Dudley Do-Right's such a jerk

[sovay]

Long before I actually read or saw anything that would qualify as a traditional Victorian melodrama, I learned a thirty-second parody of the genre from my grandmother, who performed it in three voices with the aid of a napkin doubling (tripling?) for the whiplash moustache of a villain, the hair-bow of a damsel in distress, and the bowtie of a hero. The immortal dialogue ran as follows:

"I've come to collect the rent."
"I can't pay the rent!"
"I've come to collect the rent."
"I can't pay the rent!"
"I'll pay the rent!"
"My hero!"
"Curses, foiled again!"

Did anyone else's relatives ever pull this out at family dinners, or was it just me? It has the feel of a time-honored piece of shtick, but I can't remember ever running into anyone else who knew it—admittedly, I've never asked point-blank. I assume now it will turn out to be one of those things everyone gets from their grandparents at an impressionable age. Internet?

Comments

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

A Mellerdrama (as I learned it, with a bow shifting from hair ribbon to mustache to bowtie)

Murgatroyd: "You must pay the rent."

Nell: "But I can't pay the rent."

Murgatroyd: "You must pay the rent."

Nell: "But I can't pay the rent."

Murgatroyd: "Then you must marry me!"

Nell: "No, not that!"

John Dalton: "I'll pay the rent!"

Nell: "My hero!"

John Dalton: "My Nell!"

Murgatroyd: "My money!"

Grandfather: "My, my, I knew the U.S. Marines would come through in the end!"

http://burtleburtle.net/bob/scout/rent.html has the version without the threat of marriage.

[chomiji]

That's approximately the version I knew. We'd sometimes mix it up by having the hero save the day by offering to marry the villain!

[sovay]

We'd sometimes mix it up by having the hero save the day by offering to marry the villain!

I approve!

[sovay]

Grandfather: "My, my, I knew the U.S. Marines would come through in the end!"

*snerk*

Yours is the first version with names—they're very stage-Victorian. I wonder where they came in, or whether in other versions they dropped out.