Tue, January 30, 2007
Cliché Standards of Measure—12:11 PM
I like the way movies and TV shows resort to certain overused clichés for certain common expressions. TWoP fondly champions the celery stalk poking out of a paper bag to connote "groceries." There's also a whole cliché system of weights and measures.
I'm sure there's at least a dozen more of these, but every single one is escaping me for the moment. The one that came up the other night – which happens to be a personal favorite – is:
- (of a chemical, particularly a sedative): "enough to kill an elephant"
I love how measurements like these are employed universally, even though there are theoretically situations in which they wouldn't work at all. For example, this is not a good way to measure elephant poison.
And that's the crux of today's little exercise: elephant poison. I'd give anything to be able to write a spec sitcom episode (a talent which still evades me), but I can come up with the third laugh line in a three-minute comedy sketch, no problem. I could probably give you fifteen an hour. So, if there's ever any need for that guy (like the guy in Joe's sketch about the Law & Order writing staff, who just provides the "discovering the body" scenes), I'm set!
Joe Mulder — Tue, 1/30/07 12:42pm
I see what you're driving at and I like the line and all, but, I would think that "whether or not it's enough to kill an elephant" is precisely the way you'd want to measure elephant poison. It seems like being able to kill an elephant is sort of elephant poison's raison d'etre.
As a third laugh line in a three-minute comedy sketch, though, you're right; it's good. Most people wouldn't overthink it like I do. I'm the guy who, when Frasier's dad tells him his show is starting but Frasier insists they talk, and then they talk for like two minutes, and it's a good talk, and then Frasier says something about the two of them sharing a beer, and Frasier's dad says great, Frasier better hurry because they're out of beer and the store closes in 15 minutes, I think, "What kind of store closes at 15 minutes after (or 15 minutes of) the hour? Or, failing that, what kind of show starts at 15 minutes after (or 15 minutes of) the hour? That scene doesn't make sense."
So I wouldn't worry about it.
Joe Mulder — Tue, 1/30/07 12:44pm
By the way, my favorite cliche is when people doing super-secret stuff on action shows or in action movies list how many federal laws they're violating. "24" is doing yeoman's work in this field now, but, I don't think anybody's ever going to top "Alias." A minimum of twice an episode, a character would casually mention how he or she was "breaking half a dozen federal laws" by doing what he or she was doing. Usually it was, like, looking something up on a comupter.
Bee Boy — Tue, 1/30/07 2:39pm
Oops. The point I was driving at (and this is a prime example of why not to dash something off on the way out to lunch) is that elephant poison is a chemical for which this cliché would sort of self-destruct.
The power of "enough to kill an elephant" (at least for cliché purposes) is to exaggerate the high volume of the dosage. For example, "We administered enough neoprizone to kill an elephant." Damn, kid! That sounds like a lot of neoprizone. However:
Well, even a drop of elephant poison'll do the trick! It doesn't have the same hyperbolic kick as when you say "enough non-dairy creamer to kill an elephant."
And, yeah, I wonder if we're going to see people going back and altering the Alias box set, the way they took the WTC towers out of Friends and The Sopranos, now that wiretapping, spying on innocents, and torture are totally legit. Now, that same computer search violates a tiny amount of federal laws. Like, an amount so tiny that the same amount of elephant poison is all you'd need to kill an elephant.
Joe Mulder — Tue, 1/30/07 2:57pm
I see.
Bee Boy — Tue, 1/30/07 3:03pm
Ha ha! And it sounds like "fine, but flawed" has progressed to "overworked and pointless." (Maybe that's my talent!) Anyway; I have to go. The beer store closes in 6 minutes.
Bee Boy — Mon, 6/4/07 4:27pm
Astonishingly, scientific research has been conducted on the subject. Scientists in the '60s had some leftover LSD, so they pumped an elephant full of it.
Bee Boy — Fri, 10/27/17 12:07pm
What I should have done was replace "elephant poison" with "thing that elephants (and only elephants) are highly allergic to".