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

[sovay]

(Googling reveals that yes, Gena Rowlands does it in A Woman Under the Influence!)

Whoa. I didn't even conceive that as a vector. I wonder where Cassavetes got it.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

I only ever encountered it in a mid-'90s British tv-movie called Angels, in which an entertainer uses it to charm a woman he plans to later seduce.

[sovay]

I only ever encountered it in a mid-'90s British tv-movie called Angels, in which an entertainer uses it to charm a woman he plans to later seduce.

I'm not entirely certain how I feel about pieces of my childhood being used as chat-up lines!

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

He was written as a very creepy character - sort of quasi-pedophilic, in that he goes after adult (but very young and inexperienced) women, and sort of treats them as children - later when she's his mistress, you can see her bedroom's full of stuffed toy animals he's given her.