Verging on three years ago I made up (or, uh, I thought I made up) a magic word for use during stressful times at work. (Bear with me, readers: I’m not gonna complain too much, because yeah, I do realize that working at EW.com is crazy-awesome — especially when it involves leading discussions about, say, the Ultimate Hottie-ness of Clive Owen.) Anyway, back to the word, five little letters that on any given day somehow sum up my feelings of annoyance, exhaustion, shame (usually after I’ve eaten a sloppy and/or saturated-fat-packed lunch), inability to concentrate, and lust for the weekend:
"Blurg."
As Slezak is my witness, I have been uttering/IM’ing this word to him for-freakin’-ever. (For the record, his equivalent? "Mrrrrrr.") So last TV season, I’m eating dinner and watching 30 Rock on DVR, and I hear "blurg" — my word! — come out of Liz Lemon’s mouth, with the same inflection and connotation! I thought maybe it was a one-time thing, but then, on last week’s episode, the camera lingered on a junky pile of boxed-up furniture from an Ikea-like store that Liz had been too lazy to put together. And what did the label say?
"blërg."
Okay, so they’re spelling it differently (the umlaut is a nice touch, I must admit)… but still! I’m really freaked out! (Also: dreaming about the alternate reality in which I copyrighted the word and receive a writer’s credit/fat check.) I say all this to ask, has something like this ever happened to you? Has a TV show/movie ever gotten into your head in a really creepy, specific way?
The Will Ferell movie, “Elf”, after Will’s character belches extremely loudly and declares “Did you hear that?” That was so totally mine! I felt so ripped off when I heard it there……
When I don’t know the words to songs, I sing “meow” in their place. Don’t know why, just thought it was funny. Years after starting this, I saw John Goodman do the same thing in “True Stories.” My index finger flew towards the screen and I looked wide-eyed at my friend and said “GWT OUT OF MY HEAD, JOHN GOODMAN!!!”
*snicker* I wonder if that sentence has ever been said before.
You sound like my college roommate. She was also a boring braggart who loved showing how ahead of the pack she was.
Ewps. How ’bout “get out of my head.” I can pretty much guarantee that “gwt out of my head, John Goodman” has never been said before.
Dang you, Slezak! Mrrrr is MY word!
Forget 30 Rock, did anyone watch Earl last night? That may have just about been the worst 30 minutes of television in the history of its existence. That episode was a true “jump the shark” ep if ever I saw one.
the dr. who episode ‘the empty child’ totally stole “are you my mommy?” from me. I don’t know how they happened to be in the same metro car with me after that particularly drink filled evening while I was making fun of my friend who was dating a divorced dad. Somehow I came up with his son being british and 5 (real son is neither)and I kept repeating “are you my mummy?”. My friend didn’t like it one bit and years later when we saw the episode she made me turn it off right after she heard the little kid. Of course, I still do it to bug her. he he he
I remember someone telling me about how they jog to keep in shape. They asked me, “Do you run?” My response: “Not unless someone’s chasing me.”
10 years later, I come across a movie I’ve never seen before– “Real Genius”– and wouldn’t ya know? Val Kilmer’s character has the exact same exchange with another character. Get out of my head, Kilmer!!!
in middle school a friend and i wrote this script making fun of all these movies about killers, we specifically made fun of the matrix fx, and then about six months later we were shocked to see the scary movie previews making fun of the matrix too
Twice:
First, I totally thought it would be a hilarious idea to have a NAAFP (National Association for the Advancement of Fat People) and then several years later, Family Guy did a whole episode about it! Then, on last weeks episode of The Office there was a an entire scene where the staff is watching a screensaver waiting for the DVD logo to hit exactly in the corner of the TV. I do that all the time!
friends and I were saying fiddy (as in 50 cents) back in the late 80s.
cutting edge baby, cutting edge.
I know this isn’t exactly answering your question but I just have to say that if “The Office” were a drug, I’d be headed to rehab right now. It has gotten into my brain in a serious way.
Cartman’s “Everybody assumes I love ‘Family Guy’ but I Really Hate It” speech from the “Cartoon Wars” episode of “South Park.” I have delivered sentences of that speech VERBATIM for years. I’m pretty sure I remember yelling, “They stole that from my brain!” I have never been so honored.
Sorry to deviate further… but Richard, are you serious? I thought “Earl” was one of the funniest half-hours of TV I’ve seen in ages (and I’ve been telling my friends that very thing all day)! I haven’t laughed out loud that much over a TV comedy in a long time. It was genious: well written, creative, witty, random and fun as hell! How could you hate that??
Oh, and RayT? I’m SO with you about the whole DVD-square-in-the-corner thing! I have totally done that before and it made me roll to see the “Office” cast following suit. Just goes to show you the kind of minutia and random commonality that, with the right writers, can be mined for comic gold.