Close match to ''It doesn't do anything. That's the beauty of it''

[Rufus R. Jones]

From the TV series "Burke's Law," episode "Who Killed 711?"

http://s98.photobucket.com/albums/l2...mackah/beauty/

Here's the relevant thread from the old board:

http://msgboard.snopes.com/message/u...74.html#000000

[Bonnie]

Hmm, that's very intriguing. Thanks for posting this here, Rufus R. Jones! (Actually, I noticed you posted this elsewhere using a different alias a few days earlier.)

As was pointed out in the discussion over there, it's tough to explain why the phrase appears to be so familiar to so many when it may have originated with a rather obscure, 40-year-old TV series and doesn't seem to have been used elsewhere in the past four decades (at least, no one has been able to unearth any appearance in print yet). Is this something that's just been passed on by word of mouth? Or is there still some more recent "smoking gun" that's left to be detected?

The principal writer for that episode (and "Who Killed 711?" aired in late 1964), was Gwen Bagni, who wrote for other TV shows; she was also the principal writer for that Doris Day/Brian Keith blockbuster "With Six You Get Eggroll." Paul Dubov, her husband and a character actor, assisted with that "Burke's Law" script. Is it possible that she modified this "Burke's Law" line and used it in a later script?

-- Bonnie

[Rufus R. Jones]

Yep. This is *verrrrry interesting. I have copies of the series when it aired on TVLand about 10 years ago, and I’ve just been going back thru them recently. I had no idea that this might have such a similar line. Then, I hear Burgess Meredith saying “Do?. . . . Nothing, nothing. That’s the beauty of it.”

Did I just hear that?

Rewind.

I did hear it.

Mouth drops.

First step was to get a copy of that snippet uploaded. I don’t have any fancy capture equipment, just a digital camera that can record some video. Next, to IMDB, where I first posted it. Then on Straight Dope, snopes, and then a note on Wikiquote.

And while it is not the exact quote that has circulated for years, well, often quotes are not exact quotes (“Play it again, Sam,” and “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” come to mind.

Now, I’m not going to say that this particular incidence is the sole source of this quote’s provenance. But it does have the essential elements: An unknown contraption, an emphasis on “do” (where Meredith asks incredulously “DO?”) and the exact quote “That’s the beauty of it.” So far as I know, this is the closest to the quote that has ever been verifiably turned up. Next closest is some translations of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” in which the Emperor, commenting on how his new “clothes” feel like nothing, and his tailors tell him “That’s the beauty of it.” I don’t know if that line has ever made it to any filmed/taped adaptations.

In conclusion, I feel that I have set the standard until someone else comes up with a more recent, more commercially accessible source. This is somewhat reminiscent of the phrase “the whole nine yards” and the “ancient Chinese curse” “May you live in interesting times” both of which have been traced to obscure sources—respectively, a 1967 Viet Nam war novel, the title of which I’d rather not print here, and an obscure 1950 short story “U-Turn” by Eric Frank Russell. If there are any earlier sources, they haven’t turned up yet.

*And about “verrrry interesting,” that line also appears in a “Burke’s Law” episode, “Who Killed Cassandra Cass?” Gene Barry (Capt. Burke), as he is talking to Nehemiah Persoff in a faux-German accent, says it just the same way Arte Johnson would several years later on “Laugh-In.”

[Bonnie]

About that 1967 Vietnam War novel, I don't think we have to prevent ourselves from referring to The Doom Pussy by name, Rufus.

Bonnie "cat got your tongue?" Taylor

[musicgeek]

Look what turned up in the comics page today:

Tuesday 7/29 Blondie strip

[candy from strangers]

Originally Posted by Rufus R. Jones

In conclusion, I feel that I have set the standard until someone else comes up with a more recent, more commercially accessible source.

I'm sorry, I have no idea why, but this is making me laugh so hard.

[Towknie]

The very title of this thread made me immediately think of an episode of Phineas and Ferb. They go to a toy company and sell them on a wood platypus. They say, "It's a platypus. It doesn't do anything".

The toy company exec says, "Beautiful! We can promise them the moon without promising them anything!"

[Bonnie]

Originally Posted by musicgeek

Look what turned up in the comics page today

Nice catch, musicgeek.

Now, can we just pretend that this particular strip originally appeared on 29 July 1948 and call it a day?

Bonnie "drawing my own conclusion" Taylor

[musicgeek]

Originally Posted by Bonnie

Nice catch, musicgeek.

Now, can we just pretend that this particular strip originally appeared on 29 July 1948 and call it a day?

Bonnie "drawing my own conclusion" Taylor

Sadly, I fear not, but it confirms my recent suspicions that long-running strips' writers are now so desperate as to search the web for gags they can recycle. (At least this one put its own spin on the idea!)

[Nick Theodorakis]

Originally Posted by musicgeek

Sadly, I fear not, but it confirms my recent suspicions that long-running strips' writers are now so desperate as to search the web for gags they can recycle. (At least this one put its own spin on the idea!)

Speaking of recycling (and also speaking of Blondie), check out the blatant auto-plagiarism unearthed by a librarian and posted by the Comics Curmudgeon in this blog post.

Nick

[ganzfeld]

Originally Posted by Bonnie

Is this something that's just been passed on by word of mouth? Or is there still some more recent "smoking gun" that's left to be detected?

I'm totally unfamiliar with the currently known history of this quote so I apologize if this post contributes nothing. (That's the beauty of it.. har har.) I just wanted to share what I found poking around a bit in Google Books.

It seems that the "nothing - that's the beauty of it" line was used most commonly in the context of money, especially payment, as in The Claverings by Anthony Trollope (1867):

"Not a shilling! That's the beauty of it."

It usually seems to take the form of some kind of trick or delicious swindle, hence "That's the beauty of it." Every now and then it takes the form of a person "doing nothing" as in this is a line in a 1905 play, Facing the Music: An Original Farcical Comedy in Three Acts by by James Henry Darnley:

I've done nothing, that's the beauty of it!

And this line seems to carry right on into middle of the 20th century. From a novel, Gentleman from Enlgand by Maud Hart Lovelace.

"What wages will they get?" Richard inquired.
"No wages at all, Mr. Chalmers. That's the beauty of it."

From The Chicago Theological Seminary Register (1940):

What will all this cost you? Nothing! That's the beauty of it. Nothing at all -- except your freedom.

Eventually it comes around to the "doesn't do anything" meaning, at least once, in a 1937 advertisement in Detroit Engineer by the Engineering Society of Detroit. (I think it's an ad. The whole thing doesn't appear in Google Books. But this part is clearly legible.)

Clay sewer pipe doesn't do anything. That's the beauty of it. [...] And, it's been doing nothing— in constant use for centuries.

(The point being that it doesn't deteriorate or corrode, I assume.)

So it seems to me that it's just a meme that's been around for years and happened to fall into the "What does it do?" version practically as a matter of inevitability, which also probably explains why it seems so familiar. We've "heard" it in so many similar versions. (The "Do? It doesn't do anything." theme has also been around at least since 1960, and in the exact form since at least 1968. Citations omitted!)