‘Don’t panic’.
Dad’s Army:
Writers Jimmy Perry and David Croft loosely based this catchphrase of Cpl Jones on an elderly Lance Corporal Perry had served alongside in the Home Guard. “When Jones told everyone not to panic, it was usually the case that he was the only one panicking!” he said, recalling the gent.
Homer Simpson:
“annoyed grunt”, the noise ‘D’oh’ was inspired by Jimmy Finlayson, who played the comic foil in 33 Laurel and Hardy movies, but was shortened from his “D’ooooooh” because creator Matt Groening thought it suited Homer’s lazy character. slogan for an orange juice drink in the 1960s. Sullivan later pictured Del Trotter using it. Del was never short of a catchy quip, but lovely jubbly even entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2003.
Catherine Tate’s Lauren Cooper:
Catherine admits she came up with her character’s most famous catchphrase long before Lauren Cooper was born. She said it first in a live show, and decided she must use it because of how her audience reacted. As people left the theatre Tate could hear them
CRACKER Stu
Stu’s famous Crackerjack quip was surreal, and his explanation is too. He said: “I was on stage and there was a gang of women at the front, and one lady had a really infectious laugh. I just leant over, and said, ‘You’re enjoying yourself ’ and she said ‘I am, you bloody fool, I am’. I could feel the tension, I thought ‘What am I going to say?’ I ended up saying, ‘I’m glad you’re here. I’m so excited. I could… crush a grape!’ I don’t know where it came from.”
Tate as Lauren