This the title of his column:
Heavens to Murgatroyd: Mets Are Hurting
Already don't know what he's talking about? I don't really blame you. "Heavens to Murgatroyd" is one of Snagglepuss's catch phrases. That's right. Snagglepuss, the animated anthropomorphic pink mountain lion created in 1959. Some may argue that Snagglepuss is an evergreen character (Bugs Bunny is like twenty years older), but honestly, when was the last time you and your buddies threw around a "Heavens to Murgatroyd" while watching the game?
Better still, I'm 90% sure Chass is actually referring to the original use of "Heavens to Murgatroyd" -- you know what I'm about to say ... Bert Lahr, Meet the People, 1944. A movie you'd have to be over 70 to have seen in the theaters.
So that's the title. Maybe he gets fresher in the actual article? I bet he'll break out a T.I. lyric or something.
“What a revoltin’ development,” Jimmy Durante used to say.
First line. Jimmy Durante. Birthdate: February 10, 1893. 1893.
“Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into, Stanley,” Oliver Hardy used to say to his partner, Stan Laurel.
Very next line. Laurel and Hardy. Birthdates: June 16, 1890 and January 18, 1892.
Phenomenal. Murray's perfectly within his rights to write about 1920's pop culture. And of course, I know who Snagglepuss, Jimmy Durante, and Laurel and Hardy are. But taken all together, one right after the other ... it's simply magical. It's just never been clearer that he's a billion years old.
And then there's this:
Correction: Sept. 30, 2006
The On Baseball column yesterday about the Mets’ postseason chances without pitcher Pedro Martínez misattributed the quotation, “What a revoltin’ development.” It was Chester A. Riley’s catchphrase in “The Life of Riley,” a sitcom in the 1950’s, not Jimmy Durante’s.
Murray Chass is so old he can't keep his 50-year-old references straight. And re-read that paragraph again. What the hell is a reference to Chester A. Riley in "The Life of Riley" doing in an article about Pedro Martinez and the Mets in 2006?!
Labels: heavens to murgatroyd, mets, murray chass
