"Inmates Running the Asylum"

[Baker, John]

        The concept, if not the words, is an old one, dating back at least
to Edgar Allan Poe's short story, "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor
Fether."  A quick Internet search provides various dates, from 1844 to 1856,
but obviously the story in reality cannot be any later than Poe's death in
1849.  From the version at

http://www.textual.net/poe/tarrandfether.htm

>>And, sure enough, one fine morning the keepers found themselves pinioned
hand and foot, and thrown into the cells, where they were attended, as if
they were the lunatics, by the lunatics themselves, who had usurped the
offices of the keepers. <<

John Baker


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [SMTP:Bapopik at AOL.COM]
> Sent: Friday, April 06, 2001 6:41 PM
> To:   ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject:      "Inmates Running the Asylum"
>
>    The person who asked for my address here was someone from a WWII
> submarine museum I had queried about the "submarine sandwich."
> (USS=United States Ship.)
>    The query (attached below) is about "inmates running the asylum."  I
> hope this doesn't imply something about our armed forces.
>    I can't find an easy answer to this.  I think I've heard it used for
> the 1930s Marx Brothers films, for Spike Jones, and for screwball comedies
> such as BRINGING UP BABY, but I don't recall an exact source.  My friend
> at work recalls a baseball usage in 1961. << Message: Phrase Origin >>