Walk this way (humor)

A "Walk this way" sign on a brick building in Holt, Norfolk, indicating the way to the Holt Foot Clinic.

"Walk this way" is a recurrent pun in a number of comedy films and television shows. It may be derived from an old vaudeville joke. It refers to the double usage of "way" in English as both a direction and a manner.

One version of this old joke goes like this: A heavy-set woman goes into a drug store and asks for talcum powder. The bowlegged clerk says, "Walk this way," and the woman answers, "If I could walk that way I wouldn't need talcum powder!"[1]

As a popular visual gag, the joke has appeared in films, perhaps first in After the Thin Man (1936), with William Powell imitating the butler, and by director Mel Brooks,[2] including The Producers and Young Frankenstein.[3] According to Gene Wilder, who co-wrote the script of Young Frankenstein and played the title character, Brooks added the joke while shooting the scene, inspired by the old "talcum powder" routine.[4] Marty Feldman, who played the hunchback Igor in Young Frankenstein, later said:

It's a terribly old music hall joke. I did that to make the crew laugh and Mel Brooks said, 'Let's shoot it' [...] [Gene Wilder and I] both said, 'Mel, please take that out', and he left it in. He said, 'I think it's funny'. Audiences laugh at it. Gene and I were both wrong. Mel was right.

[5]

The Aerosmith song "Walk This Way" was inspired after the band went to see "Young Frankenstein" in 1974.[6]

References

  1. ↑ The Bridgemen's Magazine, Volumes 45-46, 1945
  2. ↑ Mazur, Eric Michael (2011). Encyclopedia of Religion and Film. ABC-CLIO. p. 92. ISBN 9780313330728.
  3. ↑ Mendelsohn, Daniel (21 June 2001). "Double Take". The New York Review of Books.
  4. ↑ Wilder, Gene (2005). Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art. Macmillan. p. 151. ISBN 9780312337063.
  5. ↑ Marty Feldman: Walk This Way, The Bookseller, September 13, 2011
  6. ↑ "Young Frankenstein: Mel Brooks, Aerosmith and 'Walk this Way' | Julia Santen Gallery – Charleston, SC". juliasantengallery.com. Retrieved 2018-06-07.

Further reading

  • Helitzer, Melvin (1992). Comedy writing secrets (13th ed.). Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer's Digest Books. p. 92. ISBN 0-89879-510-9.
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