"Thanks! I Needed That!"

Sun Aug 22 03:50:08 UTC 2010

I will not swear for authenticity of the citation, but GB hit for
Street&Smith's Astounding Science-fiction, Vol. 21, Issue 4, 1945,
contains the line--

http://books.google.com/books?id=qvcDAAAAYAAJ
"The hull plates are of magnesium- beryl------ Thanks, Josh. I needed
that, I guess. I'll try my best to stop being silly." (allegedly, p.
14--not verified on paper, although only "1945" gets a hit from within
the volume and the volume information matches the dates.)

That does not appear to be the *earliest* instance and the expression
must have appeared either on the radio or in slapstick shorts long
before it hit television. It might have come from a commercial, but it
would have to have been a radio spot, not TV.

Here's another, although this one's a bit more of a stretch:

http://books.google.com/books?ei=-IBwTOCnFcH6lwfr_9mADw&ct=result&id=m5PNAAAAMAAJ
Munsie Magazine. Volume 92. 1927 [p. 430]
"Thanks--I needed that!" Lorne chuckled--and perhaps William did sigh
lightly, perhaps it did seem to him that that wallet would have been
small enough recompense for what he had suffered.

[NOTE: not verified on paper, but the search of the volume suggests
that it is in the earlier, 1927 part, not the latter part for which
the tag applies. It's also possible that it's yet another hashed up
volume with no possibility of divining any information from the
snippets.]

In question is the wallet that one character demanded form the other.
So, in both cases, the expression is used sarcastically--there are
plenty of GB instances going way back that use the straight version,
but I don't believe these two are among them. Most of the straight
ones are in reference to a drink, a cheer-up message, a wake-up call,
etc. So they are rather different from the two present instances. From
the looks of it--and you can check the distribution of the other
expressions--it seems that both versions originated in the early
1920s, possibly in response to each other. If that's the case, it was
not even a question of radio--vaudeville is more likely. As for film,
there is another possibility--this just could have been a line
delivered in one of the silent movie slapstick comedies.

Whatever the case, it seems rather likely that all the preceding
references were re-runs, not originals.

VS-)

PS: Just another example of how screwed up GB snippets are. The search
also came upon a volume that GB identified as Donaldson/Irving, The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 1958. That would be the play, not the
original Irving book. But going to the actual volume (which, in the
same passage, also contains a version of "Waiter! There is a fly in my
soup!") reveals that it's Charles Turner's Alice in Wonderland
(Musical), [Unpublished 1979; revised and published 1980]. There is no
hint of Irving or Sleepy Hollow anywhere in the volume (and it's a
preview rather than snippet version, so 2/3s of the pages are
visible).

http://books.google.com/books?id=zlKV_yfZ5hAC

On 8/21/10, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Thanks! I Needed That!"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Cyberspace tells me that the ad I remember was for Mennen's Skin Bracer.
>
> I actually can recall the gopher use of the phrase. My guess is that it was
> based on the Wayne-Stack scene and that Karl has nailed the origin. Do we
> have the date of the cartoon?
>
> I've never seen _The High and the Mighty_, but  it can't beat _Airplane_.
>
> JL
>
> On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 9:27 PM, Karl Hagen <karl at polysyllabic.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Karl Hagen <karl at POLYSYLLABIC.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "Thanks! I Needed That!"
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Check that. The High and the Mighty is from 1954.
>>
>> On 8/21/2010 4:09 PM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred"<fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
>> > Subject:      Re: "Thanks! I Needed That!"
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > I haven't researched this, and don't recall seeing anyone else discuss
>> it.  The earliest I see on ProQuest is Los Angeles Times, Sep 25, 1969,
>> where a slap is not specifically mentioned but the context is analogous.
>>  Like Jon, I imagine this is older than 1969.
>> >
>> > Fred
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > ________________________________________
>> > From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
>> Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
>> > Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2010 6:27 PM
>> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> > Subject: "Thanks! I Needed That!"
>> >
>> > Anybody know the source of this allusion?  Allegedly it appeared in an
>> old
>> > movie, the context being that fear is turning one character into a jelly
>> > blob. The hero slaps him once or twice and he's back to normal.
>> >
>> > I remember a TV commercial for God knows what (Aquavelva?) that used the
>> > phrase and the slap some forty years ago, but I'll swear I knew the
>> allusion
>> > before that.
>> >
>> > Google Books was of no help.
>> >
>> > JL
>> >
>> > --
>> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> truth."
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org