The joke about the dog - does your dog bite, no, <dog bites> etc... is not original. It's taken verbatim from a Jack benny radio show several decades before. It's always interesting how material that at one time most people would recognize becomes a free lunch for writers years later who remember it.
I wonder just how much blake edwards 'borrowed' from other sources forgotten by the public.
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i don't know that the scene was even meant to be "stolen" from Benny, though... Sellers and Edwards had a love for classics like Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy, and Peter Sellers' whole career really started because he loved to impersonate people he heard on the radio... if anything, it's quite possible that this scene is intended to be a tribute to Benny... it's certainly not the only scene from a Panther film to refer to classic material! for instance, according to Edwards, the scene where the old man is crossing the road in the first Panther film is a tribute to Hitchcock's 'To Catch a Theif', which features a very similar scene; similarly, Clouseau's disquise at the masquerade ball in that same film is a tribute to Charlie Chaplin in 'The Idle Class'...
these sorts of tributes, IMO, seem less like heartless stealing, and more like harmless inside jokes... it's a different matter entirely when you compare them to some of the slaughterings of classic material that Hollywood churns out so often nowadays, at least!
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shareI believe Buster's original stuff was "stolen" more than any other actor, comedian, stunt man, writer or director in film history!
shareI personally think that the "that's not my dog" gag isn't anywhere near as funny as the original bits that Sellers gave us as Clouseau. Yet the dog joke seems to be the one that everyone remembers the most. Filthy swines! :D
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At the White House as football game is interrupted. "What's a Clouseau?"
So many little tidbits like that. Edwards so crafty. He could bring together
a great mix of writers and actors then amp it up. The rapid timing of gags
makes it worth many viewings. He uses the blade in boot gag twice (Bond villain)
only to then adds on the woman with twin blades popping out of blouse.
The guys shoot each other in john. It's like Airplane! did bit later.
"What's the score?" first thing out of Ford's mouth when awoken in bed.
Rem comment at the time about Gerald having played football too long without
a helmet.
Long live Olga....
It's original to me. I'd never heard or seen of a gag like this before and it was damn hilarious. One of the best parts of the movie.
shareThere's a good chance that the joke pre-dates Jack Benny. It's classic vaudevillian / music hall humour and that's where Benny learned his trade - he probably 'borrowed' it from an earlier comedian.
shareWho cares Peter Sellers is hilarious in this scene you hater!
shareEvery dog bites, it's just that WHAT they bite is not always the body of a human being, and it is the human's responsibility to make sure the dog only bites the appropriate things, like the food the human gives the dog.
It's not the dog, it's the human behind the dog. These movies have TERRIBLE dog handlers, and in one of the movies (A Shot in the Dark, I think), a herding breed is not given a correction when it does its breed stuff - it attacks and focuses on the feet, as you can clearly see. It's like someone never corrected a sheep dog and just let them do whater it wants, and then they used THAT in this movie. These herding dogs always go for the feet, but if you let it go too far, it becomes dangerous, as this dog's clueless handler or owner clearly did.
It's painful to watch these dogs in these movies, but it's even more painful to see that no one ever gives any dog a proper correction.
I know, comedy and all, but it's still painful to watch. It doesn't matter if it's 'his dog' or not, no dog should ever bite a human being, and the dogs should always give a correction and proper followthrough, if they attempt to do something like that. It shouldn't matter WHOSE dog it is.
Also, it's a really stupid philosophy to think that a dog is the 'biting kind' or the 'non-biting kind', when it's REALLY the human behind the dog, and no dog should EVER bite humans, it's not a matter of what the dog chooses to do, it's what the human chooses to do or not do.
There are no dogs that either 'bite or not', there are just dogs with rules, boundaries and limitations, and dogs without rules, boundaries or limitations. The latter ones can bite, because no one ever corrects them, the former ones don't bite, because they are given proper corrections. It's not a matter of what kind of DOG it is, it's the matter of what kind of HUMAN handles the dog.
So instead of asking 'does your dog bite', he should be asking 'are you a good dog handler' or something like that.
Ha, sounds as tho you are peddling the All Dogs Go to Heaven card.
While I can't attest to the human relationship w/ dog behavior much, I know realistically training can prove to vary wildly and you seem to get certain breeds that may sense another's attack and respond by biting.
Anyhow I barely remember the scene, both this and Revenge had too many skits replaying the Inspector's concept over. They start sophisticated yet where they go from there you can speculate.