I stumbled across this little exchange today, that sounds extremely famliar from a long time ago….
Wanna buy a duck?
A what?
A duck!
Does it quack?
Of course it quacks, it’s a duck!
For the life of me, though, I can’t pin down where in the world it comes from. Doing a Google search doesn’t help much either — it pops up around the ‘net, but never attributed to any one thing, always just listed as an ‘in joke’ or as a party game or some such.
Anyone else remember this, or have any idea what it’s from? It’s stuck in my head and driving me mildly batty….
Well, thanks to a slow day at work, Google, and the assistance of one of my co-workers, I may have answered my own question.
It appears that the “Wanna buy a duck?” phrase originated with 1930’s comedian Joe Penner. There’s not a ton of information about him out there, but I did find this:
Penner, Joe (1904-1941): Penner had a brief but meteoric career and radio in the 1930s, briefly achieving fame with a series of catch phrases such as “Wanna buy a duck?” and “You nah-sty man!” One of the earliest roles of Mel Blanc on national radio was as the voice of Goo-Goo, the duck that figured in the catch-phrase above.
Egghead, the forerunner of Elmer Fudd, was based in part on Joe Penner, using some of his mannerisms (most notably in ‘Daffy Duck and Egghead’ (Avery, 1938)). The little brother rabbit Elmer in ‘My Green Fedora’ (Freleng, 1935) laughs like Penner. Vocal actor Dave Weber seems to have provided Penner-like voices for a number of WB cartoons in the 1930s.
(found on this page)
The phrase also turned up some hits on the Marx Brothers, mostly for this exchange:
Groucho: “Now here is a little peninsula, and…eh…here is a viaduct leading over to the mainland.”
Chico: “Why a duck?”
I also found the following exchange during my hunt — I think it was also a Marx Brothers quote, but now I can’t find it again:
I think I wanna buy a duck.
What’cha gonna do with a duck?
What would anyone do with a duck?
Anyway, it looks like Joe Penner gets the original credit. The final result that started this whole thing off is probably either from Joe himself during one of the times he used it, or it just sprang up at some point through the years and has since been floating around the public conciousness for a while (as evidenced by the number of times it pops up across the web when you do a Google search for it).
Still, it was an interesting search. While I was talking about it with Diane (one of the ladies I work with, and the one who pointed me in the direction of the Marx Brothers), she pointed out that there’s really no reason it should make sense, or even have anything connected to it beyond the “Wanna buy a duck?” phrase. She used to be in the Navy working on airplanes, and she said that quite often when they’d take the cowl off the plane, the phrase “I like trains” would be inscribed somewhere inside the cowl. Why? Who knows? It’s just one of those things where the ‘why’ doesn’t really matter.
My dad, who was born in 1902, would put on his hat and coat and prepare to leave the house. When I asked him where he was going, he said he had to “see a man about a duck”. I think that this expression may have been a throwback to one of Joe Penner’s lines about a duck.
I am 77 years old and can remember Joe Penner as a comic radio persaonality…..he wore a brown derby and a tightly-fitted jacket. He appeared at the regend theater in Paterson, New Jersey,live, on stage. Indeed, the “wanna buy a Duck” query can be attributed to him. Also, his group would concoct a comical weekly adventure such as a trip to the darkest part of Africa– and they would listen to the natives chanting–‘ah-ba goo-ga-a- ba goo-ga” which would make the attendant stdio audience laugh heartily–as wellas us at home. The show came to us on Sunday evenings. I do recall that he appeared in several movies also. He died “young” and his departure from the scene was a dissapointment to our neighborhood.
Respectfully
Allan Arnowitz
The catch phrase ‘you na-sty man’ was not from Joe Penner, but from Joe BESSER, who later replaced Shemp Howard as one of the Three Stooges.
It’s possible the “nasty man!” catchphrase originated with someone else, but I have quite a few copies of Joe Penner shows on tape and he uses the phrase often, so maybe he popularized it and that’s why it’s usually attributed to him.
I just found this string on Google whilst searching for something else. My grandfather apparently wrote the “wanna buy a duck” and many other lines with and for Joe Penner. His name was Heinz Rubel, but his pen name was Hal Raynor and was for years a team with Joe Penner, writing and playing skits and songs on the air.
Thank you for this funny string of comments about “Wanna buy a duck.” I like this site. I found my earlier message posted above and thank you for the link to my page. The link I entered here
http://www.invitesite.com/pharm/heinz_dorothy.html
shows a picture of my grandfather around when he wrote skits for Joe Penner, including the “Wanna buy a duck” routine.
It is funny that you asked your co-worker who was in the Navy. My grandfather was also in the Navy in WWI.
I do understand the “I like trains” comment, too. Funny thing, that.
Riding in a dangerous airplane for the war, must have seemed a much worse Idea than the “safe” trains of the time…
Plus most trains were taken as transport for furlough or medical discharge…
My wife,Essie,and I remember Joe Penner very well. We use his catch phrases in our every day chatter..We wonder how did the old time comics put on their shows for years,remain popular and never tell an off color joke; Fibber Magee and Molly,Jack Benny,ad infinitum.? Essiented
I am leaving an updated post here because there is a new web site about Joe Penner here:
http://craighodgkins.com/joepenner
Thanks for the update, Scott!