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

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It's new to me - although it may be that my grandparents died before they had a chance to pass it on (I was only seven when the last one popped off). I shall watch my mother closely, though, to see if she does it to my children.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I got it at summer camp, circa 1960. Largely Jewish girls from the Northeast and Canada. We did a slight variant:

"You must pay the rent."

"But I can't pay the rent."

Nine

[zdenka]

I learned it at public school, I think -- the same variation as nineweaving.

[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.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

We used to do it at my house, when I was a kid, too.

[barry-king.livejournal.com]

We moved from DC to Tunis around 1975. Among the culture-capsule of books we took with us was a dog-eared copy of "Zoom", which was the accompanying book to the launch of the WGBH children's show (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7gzHLKT5g4) of the same name. Somewhere within was a B/W photo-montage of the schtick being played with an accordion-folded sheet of paper acting, in turn, as moustache, hair-bow, and bow tie. I believe the alternate page was the lyrics to the song "The Cat Came Back", with pencil drawings to accompany it. These are the only two items from said book that have managed to stick in memory.

I, too, have seen no evidence that any other human being had heard of this until now; albeit also due to lack of question-pointery.

[vr-trakowski.livejournal.com]

I picked it up as a kid somewhere--possibly summer camp in Pennsylvania, though I can't be sure. I remember lining up my younger brother and two of his friends, with props (two capes and a sparkly tunic, it's what was on hand), to perform it for our parents. They were less entertained than I'd hoped for.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

We used to do it at my house, too. Also, my Dad would say, of something mislaid: "Gone, gone, and never called me mother." I later discovered that this is a classic tearjerker line from the melodrama Under the Gaslights.

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

I learned it from my great-grandparents, I think. I never saw the napkin used. My husband knows it too.

My husband and I do it sometimes -- though our version is:
"You MUST pay the rent!"
"I can't pay the rent!"
"You MUST pay the rent. Bwah hah hah."
"I can't pay the rent."
"I'LL pay the rent!"
"Foiled again!"

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Yep, the last line needs to be "Curses, foiled again!"

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Yes! Not my family, but my best friend's.

They also included Triumphal Music! as the hero rode in to the rescue, with the intonation of a trumpet.

[time-shark.livejournal.com]

I recall this being done as a short on "The Electric Company."

[samhenderson.livejournal.com]

I think I heard it at school, and brought it home.

[larryhammer]

I believe I learned it at school but possibly also through PBS children's television, if not in the reverse order, in the "you must pay the rent" variant.

---L.

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

A close friend would do that with a pleated napkin as hairbow, mustache, and bowtie, in exactly the words you use.

Then she would mix up the gender and power roles by having the hairbowed schoolgirl threaten to foreclose on the mustached villain, till the bowtied hero came along and saved him from her. I liked that one, too.

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

I cannot recall ever learning this, although it does feel vaguely familiar, so maybe I did see the Electric Company version - my sister and I loved that show when we were little.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I don't believe I've ever heard of this before, although I was made familiar with the principle of thirty-second parody of Victorian melodrama by cartoons in my childhood. I don't remember any of my grandparents doing it, although I suppose it's possible one of my grandfathers might have done, as the one died before I was born and the other I don't really remember.

It's charming. Thank you for sharing the memory.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

My mother a) does this, verbatim and b) has no idea where it comes from, since when I asked she explained that she got it from her uncle.

[genarti]

Yes! I learned it as "You must pay the rent!" but otherwise the same, right down to the napkin. From my mother, I believe, but I assume she learned it in childhood too.

[docbrite.livejournal.com]

We used to do this in elementary school. I didn't learn it from adults, but one of my friends probably did.

[gwynnega]

I think I saw it, of all things, in a John Cassavetes movie.

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

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

I heard it from Lawrence.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

We had "But you must pay the rent!" for the villain's second line, and usually a pleated piece of paper, pinched in the middle as the prop. I think my father was the one who shared it with me, but he most likely had it from his mother.

[alison mcgurrin (from livejournal.com)]

There's a version of this in Brazil- my grandfather and then my mother would act it out with a napkin, as you described. The plot was different, however: a young man asks his beloved's father for her hand in marriage, is gruffly rejected, and the daughter expresses dismay.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Huh. darkforge quotes or riffs on this, all the bloody time (including asking the baby, "When will you pay the rent?"), and I recognized it from somewhere before he and I began dating, but we cannot have learned it from our respective grandparents for sundry reasons. I did not know how helpful a prop a napkin could be for it.