“We don’t need no stinking badges!” (Or badgers!)

THE ORIGINAL 1948 MOVIE LINES: “Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!”         Alfonso Bedoya, as the Mexican bandit “Gold Hat”        In the classic film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which was released in the U.S. on January 7, 1948                       Contrary to what many people think, the famous quote about “stinking badges” in the movie The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is not “We don’t need no stinking badges!” That’s a comic paraphrase of the words spoken in the film.        The movie’s famous lines are from a tense scene in which three American gold prospectors, played by Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston and Tim Holt, are confronted by a group of heavily-armed Mexicans in a remote area of Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountains. The character who is the leader of the Mexicans, called “Gold Hat” in the credits, is played by Alfonso Bedoya.        He tells the prospectors: “We are federales. You know, the mounted police.”        Bogart says skeptically: “If you’re the police, where are your badges?”        Bedoya sneeringly responds: “Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!”         In the 1927 book by B. Traven that inspired the film, Gold Hat’s answer is: “Badges, to god-damned hell with badges! We have no badges. In fact, we don’t need badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges, you god-damned cabron and ching’ tu madre.”

THE MONKEES’ 1967 VERSION: “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!”        Mickey Dolenz         In a 1967 episode of The Monkees TV show (Season 2, Episode 1)        “We don’t need no stinking badges!” was made world famous when it was used in the 1974 Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles. But that was not the first use.       In the Monkees episode “It’s A Nice Place To Visit,” originally aired on September 11, 1967, Mickey and two of his Monkees bandmates, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith, dress up as Mexican bandits to save their singer Davy Jones from a “real” Mexican bandit. Before they leave to find Davy, Michael Nesmith says: “Wait a minute, don’t you think maybe we oughtta take something out with us, like a club card or some badges?”       Mickey replies with a heavy Mexican accent: “Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!”

THE MORE FAMOUS 1974 BLAZING SADDLES USE: “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!”         Rick Garcia, playing a Mexican bandit         In the movie Blazing Saddles (1974)        This is the use that popularized those famed words and made it common for people to say “we don’t need no stinking [whatever]” as a joking comment about almost anything. The lines come in a scene in which the corrupt State Attorney General Hedley Lamarr, played by Harvey Korman, gives a sheriff’s badge to one of his Mexican bandit henchmen, played by Rick Garcia. Hedley says: “Be ready to attack Rock Ridge at noon tomorrow. Here’s your badge.”        Garcia throws the badge away and sneers: “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!”

THE 1989 BADGERS VARIATION: “Badgers? Badgers? We don’t need no stinking badgers.”          Trinidad Silva, playing TV show host Raul Hernandez        In the 1989 “Weird Al” Yankovic movie UHF         The character Raul Hernandez is the host of a low-budget show about animals called “Raul’s Wild Kingdom” in this gonzo movie. During one scene, a truck pulls up outside his house to deliver some new animals. The driver reads Raul a list of the animals in the shipment — which include three badgers.        Bogart says skeptically: Raul responds with an homage to the Monkees/Blazing Saddles quote by saying: “Badgers? Badgers? We don’t need no stinking badgers.”

THE BIBLICAL BADGERS VERSION: “BADGERS? BADGERS? WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING BADGERS.”        Noah        In a cartoon about Noah and the ark by Alex Barker, on his Cake or Death site

LUCINDA'S ATTITUDE TOWARD LIMOS: “I don’t have catering, I don’t have limousines. I’ve got Buick 6! I don’t need no stinking limo!”        Lucinda Williams        American rock, blues and country music singer and songwriter         A funny comment she made in a January 2017 interview about her latest concert tour. Her backup band includes three musicians who play together under the name “Buick 6.” They are bass player David Sutton, drummer Butch Norton and guitarist Stuart Mathis.

LASSIE’S ATTITUDE TOWARD LEASHES: “We Don’t Need No Stinkin Leashes!”       The slogan on a T-shirt I bought on Amazon, which features an image of dog dressed like Alfonso Bedoya’s Mexican bandit “Gold Hat” in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

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“The power of Christ compels you!” … and the power of BTS ...

FAMOUS SATAN-BUSTING MOVIE QUOTE: “The power of Christ compels you!”        The words from the Catholic “Rite of Exorcism” repeated multiple times by the characters Father Merrin and Father Damien (played by Max von Sydow and Jason Miller) in the movie The Exorcist (1973), as they try to exorcize the demon that possesses Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair).         You can watch the scene where they chant the line as Regan floats in the air above her bed by clicking this link or the image at left.        It still gives me goosebumps.

THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMED LINE: “I adjure you, ancient serpent...to depart from this servant of God, whom almighty God has made in His image. Yield, therefore, yield not to my own person but to the minister of Christ. For it is the power of Christ that compels you.”         Part of the official Catholic “Rite of Exorcism”        The instructions for the rite explain that it should be used get rid of a demon in “the person possessed.” It adds the helpful tip that the afflicted party “should be bound if there is any danger.”

THE SOUTH KOREAN BOY BAND VARIATION: “Power of BTS Compels You: These BTS-Backed Phones Broke Pre-Order Records for Samsung.”          Headline of an August 2021 Rolling Stone magazine article about the surge in sales of Samsung mobile phones caused by the brand's use of the South Korean boy band BTS in promotional videos.

THE GHOSTBUSTING VERSION: “The power of Patty compels you!”         Line shouted by character Patty Tolan (played by Leslie Jones) in the the 2016 version of the movie Ghostbusters.        Patty yells this while slapping the face of her friend Abby Yates (actress Melissa McCarthy), in an attempt to exorcize the ghost that possesses Abby’s body.        It works. After the ghost leaves, Abby quips: “Ow! That’s gonna leave a mark.”

THE HOLY VAMPIRE BUSTER’S VERSION: “The Power of Christ Impales You!”         Ad tagline for the indie comedy-horror movie Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001)

ROBIN’S DEMON TURD: “The drugs make you so constipated, I thought they were gonna have to bring in a priest to do a f**king exorcism. ‘Demon turd, fall from his ass! The power of fiber compels you! The power of fiber compels you!’”        Robin Williams (1951-2014)        American comedian and actor        Riffing on the constipation caused by the pain medication he took after heart surgery, in his 2009 HBO special Weapons of Self-Destruction.

THE WEST GRAFFITI QUOTE: “THE POWER OF KANYE COMPELS YOU”        These words, spray-painted on a brick wall, gained attention when a photo showing Taylor Swift standing next to them was posted in various places on the internet.        Commenters on the photo debated whether it was the real Taylor Swift or an impersonator. Either way, given her famous feud with Kanye West, it ‘s kinda funny.

A TAYLOR SWIFT FAN’S COUNTERQUOTE: “THE POWER OF Taylor COMPELS YOU”         A Photoshopped version of the Kanye graffiti a Taylor Swift fan posted on her blog, with the comment “Fixed it.”

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“Children of the night. What music they make!”

THE CLASSIC BOOK AND MOVIE QUOTES: “Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!” [1924 novel] “Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make!” [1931 movie]        Dracula         One of his most famous lines in the novel by Bram Stoker and the popular Universal Studios movie adaptation         In Stoker’s novel and the 1931 film Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, the title character says the “children of the night” lines about the wolves howling outside his castle in Transylvania. The book and movie versions of the quotation are almost identical, with the exception of the word the in front of children in the book.        Dracula says the lines to Jonathan Harker, a British legal solicitor who is sent to Dracula’s home to facilitate the Count’s purchase of a property in England. The quote comes early in the book (in Chapter 2) and in the movie, as do two other famous quotes that are well known to Dracula fans.        As Harker enters the Count’s spooky castle, Dracula greets him with the words: “I am Dracula, and I bid you welcome.” In the 1931 movie, this is broken into two lines, separated by a comment by Harker.        In the movie, as Dracula is standing on the huge stone stairway after welcoming Harker, they hear the wolves howling and Lugosi speaks the famous “children of the night” lines. Shortly thereafter, in the next scene, Dracula serves some food to Harker, then pours him a glass of “very old wine.”        “Aren’t you drinking?” asks Harker. Lugosi, smiling, says a third line immortalized by the movie: “I never drink – wine.”        This chuckleworthy nod to the fact that Dracula survives solely by drinking human blood is not in the novel. In that, as Harker is preparing to eat, Dracula apologizes for not joining him, saying: “I have dined already, and I do not sup.” He does offer Harker some “very old tokay wine.” But he says nothing about never drinking wine himself.

CLASSIC COMEDY SPOOF VERSION #1: “Children of the night – shut up!”        Actor George Hamilton as Dracula, in the comedy movie Love at First Bite (1979)        Hamilton says the line in the opening of the movie as he’s playing the piano and the howling of wolves interrupts and annoys him.

CLASSIC COMEDY SPOOF VERSION #2:     “Children of the night. What a mess they make.”        Actor Leslie Nielsen, as Dracula, in Dead and Loving It (1995)        In this campy version, Nielsen says the line after pointing to some bats flying above him as he stands on the stone stairway of his castle. The camera briefly shows a dollop of bat poop on one of the stone steps. Then we see Nielsen’s shoe step on the poo, causing him to slip and fall down the stairs.

NOT-SO-CLASSIC MOVIE VARIATION #1: “Fame has bitten Robert Pattinson...His mere arrival at a promotional autograph session is enough to set off a sonic frenzy of squeals and shrieks. Tweens, teens and Twilight moms scream en masse with pent-up desire and devotion, delighted to just gaze upon their idol in the flesh. Listen to them. Children of the night. What a racket they make.”        Susan Wloszczyna        American movie reviewer        In an article about Pattinson in USA TODAY published in 2008, at a time when the first movie in the Twilight series was suddenly making him a huge celebrity – at least among teenage movie fans.        Pattinson has suggested he’s not personally a fan of the movies that made him world famous. In one interview, when asked what his view of the series might be if he weren't in it, he responded: “I would just mindlessly hate it.”

NOT-SO-CLASSIC MOVIE VARIATION #2: “The entertainment value in Argento’s sad, befuddled decline wears thin before long; after that it’s just boring. It isn’t until the 70-minute mark that the promise of the opening credits – ‘and Rutger Hauer as Van Helsing’ – is fulfilled, and by then it’s too late for anything to salvage the wreck. Listen to the children of the night! What garbage they make.”        Eric D. Snider        American movie reviewer        In his review of Dario Argento’s movie Dracula 3D, posted on Movies.com site on May 20, 2012

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What “life is like” – from Forrest Gump and Leonard Nimoy to Tom Lehrer and Jawaharlal Nehru…

THE FAMOUS MOVIE QUOTE: “My mama always said, life was like a box a chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”        Forrest Gump (actor Tom Hanks)        In the 1994 film Forrest Gump        These lines are usually misquoted as “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.”  And, both versions are different than what Forrest says in the 1986 novel by Winston Groom that the film is based on. What Forrest says in the opening line of the novel is: “Let me say this: bein a idiot is no box of chocolates.” He goes on to explain: “People laugh, lose patience, treat you shabby. Now they says folks sposed to be kind to the afflicted, but let me tell you — it ain’t always that way. Even so, I got no complaints, cause I reckon I done live a pretty interestin life, so to speak.”

THE PANDEMIC / POLITICAL CLUSTER$&*% / WILDFIRES VERSION: “LIFE IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES...BUT 2020 IS NOTHING BUT NUTS.”            A sign on a 2020 Halloween installation in Medina, Ohio, which features a life-size doll version of Forrest Gump on a park bench. A photo of the installation was included in an article on the Cleveland.com website posted in September 2020.

LEONARD NIMOY’S POIGNANT LAST TWEET: “A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.”           Leonard Nimoy        American actor and author, especially known for his portrayal of the Vulcan character Spock in the Star Trek TV series and movies        Nimoy posted these moving words on his popular Twitter feed the night of February 22, 2015. It was his last tweet. Early that morning he was rushed to the hospital. A few days later he died, at age 83, from end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The letters “LLAP” at the end of the tweet were his shorthand initials for “Live long and prosper,” the popular catchphrase he used in many Star Trek episodes and films. Nimoy first spoke the line in the “Amok Time” episode of the original Star Trek series, aired on September 15, 1967, as Episode 1 of Season 2.

BILL MAHER’S COUNTERQUOTE: “Life is not like a box of chocolates. A box of chocolates is all good. I mean, it would be like a box of chocolates if there was a occasional turd.”          Bill Maher         American comedian and talk show host         A comment Maher made on an episode of his first major TV show Politically Incorrect. (I watched that ep and wrote down the quip, but I forgot to note the date. The show originally aired from 1997 to 2002.)

THE WEREWOLF SUPERMODEL COUNTERQUOTE: “Forrest Gump’s mother had a lot of catchy sayings. I never really understood any of them. Life is not like a box of chocolates. Life is more like a wad of gum stuck to the bottom of your favorite pair of shoes. The more you try to clean up the mess, the stickier it becomes.”          Ronda Thompson (1955-2007)         American novelist        In her novel Confessions of a Werewolf Supermodel (2007)

THE CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN’S RANT: “Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you’re stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there’s nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there’s a peanut butter cup, or an English Toffee. But they’re gone too fast. The taste is fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. If you’re desperate enough to eat those, all you’ve got left is a — is an empty box, filled with useless brown paper wrappers.”        The “Cigarette Smoking Man”        The X-Files character played by actor William B. Davis        In a 1996 episode of the The X-Files TV series

TOM LEHRER’S VARIATION: “Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.”          Tom Lehrer        American songwriter and satirist         Part of his spoken introduction to the song “We Will All Go Together When We Go,” on the album An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer (1953). The lyrics of the song include the line: “Life is like a sewer / And I'm trying to wade through her.”

NEHRU’S VARIATION: “Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism. The way you play it is free will.”        Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964)        Prime Minister of India from 1947 to 1964        This popular quote appears to have first been attributed to Nehru by Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review, in a 1967 issue of that venerable periodical.

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Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable…

THE LINE THAT LED TO A FAMOUS MISQUOTE: “Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us...comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable.”         Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936)         American journalist and humorist         Dunne put this quote in the mouth of “Mr. Dooley,” the witty Irish character who was featured in Dunne’s popular newspaper column relating what Dooley said on various topics in a heavy Irish brogue. The line was first used in a column titled “Mr. Dooley on Newspaper Publicity,” published in many US newspapers on October 5, 1902 and reprinted in the book collecting Dunne’s columns, Observations by Mr. Dooley (1902). Dooley’s remark led to many other quotes about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.         The full quote as Dunne wrote it is:         “Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, conthrols th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.”         The plain English “translation” is:         “The newspaper does everything for us. It runs the police force and the banks, commands the militia, controls the legislature, baptizes the young, marries the foolish, comforts the afflicted, afflicts the comfortable, buries the dead and roasts them afterward.”         Dunne’s quote is often misquoted as “The duty [or job] of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Indeed, that version has become a kind of motto for defenders of the free press. Ironically, Dunne’s piece was not meant as praise of the press. It’s actually a negative jab at newspapers who Mr. Dooley thinks print far too much minutiae about almost everything and everyone and pokes into the private lives of citizens far too much.         Mr. Dooley complains that, because newspapers regularly print gossip and photos about local citizens, “There are no such things as private citizens” anymore. Interestingly, many of his criticisms of newspapers sound similar to modern concerns about the internet and social media.

THE NEWSPAPER VERSION: “Mr. Brady, it is the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”         Actor Spencer Tracy, in the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind. Tracy, playing defense lawyer Henry Drummond, says the line to Fredric March, playing prosecuting attorney Matthew Harrison Brady.         The film is an adaptation of the 1955 play of the same name, a fictionalized account of the infamous “Scopes Monkey Trial.” Tracy’s famous line is not in the play, which was written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. The movie script based on the play was written by Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith. I suspect the famous line was created by Young, who was blacklisted as a Communist sympathizer during the McCarthy era and hired (secretly) by the film’s director Stanley Kramer. Young didn’t coin the saying. As noted in a post on the Quote Investigator site, a filler item in 1914 a newspaper in Danville, Kentucky said: “Mr. Dooley says the duty of the newspapers is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.” That was followed by many similar uses of this saying about newspapers that predate the movie Inherit the Wind, which premiered in London on July 7, 1960.

THE FAUX CLARENCE DARROW QUOTE: “The most human thing we can do is comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”         Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)         American lawyer and free speech activist         It’s interesting that many internet posts and some books published in recent decades attribute this quote to Darrow, the defense attorney in the real life Scopes Monkey Trial. I couldn’t find any evidence that Darrow ever said or wrote such a line. I think it’s probably a faux quote created after the movie line in Inherit the Wind became famous.

THE FAUX WOODY GUTHRIE QUOTE: “It’s a folk singer’s job to comfort disturbed people and to disturb comfortable people.”         Woody Guthrie (1912-1967)         American folk musician and liberal political activist         This line is widely attributed to Guthrie in internet posts, but never with any specific source. As far as I can tell, he never actually said it.

THE CHRISTIAN VERSION: “The business of the ministry is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”         Frederick W. Burnham (1871-1960)         Pastor in Richmond, Virginia         In a March 1944 editorial in a Latrobe, Pennsylvania newspaper, Burnham attributed this saying to an unnamed “young minister.” It’s an early version of many quotes that have applied the “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” concept to Christianity and Christian ministries.

THE ELEANOR ROOSEVELT APPLICATION: “No woman has ever so comforted the distressed – or distressed the comfortable.”         Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987)         American author, Conservative Republican politician and US Ambassador              Luce used this line speech in which she praised Eleanor Roosevelt at a May 1950 event, during which the left-leaning, Democratic widow of President Franklin D. Roosevelt received an award for her service to the poor and “underprivileged.” Back then, political opponents actually said some nice things about each other.

J.K. GALBRAITH’S VARIATION: “In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.”         John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)         Canadian-born economist, public official, and liberal activist         From his 1989 commencement speech at Smith College, Massachusetts, titled “In Pursuit of the Simple Truth.” (Because London’s Guardian newspaper reprinted the speech on July 28, 1989, that is the usual citation for the source, rather than the commencement speech.)

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“Carpe diem.” (This one’s for you, Robin…)

THE PLUCKY LATIN QUOTE: “Carpe diem.” [Traditionally translated as “Seize the day.”]        Horace (Quintas Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 B.C.)        Roman poet        The famous phrase from Book I of his Odes (35 B.C.)        “Carpe diem” is one of the two most famous quotations from Horace’s Odes. The other is: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” (“It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”) Although the usual translation of “Carpe diem” is “Seize the day,” Latin scholars have pointed out that the more accurate translation is “Pluck the day.”          In fact, the phrase does come at the end of a poem that uses several pastoral and harvest-related metaphors. So, “pluck” is probably closer to the original literal meaning. Below is a longer section of the poem, translated to English:        “Ask not — we cannot know — what end the gods have set for you, for me;             nor attempt the Babylonian reckonings Leuconoë.        How much better to endure whatever comes,              whether Jupiter grants us additional winters or whether this is our last,             which now wears out the Tuscan Sea upon the barrier of the cliffs!        Be wise, strain the wine; and since life is brief, prune back far-reaching hopes!        Even while we speak, envious time has passed:             seize [pluck] the day, putting as little trust as possible in tomorrow!”          Regardless of variations in translation, the meaning of the poem and the famous phrase is clear. Live life to the fullest every day and take advantage of the pleasures and opportunities each day offers. Or, as Warren Zevon put it: “Enjoy every sandwich.”

RIP, ROBIN. YOU WERE INDEED EXTRAORDINARY… “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”        Robin Williams (1951-2014), as English teacher John Keating        His advice to his students in the movie Dead Poets Society (1989)        This quote comes at the end of a great sequence in which Keating says to his students:        “‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.’ The Latin term for that sentiment is Carpe Diem... Seize the day. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Why does the writer use these lines?...Because we are food for worms lads. Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die. Now I would like you to step forward over here and peruse some of the faces from the past. [Old photos of previous students.] You’ve walked past them many times. I don't think you've really looked at them. They’re not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you. Their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because you see, gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Carpe. Hear it? Carpe. Carpe Diem. Seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.”

STEVE ZAHN’S VERSION: “Carpe poon, man.”        Steve Zahn (as the character Wayne)        In the movie Saving Silverman (2001), after seeing a good looking woman in a bar        Thanks to fans of the movie, “Carpe poon” has now made it into the Urban Dictionary

ERMA BOMBECK’S VERSION: “Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.”        Erma Bombeck (1927-1996)        American humorist        Quoted as one of “Erma Bombeck’s 10 Rules To Live By” in David Wallechinsky’s Book of Lists

SKYLER’S VERSION: Question on a school test: “Define carpe diem.” Skyler’s answer: “Fish of the day.”         In the Shoe cartoon strip, by Jeff MacNelly, October 8, 2010

TEDDY ROOSEVELT’S VERSION: “Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.”        Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt (1858-1919)        26th President of the United States        Teddy’s advice to his children, quoted in David McCullough’s book Mornings on Horseback (1981)

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