Fire bad! But why?
May 22, 2017 11:05 AM Subscribe
Prompted by watching a lot of kids' movies with ours lately, my partner and I got to talking about the history of the "monster voice" - you know, the stilted, guttural, sometimes confused and pitiful "Frankenstein" voice that shows up in variants everywhere from Cookie Monster to Ludo in Labyrinth. The obvious point of origin seems to be Boris Karloff's 1931 interpretation of Frankenstein's monster, but are there earlier examples? Has anyone ever written seriously about this?
Boris Karloff doesn't speak in Frankenstein. He does growl.
I would imagine combining a dog growl with speaking has been used for certain monstrous characters since before recorded audio.
posted by andrewzipp at 11:43 AM on May 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
I would imagine combining a dog growl with speaking has been used for certain monstrous characters since before recorded audio.
posted by andrewzipp at 11:43 AM on May 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Boris Karloff doesn't speak in Frankenstein. He does growl.
Right you are - I guess I was thinking of Bride of Frankenstein from '35.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:47 AM on May 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Right you are - I guess I was thinking of Bride of Frankenstein from '35.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:47 AM on May 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Does some of the 'monstrousness' itself come from the juxtaposition of a very young child's developmental speech pattern and a huge, powerful body? It's both unexpected, and immediately implies that this being may not be able to fully understand or control their own strength.
posted by Ausamor at 1:42 PM on May 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Ausamor at 1:42 PM on May 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
re:your post title, I always associated that particular phrase with cavemen, not monsters -- and a quick Subzin search shows the earliest use of that phrase in this context was a Buffy the Vampire episode ("Beer Bad") where the gang gets turned into Neanderthals.
(Well technically it was a callback to Buffy's "fire bad, tree pretty" joke from an earlier episode, but that was more referring to being dazed and confused rather than prehistoric.)
posted by Rhaomi at 1:29 AM on May 23, 2017
(Well technically it was a callback to Buffy's "fire bad, tree pretty" joke from an earlier episode, but that was more referring to being dazed and confused rather than prehistoric.)
posted by Rhaomi at 1:29 AM on May 23, 2017
Saturday Night Live transcript from 1987.
"Fire bad" definitely didn't start with Buffy.
posted by lore at 7:52 PM on May 23, 2017
"Fire bad" definitely didn't start with Buffy.
posted by lore at 7:52 PM on May 23, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Cranialtorque at 11:15 AM on May 22, 2017