of greater pop culture to bear, not show-dependent context.
I think these are the kinds of lines that enter the pop culture -- because you don't need to have seen it to like the line.
Like:
I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore.
or
I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
You know, like that, but from TV.
"Let's be careful out there.".
(you so know the show, I don't even have to say it)
Jason Peele (I think) doing Jimmy J.J. Walker doing "DYNO-MYEEEET!!" on Mad TV. It was so nasty and unforgiving that after I laughed out loud I cringed. It was so biting it was uncomfortable.
Oh, and there's Stewie and Brian on a plane in Family Guy. Flight attendant walks up, "Hot towel?" Stewie rolls over, exposes his ass and after a short pause barks, "Well, get busy!"
For me it was a song. A line form Bruce Cockburn - "kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight"
Californication:
"I love women. I have all their albums."
Still don't know exactly what it means, but damn -- can't shake it.
Yes yes, yes.
TV LINES!!!!
Man!
Professor Denis will probably say this is context dependent, but Veronica VO from the pilot of 'Veronica Mars':
"You want to know how I lost my virginity? So do I."
If one can 'reel' back from the television, I did.
"Trust no one," seems an obvious choice from 'X Files', but I found this mouthful from Mulder sticking we me for ages:
"Sometimes the only sane answer to an insane world is insanity."
Nope, those are all totally awesome, Dix. The VM line isn't context dependent at all.
A+ for the line, C- for the improper defining of the context.
I expect your next assignment by Friday. Oh, and bring me a coed.
Professor.
"It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing milkbone underwear."
From Pushing Daisies:
Oh no, see, this is how it all ends. Some weird guy comes in saying stuff that don't make no sense. And by the time your head realizes 'Hey, this weird guy makes no sense', your guts are all over the window.
"Thin line between heaven and here."
Or
"Got to. This America, man."
Both those lines have stuck with me for years.
Two Aaron Sorkin lines, for their sheer virtuosity:
"Toby, the total tonnage of what I know that you don't would stun a team of oxen in its tracks."
...and...
"There will be, under no circumstances, sex for you at the end of the evening."
The Simpsons - Dr. Nick Riviera:
"When you were in that coma, did you feel your brain being damaged?"
"Coach"
Honest...
An episode where the one player Craig T. Nelson coached who reached the NFL returns to do a college fundraiser.
After 20 minutes of the usual highjinks, the player reveals that he did the fundraiser for his alma mater because he's dying of cancer, the result of his taking steroids to become a college star.
Coach is devastated and his wife tries to comfort him, assuring him that he couldn't have known what his star player was doing to himself.
Coach: "But I did."
Blackout.
Way out there for a sitcom.
Mine's longish. Apologies.
From FREAKS AND GEEKS:
We're all unhappy. That's the thing about life.
You suck. "Dallas" rules.
Neal Peart couldn't drum his way out of a paper bag!
SEINFELD:
Only I could fail at failing.
Tonight feels like an Arby's night.
I like to get the Daily News.
30 ROCK:
Never go with a hippie to a second location.
Hey, nerds! Guess who's got two thumbs, speaks limited French, and hasn't cried once today? This moi!
SPORTS NIGHT:
He's not doin' much -- he's just runnin' faster than anyone's ever run before.
TWILIGHT ZONE:
To serve man -- it's a cookbook!
(okay, that one's a little context-dependent. Nevertheless ... )
HONEYMOONERS:
Baby, you're the greatest.
THE OFFICE:
Happy birthday, Jesus. Sorry your party is so lame!
Sure, the show's boundlessly quotable, but hands down, in recent memory, the single most effective line in terms of peerless construction and delivery has got to be from the second season:
Why are you ... the way that you are? Honestly? Every time I try to do something ... fun. Or ... exciting. You make it ... not ... that way. I hate... so much ... about the things ... that you ... choose ... to be.
And I can't, in good conscience, sign off without something from the Right Honourable Al Swearengen:
Those that doubt me? Suck cock by choice.
Gotcha, dmc. In that case, one of several from Babylon 5: "Sometimes the Universe needs a change of perspective."
Mmm. Friday Night Lights:
"It's my job to make sure you don't grow up stupid, Tim. It's bad for the world."
And, slightly embarrasingly, Angel:
"If nothing we do matters, then the only thing that matters is what we do."
Sorry I'm late to the party.
Babylon 5 had a lot of those kinds of lines. My favorite one was always the favorite of my friend James:
"The avalanche has already started. It's too late for the pebbles to vote."
There is a line in the Vicar of Dibley, (up until this point, a very middle-of-the-road britcom) where the boring Frank, an old fuddy that no one listens to and avoids at all costs, hosts a late night radio show. As the Vicar (the awesome Dawn French) ignores him in the background he begins:
"I first knew I was gay when I was 18. He was the most beautiful boy..."
The Vicar's look says what I was thinking...
WTF?
It instantly elevated the show from this simple britcom into something much greater, straight out of left field.
(Of course, no one listened in, so his secret remained so.)
Everybody lies. Find out why he's lying.
Thanks, D.
The Babylon 5 reference was like smelling burnt toast.
But mine will always be:
No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.
Straczynski sure could speechify. Too bad he couldn't write dialog to save his life.
"Leave the girl. It's the man I want." -- from "Time and the Rani", of all things.
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