In the spirit of clichés that pop out of the mouths of Our Heroes with alarming frequency, despite the fact that they have become standing jokes for the audience (apparently nobody mentioned this to the script writers), our personal favorite in this house is “Stay in the car.”
On the NBC TV series “Chuck.” it’s a gag line. Unfortunately, on most shows it is supposed to be real dialogue and not cause hilarity … but it does. Every time.
I checked on Subzin, a movie database that lets you enter a piece of dialogue, then reports in how many and in the specific movies where you’ll find it. According to Subzin, “Stay in the car“ can be found in 356 phrases from 296 movies and series. Yet, they continue to use it.
Lethal Weapon 2: (1989)
- 00:34:01 Stay in the car.
- 00:51:47 Stay in the car.
- 01:16:29 Stay in the car.
- 01:16:34 Stay in the car? lt’s cold. You have no door.
- 01:17:50 Leo, l told you to stay in the car!
uses the line a lot.
Then, there’s Last Action Hero (1993), my favorite Arnold Schwarznegger movie in which the line is understood to be a cliché , which is more than you can say for most of the places you will hear it:
- 01:08:06 - Stay in the car. – No way. I’m coming with you.
- 01:08:11 How many times have you heard someone say, “Stay in the car” and the guy doesn’t?
- 01:08:19 Good point. I’ll stay in the car.
July 19, 2012 at 9:30 am
As a life long movie nerd/maven, I love the cliches one and all. They’re part of the celluloid love affair. I love them when they’re cleverly inserted in TV shows. But — like so many other things — clever is being replaced by obvious in too many cases. By the way, “Stinkin’ bodges” is uttered by the legendary Alfonso Bedoya in “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” not “High Sierra” where they head Bogie off at the pass. Get it? Got it? Good!!
July 19, 2012 at 9:51 am
Got it. Fixed..