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May 13[edit]

Don Martin and Monty Python[edit]

There is a discussion going on in Facebook about a cartoon that Don Martin drew for Mad Magazine, titled "One Menza-Menza Day in October". In the cartoon, a factory owner tells his son "One day, all this will be yours" and shows him a view of the factory from his office window. Later, his son tells him "Thanks, Dad!" and takes the window and curtains with him.

Did this inspire the famous "What, the curtains?" scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or the other way around? Or is this a coincidence? JIP | Talk 23:25, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Henny Youngman used to say there are no new jokes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:46, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The version I like is of an impoverished man showing his son his sole earthly possession, an awl, and saying "Some day, son, this awl will be yours". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:12, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The movie came out in 1975. When was Don Martin's cartoon published? It would seem to me whichever was released first could not be inspired by the other... RudolfRed (talk) 05:10, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reminiscent of The Muppet Show gag, where a doorbell rings and Kermit says, "Animal, get the door!". Animal returns carrying a door. Boom, boom! Alansplodge (talk) 14:49, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Baldrick in Blackadder II did that too. Come to think of it, Blackadder more than once claimed that Baldrick had animal relatives. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:46, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It didn't appear in Mad; it appeared in Cracked #240 (see here about half way down the page). The issue was from 1985, so Monty Python couldn't have been inspired by it. By 1985, Holy Grail was already a cult favourite, so inspiration the other way is at least possible. Matt Deres (talk) 20:01, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

May 15[edit]

Lead actor in a supporting role[edit]

Is it unusual for an actor in a leading role – listed first in the acting credits – to campaign for and be nominated for Best Supporting Actor for that role? This is in regard to the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. According to the article supporting actor there are no specific criteria for the difference between nominations for supporting or lead actor/actress roles at the Academy Awards and each case is considered individually. So I'm wondering if it's an unusual practice (and therefore possibly noteworthy). – Reidgreg (talk) 14:02, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that it's possibly noteworthy. For that matter, it's a relatively new thing for actors (broadest sense) to actively campaign openly for an award of any type. Campaigning has long been the norm, but there always was a sense of plausible deniability: so-and-so just happened to make the talk show rounds, "the studio" was pushing for it, etc. It would have been unseemly and self-aggrandizing to say (out loud) "Yeah, I think my performance was worthy of Oscar consideration..." To do so for a "lesser" award would add layers of intrigue. Matt Deres (talk) 15:59, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unlikely. There are a few instances where it might have made sense. For example, Bette Davis and Anne Baxter were both nominated for best actress for All About Eve. If they had been worried about splitting the Eve votes, enabling someone else (Judy Holliday) to win, then the scenario could have played out ... if only Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter hadn't both been nominated for supporting actress for the same film! Clarityfiend (talk) 12:28, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

May 16[edit]

Glass with ice in "Perfect Days"[edit]

In Wim Wenders's Tokyo-located film Perfect Days, the main character several times goes into a bar (different bars, I think) and the waiter offers him a glass with a clear liquid and ice saying something to the effect of "For your day's hard work". Is that a Japanese custom or is it a courtesy offered by those bars to that customer? What is in the glass? Water? --Error (talk) 22:12, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

今日も一日お疲れ様でした, "Thank you for your hard work of today", is a common somewhat formulaic Japanese way of greeting a worker at the end of their workday. An American bartender might just say, "Hi", or if they are chatty, "How's it rolling?". The liquid is probably just water. --Lambiam 06:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

--Error (talk) 22:38, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

May 18[edit]

Any ongoing competitive series about home or amateur cooks?[edit]

For all I know, there are MasterChef versions, like MasterChef (British TV series) and MasterChef Australia. I don't want short-lived ones, like Best Home Cook or Top Chef Amateurs, or any show about bakers, like The Great British Bake Off. Well, there are categories of such competitions, but I think creating a subcategory of them is risky and subject to guidelines. George Ho (talk) 22:48, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@George Ho: If I recall correctly Chopped_(TV_series) has both amateur and professional contestants. RudolfRed (talk) 17:55, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@RudolfRed: Hmm... I'm thinking only amateur cooks, unfortunately. George Ho (talk) 18:29, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You might have a browse through Category:Cooking television series by country. Alansplodge (talk) 12:10, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@RudolfRed: You're thinking of Cooks vs. Cons. Chopped has only pros. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:29, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The original Australia My Kitchen Rules is possibly ongoing. The NZ spinoff My Kitchen Rules NZ is also sort of ongoing, I don't think it was specifically cancelled with the rest cancellations but I suspect the prospect of any future season will depend on the current one. No idea of the South African one. Nil Einne (talk) 09:03, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think various Come Dine with Me are also ongoing although I believe the competition tends to be more limited despite there being a winner and a smallish vash prize, whatever may have happened in 2016. Nil Einne (talk) 09:10, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

May 19[edit]

Looking for a spy movie[edit]

I'm looking for a - presumably - spy movie that must be from the 1960s or 1970s. I remember a scene in it in which a group (I can't remember exactly whether it was the good guys or the bad guys, but I suspect the former) retreated into a bug-proof room. This transparent/translucent greenhouse-like thing was bug-proof because water flowed around it from above, like a curtain. Does anyone know what movie this might be? I don't think it can be the Mini-Max series with its cones of silence, I can remember the water very clearly, and it was probably not a parody. The room was also big enough for a conference table for several people. Besides, I was too young or not even born to have seen the series on television in the 1960s or 1970s; if it had been in the 1990s, I would probably still remember it. --Thorbjoern (talk) 15:10, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By way of clarification, I suggest that "the Mini-Max series" (that this isn't) was Get Smart. --142.112.143.8 (talk) 01:15, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Get Smart's primary joke was the Cone of Silence. There were variations, such as a Closet of Silence. There was also the Umbrella of Silence, big enough for a table and four people. It had plastic sheeting around it to look like water pouring off. 75.136.148.8 (talk) 17:43, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

May 23[edit]

Reverse of a picardy third[edit]

Listen to the Exciters song "Tell Him". The chorus is in E major, but (according to all sheet music sources for this song) the final word "now" is on an E minor chord. This is the reverse of a picardy third. Does this have a special name?? Georgia guy (talk) 18:54, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On a listen, the chorus in the Exciters version is in F major, and the guitarist clearly comps F major on that final word/the following final two bars of the chorus. The original version (performed by Gil Hamilton, as "Tell Her") has the chorus in Bb major, and the harmony for the bars in question is similarly Bb major. The same transcription error popping up in multiple sheet music sources is a relatively common occurrence in popular song, usually stemming from an error in a hastily-made fake book chart that later gets copied into "official" transcriptions/arrangements.

If such a harmonic progression had occured here (to a minor chord), it would be considered a type of modulation to the parallel minor (sometimes termed "parallel modulation"), as the following sections (the verses) are in an F minor tonality. In addition, the term "Picardy third" is typically only applied to the end of a work/large structural section (the latter chiefly in Western classical music), so a movement at the end of a verse-chorus form section isn't quite analogous. (fugues) (talk) 01:16, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

May 24[edit]