Could any character have a more bland reputation than Steve Trevor? Lyle Waggoner will do that to you. It's the same reason my agent won't let Casper Van Diehn play me in "Sword of the Absorbascon: the Movie".
But it's undeserved, I tell you. Leaving aside Steve's ability to succesfully pull off outfits that even I, enlightened old P Street gay radical that I am, can describe in no other way than "faintworthily faggy", Steve is one of comics' greatest proponents of More Picturesque Speech. While you won't find him spouting Starman-villain-level oration, Steve is the unacknowledged master of the Expressive Exclamation.
- "Great Hounds of Hades!'
- "You poisonous snake!"
- "They'd have crushed me like a lemon squash!"
- "Say, that speed boat is headed straight for me!"
- "Great calamity kittens!"
- "Here's to *hic* bee-eeyutiful women!"
- "Black Horrors of Hades!"
- "Jittering junebugs!"
- "gog--ooch!"
- "This smoke is frightful!"
- "Great gadzooks!"
- "By the great horn spoon!"
- "Uh-uff-wha-glub!"
- "Great cannabalistic catfish!"
- "Great Caesar's ghost!" (Yes-- that's who Perry stole it from.)
- "By the nibbling Niagara!"
- "ugh-sput-t!"
I have been practicing saying "By the nibbling Niagara!" in the mirror for 30 minutes now, but haven't succeeded in finishing the phrase without laughing yet...
9 comments:
These are especially funny if you imagine Steve Trevor being played by Paul Lynde. Even funnier if you imagine Rock Hudson!
Whoever you are, you have completely ruined Steve Trevor for me forever.
God bless you.
Scip, that was me! Sorry, I forgot to sign my name in.
No one can EVER ruin Steve Trevor for me.
Blistering blogposts! I speak like that all the time! Must be common amongst Steves!
Gog-ooch? Is that a lake in Scotland?!
Paul Lynde as Steve Trevor?! Yoiks. Now I'm imagining Uncle Arthur zapping himself up a vintage military uniform for yuks, only to have Wonder Woman show up and tell him she needs his help and yank him, protesting, off-camera.
Not that Wonder Woman ever needed a man's help for anything, of course.
Alternatively, he could be in the Center Square. Contestant Diana: "Major Steve Trevor to cockblock, please."
If I exert a mighty mental effort and block out Ariel's Paul Lynde idea, the phrasing of the quotes gives me a completely different one: Steve Trevor played by Snagglepuss, in some sort of bizarre Hanna Barbera comics parody. As Wonder Woman swoops in and lassos him just in time to save him from whatever horrible fate the bad guys have in store, he could even say, "Exit . . . stage up!"
I rather like "Great Calamity kittens". Just flows off of the tongue.
I had no idea the extent to which Steve could turn a phrase. It does explain why Steve was killed off in 1968; the editors found out he had been ghost-writing dialogue for the Batman television show!
Steve Trevor's pretty good, but he's not the only master.
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