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

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

We used to do the version you did (I don't recall the you-must-marry-me part). I don't think it originated with the older generation, though; I think we got it from our peers.

[sovay]

I don't think it originated with the older generation, though; I think we got it from our peers.

I'm thinking there may be two lines of descent—it's an older routine that got picked up by children's television and reintroduced.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That makes sense to me.

I remember someone somewhere--I think maybe at a Readercon panel, actually--pointing out that although transmission from older generation to younger is the classic form of transmission for folk stuff, it's completely legitimate to get it from TV or books or whatever. Good thing, too, seeing as that's where I get a lot of stuff, like plant lore.