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Weekend Discussion Thread: Riffs You Use in Daily ConversationThis week marks the first suggestion for a weekend discussion thread that I got via twitter. (And, as always, discussion thread suggestions are welcome.)
Alert reader Wes Hanks wrote:
One we use around our house is “Well! Let’s not do THAT again!” (when something bad happens). What about you? 180 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Riffs You Use in Daily Conversation”Commenting at Satellite News
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At breakfast we’ll ask if someone wants coffee, and, of course, someone will say: “Coffee?” long, long pause, “I like coffee!”
the HELL?
In fact, the list could go on and on, but I will reference two from PRINCE OF SPACE.
My wife and I say almost constantly to one another in response to almost anything, “I like it very much.”
At dinner, my wife almost always finds an appropriate time in which to ask, “more squid eyes?”
This is a GREAT thread! :smile:
Everytime a friend gives me an “Okay” sign, I can’t help but say “It stinks”.
I use “Wha happa?” often in life.
The “The Hell?” I’ve used as well.
As well as “duhuh?”
One time when I was helping my mom with something she made a typo, and I busted out the “N is for Float” line from “Alphabet Antics”
i always use the line “Speak with sanity, fool!!”, from The Undead, whenever my boyfriend isn’t making any sense. :-)
in return, he’s fond of using “I misEMPHasize WORDS!” from Angels’ Revenge, whenever my limited vocal prowess fails me…. heh.
and we use “the hell?!” all the time, as well.
“Watch out for snakes!”
is frequently used by my family and friends when someone is departing for a short period of time. It’s sort of an informal, casual “see you later, don’t get bitten by snakes while you’re away.”
Although I guess this isn’t really a riff, is it?
Geez, there are so many but it’s hard to think of them off the top of my head.
Everytime my wife or I are looking for our shoes, I end up saying “Shoes for the Dead! Shoes for Industry!”. And though my wife is neither a fan of MST3K nor Firesign Theater, she’s recently started to do it too.
I’ve said “You’re The Laziest Man on Mars!” before to friends.
just thought of another one… “We are planning to rock” (from Soultaker) comes up a lot whenever a game of Rock Band is imminent. :-D
I use the phrase, “Scram, lumpy!” in all its mildly mean-spirited glory all too often. Something about its minimalistic acerbity appeals to me.
“Kitty!”, of course, is another, somewhat less rude, favorite. My friends seem to get a kick out of me bellowing this when in the presence of a lion, tiger, donkey, concrete building, or anything else that is patently NOT a kitty.
“Go in peace. Sin no more. I’m outta here!” from the Rebel Set.
“IT STINKS!” from Pod People
“You’re the laziest man on Mars!” is used a lot by me, as well as “oh leave me alone!” from “Body Care and Grooming”.
I find myself saying “…except for you, Ron” whenever I see someone blatantly ignoring a posted sign (usually while driving).
I don’t even remember what episode that’s from, or if I even have the name correct (is it Todd maybe?).
When someone calls my name, I’ll wheel around frantically and yell “I’m not an alien!”, “I don’t live with my mother!”, “I don’t do drugs!”, “I’m not a Communist!” or even “I don’t have a rash!” (The last being of my own coinage).
The reaction I get is always amusing.
Like many others, apparently, I use “the hell?” on a daily basis.
When I was in high school, if I was hanging out with friends downstairs and my mom wanted to know what we would doing, we would do this classic bit:
“Are you boys cooking down there?”
“No…”
“Are you boys building an Interociter down there?”
“No!”
(Is that how you spell Interociter? I have no idea.)
I also try and find as many excuses to use Raul Julia’s bizarre pronunciation of “I’m a human being!” from Overdrawn at the Memory Bank as possible.
There are probably more, but this is already too long.
My boss and I are both big MST3K fans, and we found out how to completely baffle co-workers. He will simply walk into a room and say “I like fudge” to which I instantly respond “You don’t mean that!”. The looks we get are truly priceless.
I like to whine out Rowsdower at my kids now and then when I am mildly displeased.
“I’m filled with Hate” and “Hooray for Socks” get used alot. Whenever I get some good news usually I ‘ll respond with “hooray for socks”.
oh also “(your a) bad person” from the ‘Money Talks’ short where the line is Ben Franklin saying “Your a poor spender” and Servo adds “and a bad person”. It has to be delivered in that voice though.
Anytime someone tries to do or say something amusing that falls flat, I’ll bust out “That was particularly pleasant” from Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders.
And if someone laughs for no discernible reason, I’ll pop out with “And then he died.”
“They’re on a collision course with wackiness.”
“It’s fun when it’s fun.”
There are several, but the first one that comes to mind is from Deadly Mantis.
“That would be the phone and that would mean that I have a call.”
The one I am able to use most often is from Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders. When someone says “thank you,” I will say “you’re welcome” in Merlin’s voice.
I think Mike had one of the great quips of all time, and I have gotten a lot of mileage out of repeating: “Good old-fashioned nightmare fuel.”
And the giant gila monster’s “voice” is just fun to do. Blalallala! (But is that really a riff per se?)
My golfing buddy is also a big fan of MST3K. Sometimes if one of us is faced with a tough shot, we’ll blurt out “buh da BAH da!” from Agent for HARM (As is in the “Taking his niece out to lunch … buh da BAH da!”
From Manos:
Honey, I’m brilliant, you can kiss me!
Let’s not forget hamburger “sammich” and french-fried potatoes!
I often use the Danger! Death Ray line for whatever: Danger! Beer Gut or Danger! Hot Stove etc.
I also use the line I Like Potatos! whenever I have potatos as part of a meal. I think that was a line from Clonus. I do, in fact, like potatos too.
There are so many more that come to me in situations but I can’t remember them now.
Fred
“You say that like its a bad thing” from the Crawling Eye.
Probably a lot more than I realize.
But the most common are : “Hi Keeba!” and “Wha Happa?”
All the time my friends and I say, “Meanwhile, in a Kurosawa film…”
When someone shows me a new piece of tech like a new ipod or some such thing, I always say ” you kids with your hula-hoops and fax machines.” from one of the early shows.
I’ve worked a lot of the aforementioned into everyday situations, usually getting various degrees of laughter and occasionally a strange look.
Remember the opening credits of “Operation Double 007” when the singer is caterwauling the theme song and when at one point she hits a particularly painful high note Joel murmurs “Honey”?
I’ve found myself doing that now whenever I’m watching sports and whoever is singing the anthem is trying to show off their range by throwing in extra high notes. Usually elicits a good chuckle from those around me.
Traditionally, in honor of creepy Girl, when at a New Jersey seaside resort go to a boardwalk or music pier and observe:
“This is where the fish live.”
I don’t drive much, but when I do and I happen to find a decent parking space, I sometimes find myself quoting a riff from Angels Revenge (in my best Jack Palance voice) “I was lucky to find a space.”
And the line “Trumpy, you can do stupid things” from Pod People gets a lot of use in many different situations.
And of course anytime I’m around anyone named Steve, it presents a golden opportunity to say “not everyone is Steve!”
whenever something from John Philips Sousa comes on the radio I say “All Sousa, All the time”
And of course “I like it very much” if I like something, or “It’s very quality”
The one I’ve used in most common situations that doesn’t result in weird looks is “Depressed yet?” fro mthe Industrial Arts short. It’s amazingly versatile.
It may get me in trouble someday, but I have trouble resisting the urge to say “Where’s my gun?” a la Cal whenever I search through a drawer. Oh, and “Whoopty-****.”
I’ve used “Mother Theresa called. She hates you.” from the Cheating short once or twice.
I was so happy this past week when I got to use an Overdrawn riff. We were watching a terrible British movie and we kept making fun of it, amongst other things, for the entirely unintelligible British accents of the characters (we actually figured out most of what they were saying via the Spanish subtitles). At one point a character yells “I don’t understand!” and I got to look around the room and say “Okay, which one of us said that?”
“Emotions are for ethnic people” gets a lot of use, oddly enough.
I’m Southern, so “It’s befuddlin’ mah dumb cracker mind!” pops up now and then.
To the confusiuon of almost everyone I know, I’ve said “I don’t go map findin’ behindin” more than once when asked to help look for something. Out loud and on purpose.
I have a friend who’s terribly arachnophobic. Whenever we have a friendly argument over something I always let fly with “I can’t wait until the spiders eat you!” Thankfully, he’s hard to offend.
And, of course, “I like it very much!”
Man, that was long.
Of course, ‘the hell?’ I’ll also switch into Coiley mode if there’s ‘No click click [something.]’ Another one is ‘How do it know?’ ‘Sammich’ and ‘Bow down before me!’ This one is directed at my cats, who are spoiled rotten, and who just ignore it.
It’s hard to list these because each day a situation arises that recalls a line. It seems like there’s a riff for every occasion.
My old standby is “Oh for fun!” because it works in so many situations!
I work at a local TV station and I often find myself saying, “You know, with this digital technology the suckiness comes through with great clarity,” from Overdrawn.
Since I began reading the Lord of the Rings books I’ll say, “Waaait, I haven’t read Tolkien in over a week.”
I use “Everything I touch turns to flies,” to mean myself. I have the worst luck at times.
I can’t get on a plane without saying, “That nose wheel feels mushy.”
A line from Gunslinger I get a lot use out of comes from Joel. “This movie is sitting on my head and crushing it.” I used it to refer to the book Possession by A.S. Byatt when I had to read it TWICE in college. That book is not very good.
A lot of times when I watch movies or TV, I’ll make cracks about actors looking like other actors or songs sounding like other songs. Best example: When I watch ‘Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero’, every time I see Nick Adams, I think “James Cagney meets Vladimir Putin”.
I sometimes answer the phone ‘Doughy Hasbeen’.
My friends and I have frequently used Dave Ryder’s womany scream from Space Mutiny whenever a room falls silent. Its a good way to break up a room. “My reviews have destroyed whole cities!” is also useful when describing one’s potency as a man.
For some reason, I have a strong tendency to say “Football practice!” pretty often, sometimes even when it doesn’t actually involve someone waking up.
Another personal, often-used favorite (also sometimes used without any contextual basis) is “WE PAID FOR THE VAN, WE’RE GONNA FILM IT!” Having done some short videos with friends in the past, this occasionally DOES come up in-context when one of us suggests doing something “just because we can” for a video. Things like this also show up outside of video-making too, though, anytime someone suggests taking advantage of something simply because it’s there, despite the possibly superfluous effect it will create.
Okay, here goes:
Let’s watch, won’t we?
I’m COMING!
The hell?
Sorry about the face!
EEEEEEWWWWW!
I’ll go. Will you carry me?
Rowwwwsssddoooowwwwerrrrr (when starting the car)
Watch out for snakes!
Woooh! Who took my purse!
I am so much better than this barn.
Don’t patronize me, sir. (as Torgo)
Time for go to bed! (I know, not a riff, but I say it almost every day!)
Different riffs get used with different friends for me. Among those commonly used:
(During a movie with a scene that drags) “Nobody will be seated during the gripping [FILL IN THE BLANK] scene!”
Also popular in a movie: “Looks like the montage blew over.”
“Emotions are for ethnic people,” is a particular hit with my Native American former neighbor.
Some of my friends frequently talk about their “Twenty-year plan.”
At my old job working at a campus computer lab, I would sometimes say, “I look after the place while the master’s away.” Lots of confused looks.
“I accuse my parents” (although not a riff) is popular for me and my brothers.
While I’m on the topic of family, “Accept your fate, Ron,” is a favorite from my mom whenever something bad (or merely inconvenient) happens to someone she doesn’t know.
Whenever a big event or announcement ends up being really disappointing out comes the line, “Trumpy, you can do stupid things.” I used this line when one of the U.S. presidential candidates announced his running mate. (The sad thing is that that line could apply to either candidate, depending on your political persuasion.)
So many useful riffs…
When an attractive lady of the female gender walks by:
“Saaaaaayyyyy!”
Whenever I realize I’m in the middle of a run-on sentence:
“Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, skanked while you sleep would you like fries with that?”
Whenever my car hits a bump:
“Mannix!”
My circle of friends used to use “____ are for ethnic people” and the “look at my crotch” dance fairly often. We still do “You’re the laziest man on Mars,” with variations (ie, good news is received with “You’re the luckiest man on Mars”).
I use Matrix Reloaded’s “Get off the stage! You’re not funny!” whenever I see someone lose a video game.
A frequent one is when I am getting ready to cook a meal (regardless of which one)I imitate the cook/Joel from I Accuse My Parents, “How would you boys like a nice hamburger sammich”
or
For general bafflement purposes:
“Hey, this isn’t Squid World.”