A few years ago, you couldn’t swing at cat without someone telling you about the First Rule of Fight Club, generally with diminishing returns. (As an aside, the best use of such a joke came when a co-worker used the rules as an explanation for why he wouldn’t be telling his significant other of a trip to the nudie bar. “The first rule of strip club,” indeed.) Of course, there are a great many other wonderfully repeatable lines throughout the movie, from “His name is Robert Paulsen” to Marla’s reminiscences about grade school all the way to the perfectly understated and super-meta “Still can’t think of anything.” It’s rare for a film to immediately leap into the quotable likes of ‘Caddyshack’ or ‘Real Genius’, but ‘Fight Club’ not only pulled it off, it did it in a wonderfully self-aware manner, mocking its own central conceit with a wry hypocrisy that many never noticed, which in turn begs a query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) reminds you that, on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero, asking: What’s the most endlessly quotable thing you’ve ever experienced?
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Probably Futurama in general. Not a day goes by where I don’t say something from the series to some degree. I know I tend to use “For no raisin”, “What smells like blue?”, “I’m 40% (something) *bangs chest*”, “Snu-snu” and “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the angry dome” far, far too often in normal conversation.
I also like to drive people nuts by using the Professor’s “Everyone, I have a very dramatic announcement. So anyone with a weak heart should leave now. Goodbye.” and then leaving the room (and it is true because I had multiple heart failures during my cancer treatments).
The first couple seasons of the Simpsons. I can quote from say 1-8 to a friend or my dad, and they’ll now immediately what I mean. “Not back avenge my death.”=”i’m leaving, be back later.”
Star Wars – That’s no moon ….
Napoleon Dynamite. Didn’t even really care for the movie, but the wife & I quoted it back & forth for a long time.
“i’m bleeding, making me the victor”
-Kung Pow
Ghostbusters, without a doubt.
Back off, man. I’m a scientist.
If my goddaughter is leaving for a few days, within my list of rules or advice (usually normal things like “Don’t forget (something)” or “Call your mom as soon as you get there”), I always add “Don’t cross the streams” and “When someone asks if you’re a god, you say YES!”.
For better or worse, as a D&D player I’ll have to say “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
“Okay, we’ll call it a draw.”
“It’s only a flesh wound!”
“Huge tracts of land.”
“Please, just a little more peril.”
etc., etc., ad nauseum.
-Dan’L
Walk hard, that movie is just packed full of great lines. That or tropic thunder.
It used to be all things Monty Python, but lately seems to be whatever the latest youtube meme is (What exactly does the fox say?)
The Simpsons…
Dental Plan!
The first Matrix movie. Whoa! I know kung fu. There is no spoon. The whole red pill / blue pill bit. Amongst my friends, a well timed “Mister Anderson” can bring the room down.
Anchorman! Sooo much goodness…
“I killed a guy with a trident”
“Baxter… is that you? Baxter! Bark twice if you’re in Milwaukee… Is this Wilt Chamberlain?”
“It’s so damn hot… milk was a bad choice.”
“We Bears are a proud race. They must pay for their intrusion.”
“I love lamp.”
“Sex Panther…60% of the time, it works every time.”
And of course in my circle of friends, pretty much any statement can be punctuated with: “It’s science.”