Harry Anderson quoted by Goldberg

[erdnasephile]

Jonah Goldberg quotes an old bit from Harry Anderson in the first paragraph of his column this week.

http://www.unionleader.com/article/2013 ... /opinion02

(Moderators: my intent with this post is just to note an extended quote attributed to Harry in print. If, however, you feel this post strays too much into politics, please delete my post. Thanks!)

[Frank Yuen]

Actually,I think that is a Michael Davis quote:

[Richard Hatch]

Jonathan Neal Brown also used a very similar line in his vanishing cane routine (possibly still does).

[ProfessionalCape]

Ha! Leave it to Jonah to quote the wrong person...

[AJM]

In my view, the gag is an old one and usually involves an axe, hammer, brush etc etc depending on the 'story' involved...

e.g. I've been a road sweeper for the past 50 years and have used the same brush I was given when I started - it's had 14 new heads and 12 handles over the years but it's still as good as new.

Andrew

[erdnasephile]

Ha! Leave it to Jonah to quote the wrong person...

Actually, it turns out the concept (Known as Theseus' Paradox) is a lot older than I thought...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Was ... on.27s_axe

This article says:

"George Washington's axe (sometimes "my grandfather's axe") is the subject of an apocryphal story of unknown origin in which the famous artifact is "still George Washington's axe" despite having had both its head and handle replaced."

so maybe Harry Anderson really did use this story at one time, along with Davis, and others.

[Max Maven]

The gag is employed with perverse charm in the 2012 film John Dies at the End.

It was also the foundation of a celebrated blog by Penn Jillette regarding the rock band named (coincidentally) Molly Hatchet.