Come in Tokyo

September 20, 2007 5:47 AM

Where does the practice of saying "come in Tokyo" while pretending to adjust a woman's breasts like an old radio set come from? I don't do this- but I know someone who claims it's a reference from some TV show or movie.
posted by Dag Maggot to Society & Culture (12 answers total)

I don't know, but it really, really sounds like it could be from M*A*S*H....
posted by JMOZ at 5:53 AM on September 20, 2007

It's usually "tune in Tokyo" and shows up in Girls Just Want to Have Fun. That might be the movie reference they're thinking about.
posted by PantsOfSCIENCE at 5:57 AM on September 20, 2007

I know I've seen it in a movie somewhewre, too, but can't come up with it...though it certainly sounds like something Mel Brooks might use...or Woody Allen.

As for any specific genesis...well...I have a feeling it's not as specific as you might think. It's probably just a co-mingling of a couple of things...

1) Back in ancient time, radios had analog tuners. This meant you had to zero-in on a station by turning a dial. On larger transmitter/recievers, the dials tended to be rather large, in order to afford more accurate fine-tuning.

2) Still back in ancient time, cross-continent broadcasting was brand new. In radio news programs, when they were switching to a remote broadcast from, say, London, it was quite common for the studio announcer to say something like "Come in London." Or Tokyo.

3) Given these two commonalities, it's not too big of a leap to imagine men of the era, while fooling around with their lady-friends, to give the women's breasts a playful twist (ala the dial on the radio) and say something silly...like "Come in Tokyo."

Later in life, said gentleman is a Hollywood writer and inserts this experience in his script. Hilarity ensues as people around the globe have a good "I thought I was the only one who did that." chuckle.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:00 AM on September 20, 2007

Yep, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." Jonathan Silverman tries to "tune in Tokyo" by telling a daffy blonde in a bar that she's going to help him, it's wartime, they need to transmit an urgent message to the allies. "So, put your hands on your head like this, and turn back and forth like this..." He makes the "beepbabeepbeepbeep" radio broadcast news noise and everything.

I mean, it could have happened like Thorzdad said, but as a cultural reference, it's from that movie.
posted by pineapple at 6:15 AM on September 20, 2007

Wasn't it in "Brighton Beach Memoirs"? I could have swon they used that line in some movie based on a Neil Simon play.
posted by GuyZero at 6:15 AM on September 20, 2007

I know I saw Megan Mullalley's character use that phrase (or something similar to it) in an episode of "Will & Grace".
posted by Wild_Eep at 6:50 AM on September 20, 2007

Sixteen Candles...amd I remembering this right?

Long Duck Dong ("the Donger") does this to his his new American GF.

Maybe I'm mistaken...
posted by Pecinpah at 8:30 AM on September 20, 2007

This is older than a 1985 film, I'm very certain. It may even go back to the 1950s. It's very much Borscht Belt humor and could have been in a movie (although probably not on television, though maybe Jack Parr or somebody could have gotten away with it).

In relation to Thorzdad's (2), radio stations like the BBC World Service used to be necessary and e.g. anywhere in the Pacific you would be able to receive long-range broadcasts from someplace like Tokyo (although the Beeb primarily used Singapore and Hong Kong).

So this was probably a common enough joke that I doubt (3) needed to happen. It was already a recognized cultural reference by the time the writers sat down together.

But I don't have proof, just a broad hunch and fuzzy memory.
posted by dhartung at 10:36 AM on September 20, 2007

I remember first hearing this sometime in grade school (Tune in Tokyo) and giggling incessantly about the anagram of those words.
posted by Phantomx at 12:16 PM on September 20, 2007

Acronym, not anagram. Unless you were giggling at the silliness of the phrases "Kitten on you" or "Untie knot, yo".
posted by team lowkey at 1:14 PM on September 20, 2007

GuyZero, I don't think it's in "Brighton Beach Memoirs." (Love that movie, though.)
posted by bassjump at 2:23 PM on September 20, 2007

My mother confirms that guys would do this to girls in high school, in the early fifties.

Interestingly, several of the Google Books results for "tune in tokyo" are fairly recent publications concerning sexual harassment in high schools.

Plus c'est le même chose.
posted by dhartung at 10:37 PM on September 20, 2007