I don't remember whether it was "Sesame Street" or "The Electric Company"--or if it was a muppet thing or a cartoon--but on one of those shows, there was this little sketch featuring a man in a coffee shop. The waiter comes up to the man and asks what he would like. The man replies that he'd like a cup of coffee and a sweetroll. The waiter apologizes: They don't have sweetrolls. Oh, the man says, in that case, I'll have a cup of tea and a sweetroll. No, Sir, I'm sorry, we don't have sweetrolls. Oh, well, then let me just have a glass of orange juice and a sweetroll. . . . The scene proceeds in this manner for a few more rounds. Finally, the waiter explodes: WE DON'T HAVE SWEETROLLS!!!
Oh, all right, says the customer. In that case, let me just have a sweetroll.
I just want to say that, as a teacher, I totally sympathize with that waiter.
Just so you know;
ReplyDeleteThis was an old Burlesque routing that was hairy when Abbott & Costello revived it in the '40s, long before Sesame Street (and, yes, that's where it was) was a gleam in Joanna Ganz's Cooney.
It is this sort of generational history gap that leads people to believe that Shakespeare lifted the whole plot of "Romeo & Juliet" from "West Side Story".