"I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV"

Wed Nov 17 23:19:06 UTC 2010

The Weekly World News has been digitized?   All of it?

Oh, my.
I believe it was the WWN that had a headline story about a man kept hostage by his pet dog, until a swat team rescued him from "the crazed pooch".
My, oh my.

What about the National Enquirer?  (the very early years of that, I'd actually like to see on film at least -- I believe it goes back to the 1920s or before -- it features in A. J. Liebling's Honest Rainmaker, the biography of Col. Stingo.)

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, November 17, 2010 1:12 pm
Subject: Re: "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV"
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> Thanks to Jon for mentioning this template, and thanks to Arnold for
> pointing to the four Language Log posts. The first instance I could
> locate of a near-match for the template and the idea that animates the
> template is dated 1981. The wording employed here differs from the
> common template: "I'm only an actor but I play a doctor on TV". This
> phrase occurs in the tabloid Weekly World News in a scenario that
> attempts to humorously contrast an actor with a real doctor:
>
> Cite: 1981 March 31, Weekly World News, "Has-been athletes commit a
> foul by becoming sports announcers on TV" by Rex Winston, Page 30,
> Published by Weekly World News. (Google Books full view)
>
> How'd you like to be wheeled into surgery and look up to find Jack
> Klugman sharpening his scalpel?
> "Hey, you're only an actor — you aren't a doctor," you would scream.
> "Yeah. I'm only an actor but I play a doctor on TV," comes Klugman's
> reply. "So just lie there quietly and let me take out your appendix."
> Anybody in his right mind would agree that playing a doctor on TV
> doesn't make someone a qualified surgeon, right?
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=iO8DAAAAMBAJ&q=appendix#v=snippet&
>
> Several individuals mentioned in the Language Log posts contend that
> the template was used in the 1960s or 1970s, and some specifically
> point to the actor Robert Young who played Marcus Welby as an early
> wielder of the nascent snowclone.
>
> I was unable to find evidence for this, but my searching was limited
> because I know of no database of transcripts for TV commercials. On
> the other hand, the texts of many magazine and newspaper
> advertisements are searchable. Here is the copy of a 1977 ad featuring
> Robert Young. It  occurs beneath a smiling picture of the actor in a
> suit with a coffee cup in his hands:
>
> Cite: 1977 February 02, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sanka advertisement
> with Robert Young, Page 3-B, Cleveland, Ohio. (GenealogyBank)
>
> "I think it's important that we take care of ourselves. That's why
> doctors have advised millions of caffein-concerned Americans, like me,
> to drink SANKA Brand Decaffeinated Coffee. There's no cafein to make
> me nervous or tense, so I really feel good. SANKA Brand is the one
> coffee I can feel good about." - Robert Young
>
> The actor is not explicitly identified as a doctor nor is he
> identified as an actor who once played a doctor on television. The
> connection is implicit, and it relies on the memory of the reader. The
> phrase "like me" refers to "caffein-concerned Americans" in a surface
> analysis of the text, but it may also activate the reader's memory as
> a trigger phrase. Some readers will envision Marcus Welby the caring,
> ultracompetent physician when Robert Young says "like me".
>
> Garson
>
> On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 1:34 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV"
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Nov 16, 2010, at 10:08 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:
> >
> >> I'm still hearing jocular allusions to this TV line from nearly a quarter
> >> century ago. The most recent was this morning. They take the form
> of "I'm
> >> not an X but I play one on TV." Fred wisely included it among the undated
> >> "Advertising Slogans" in YBQ.
> >>
> >> The original aired in 1987:
> >>
> >> http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x36pho_vicks-44_ads
> >>
> >> GB offers 200 exact cites, surely making this one of the best-known
> >> quotations in current use.
> >
> > Language Log postings on the Play One snowclone:
> >
> > AZ, 10/12/05: Playing one:
> >  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002537.html
> >
> > AZ, 10/13/05: Playing one 2:
> >  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002541.html
> >
> > AZ, 10/16/05: Playing one 3:
> >  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002550.html
> >
> > AZ, 10/19/05: My big fat Greek snowclone:
> >  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002557.html
> > (on playful allusions vs. snowclones proper)
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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