"Thanks! I Needed That!"

Tue Aug 24 12:38:58 UTC 2010

Mutter, mutter.  I'm wondering now if the Skin Bracer commercial really did
effectively give birth to the phrase.  Clearly it was alluding to something
else, but perhaps something not in those exact words.

A GB search of "Thanks * I needed that" turned up nothing likely.

However...

1953 Leon Uris _Battle Cry_ (rpt. N.Y. Bantam, 1954) 460:

Huxley began screaming. "He threw himself on a grenade! Mac, they're killing
my boys! They're killing my boys!
     He was berserk. I straightened up and belted him in the mouth. The
punch knocked him down....A Jap screaming-meemie whistled down. I threw
myself over him and pinned him flat till it passed over.
     "Thanks, Mac."
     "I didn't want to slug you, skipper."
     "I guess...I lost my - what's the picture?" he snapped quickly.

IMDb offers no quotes from the film version (screenplay by Uris), but the
scene must be there, with or without "I needed that." (I haven't seen the
movie in forty-odd years, but I do remember that it's awful, with Van Heflin
as the skipper and James Whitmore as the sarge).

Hypothesis: the proverb alludes, imprecisely, to a scene in the 1953 novel
and 1955 movie _Battle Cry_.

JL

On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 9:05 PM, 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!"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I found _Journey's End_, the quintessential British WW1 drama by R. C.
> Sherriff. (it was revived recently on Broadway, or at least in NYC.)
>
> That was the good news. The bad news is that although the play contains
> a comparable scene (the hero inspires a man who's lost his nerve by
> threatening to shoot him: the man soon thanks him), there's no hysteria, no
> slapping, and no "Thanks! I needed that!"
>
> There is, however, an alleged Cockneyism: "sambridges" for "sandwiches."
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 3:05 PM, 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!"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > When I started this thread I had an unconvincing feeling that the
> incident
> > is in R. C. Sheriff's 1929 play, "Journey's End," which was filmed in
> 1930.
> >
> > I didn't mention it because I thought I could check my personal copy -
> > which
> > I haven't found after hours of looking. Paul's thinking leads me to float
> > the suggestion.
> >
> > Nothing I saw on the Web, however, supports this attribution.
> >
> > Will search my shelves some more.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Paul <paulzjoh at mtnhome.com> wrote:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       Paul <paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM>
> > > Subject:      Re: "Thanks! I Needed That!"
> > >
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > >  This may be a red herring, but I have a memory of that scene from a
> > > pre 1940 british film., either WWI or british colonial outpost.
> > > Vaguely, as I remember, outnumbered, probably going to die, "must show
> > > these buggers how a gentleman/Englishman dies"
> > > Sorry, can't be more help than that
> > >
> > > On 8/22/2010 1:23 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > > > The Mennen Skin Bracer ad came long before _Airplane_.  And
> presumably
> > > after
> > > > the gopher cartoon.
> > > >
> > > > Is the phrase just a "folk version" of the movie dialogue?
> > > >
> > > > If it isn't really in the movie, anything becomes possible.
> > > > JL
> > > > On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Joel S. Berson<Berson at att.net>
> >  wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > >> -----------------------
> > > >> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > >> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson"<Berson at ATT.NET>
> > > >> Subject:      Re: "Thanks! I Needed That!"
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > >>
> > > >> At 8/22/2010 10:49 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> > > >>> A few years later, in 1957, another plane crash movie was released
> --
> > > >>> "Zero Hour!", which served as the basis for "Airplane!" The makers
> of
> > > >>> "Airplane!" bought the rights to "Zero Hour!", so they were able to
> > > >>> crib dialogue verbatim. This video has a side-by-side comparison of
> > > >>> scenes from the two movies:
> > > >>>
> > > >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BjU-e01zQ4
> > > >>>
> > > >>> About 2 minutes in there's a scene with a woman screaming, "I've
> got
> > > >>> to get out of here!" In "Zero Hour!" a man just shakes here, but in
> > > >>> the "Airplane!" version, she's shaken, slapped, and otherwise
> abused
> > > >>> by a series of passengers. Anyway, no "thanks" here either, so that
> > > >>> doesn't really help us.
> > > >> Is there different scene in "Airplane" which does have a slap and
> > > >> "Thanks! I Needed That!", perhaps in the cockpit?  Or am I
> > > >> half-remembering such an incident from some other of Leslie
> Nielson's
> > > >> spoof movies?
> > > >>
> > > >> "Airplane" is 1980.  Has anyone searched Gann's 1953 "The High and
> > > >> the Mighty" yet?
> > > >>
> > > >> Joel
> > > >>
> > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > >> 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
> > > >
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > He could sell you the time and get a commission from the man who owned
> > the
> > > watch.
> > > said of Colin Chapman
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > 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
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "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
>

--
"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