The Nitwits
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By DEI
Posted on: Nov 12th 2008 at 8:38 PM |
Replies: 1
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Wasn't there a cartoon on TV in the early 70's called "The Nitwits"? It had Arte Johnson's and Ruth Buzzi's characters from Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, from the skits they did where he was an old lecher and she was an offended Plain Jane. Typically, she would sit on a park bench, and he would come along and make suggestive comments, whereupon she would whack him on the head with her pocketbook. After the third whack, he would keel over with a final comment. I seem to recall in the cartoon, however, that they could levitate and fly. My memory is hazy, and it may be for good reason. (I mean, besides my advanced senility.)
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Posted by: Don Markstein
Posted on: 2008-11-13 at 04:45:23 AM
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Not according to the IMDB. It lists a show called The Nitwits in 1987, but it wasn't animated, originated in The Metherlands, and didn't have Arte Johnson or Ruth Buzzi in it. There's apparently a good reason for your memory of it to be hazy, but advanced senility doesn't seem to be it.
The IMDB adds that it was the greatest flop you never heard of.
(By the way, almost totally off topic, The Netherlands is involved in the origin of the word "nitwit", which started as an ethnic slur. One would think it involved "wit", or brains, the size of a nit, or louse egg [which is where we get "nitpicking"], but no. At some point several hundred years ago, there were a lot of Dutch refugees in England, where the people, even then, would talk slowly, distinctly, and loud at people with language problems, just as English speakers have always done. The poor people being yelled at that way could only reply "I don't know", which in their language, was "Niet Weet". Hence, they became known as "nitwits".)
(Don't mind me. I read a lot of books on etymology in my youth.)
Quack, Don
The IMDB adds that it was the greatest flop you never heard of.
(By the way, almost totally off topic, The Netherlands is involved in the origin of the word "nitwit", which started as an ethnic slur. One would think it involved "wit", or brains, the size of a nit, or louse egg [which is where we get "nitpicking"], but no. At some point several hundred years ago, there were a lot of Dutch refugees in England, where the people, even then, would talk slowly, distinctly, and loud at people with language problems, just as English speakers have always done. The poor people being yelled at that way could only reply "I don't know", which in their language, was "Niet Weet". Hence, they became known as "nitwits".)
(Don't mind me. I read a lot of books on etymology in my youth.)
Quack, Don
