Imagine the following…
A young man is walking down the street. He’s lost deep in thought. Without warning, he finds himself in an embarrassing situation. He’s walked face first into a telephone pole. Or perhaps he’s stepped into a gutter full of dirty water. Or, even worse, he’s inadvertently shared his thoughts with the world at large. Confessed his love to a trash can. Unleashed his frustration on the sky above.
But he’s not alone. Nearby, a surprised child, out for a stroll with his mother, points and calmly inquires, “Momma, what’s wrong with that man?” His mother, frightened for her child’s safety, grabs him by the arm, whispers, “Don’t look at him,” and scurries away. The audience laughs and the young man hangs his head in shame. Cue eyecatch.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always wondered… what’s the origin of this gag?
My money is on “personal experience.”
Agreed. It’s not so much funny, but awkward and true, from getting caught in doors to tripping on absolutely nothing to suddenly standing around in bewilderment trying to remember your shopping list.
I’d say real life experience plus a little bit of social commentary.
It just makes nice comedy when someone, presumably more older and supposedly more mature is exhibiting his fantasies and the kid is there as a mark of an innocence lost.
Happened to me at least once ^^;
Love the illustration of Komaki.
The whole “Hey there’s a weirdo over there mummy!” “Don’t look kid you’ll catch something” thing so overused I’d hesitate to call it a gag anymore.
I don’t know if there’s an ‘origin’ to it. Trying to find the first instance when someone did this in an anime/manga would probably be harder than trying to find the first instance someone used the word anime.
Yeah, I thought this kinda thing really does happen in real life. Especially the part when ‘mommy’ tells her boy that “it’s not nice to stare”. It really IS not nice to stare, even if it’s a weird guy screaming “Eureka!” to a pile of dog poo.
I think everyone just thinks it’s funny to see people completely humiliated. But yea, it’s not unbelievable that this could actually happen in the real world xD.
I remember being the kid at similar situation when I was very young. Population density of Seoul is very, very high, and you are bound to encounter someone in embarrassing situation in the street at least once or twice, every year. In my case, that other person looked like a thug in organized crime, so the statement ” don’t look ” was more for our safety, not for the etiquette.
must be some 70s sitcom thing.
Great humiliation trope, self-humiliation subtype. Related to the “did I think that, or say it?” gag where someone is so self-absorbed that they aren’t sure whether they have been talking aloud — until they see the aghast expressions of people nearby.
I actually witnessed one of these firsthand (sans the mother/child ending) in high school. I was talking with some classmates in a courtyard area, which was covered by a canopy held up by several large concrete columns. An underclassman passing nearby, obviously deep in thought and not watching where he was going, walked directly into one of the columns. The impact was so sudden and we were so astonished that conversation immediately stopped. But what made it almost surreal was that he bounced off the column, spun 180 degrees, and almost without breaking stride, continued to walk in the opposite direction! I can imagine he was utterly mortified (and probably dazed) and didn’t want to show any reaction to what had just happened.
I know that I’ve experienced something like that first-hand, from the POV of the poor schmuck. I was walking down the street, chatting with a friend, tripped on a crack in the sidewalk, stumbled forward, and wound up going arse-over-teakettle, courtesy of a City of Chicago garbage can. Did a freakin’ somersault, right over the top.
Mom and son, waiting for a crossing signal to change, were right nearby. Did mom ask if I was okay? Nope, she turned her kid away from me.
My friend, of course, was laughing uncontrollably. I, on the other hand, was wondering just how I got where I was and what was that red stuff streaming down my glasses anyway?
So… I think it’s a city thing, to be honest. Probably not a lot of opportunities for a “dreamer” to space out like that in the rural areas.
“The whole “Hey there’s a weirdo over there mummy!” “Don’t look kid you’ll catch something” thing so overused I’d hesitate to call it a gag anymore.”
Has it become an annoyance to you now? :P
I always wonder how come the mother never asks the person if they were okay. Do they think it serves them right for not paying attention?
It is my experience that you rarely see moments of public altruism in big city. People are too busy, expect someone else to do the right thing, or just don’t want to care about anything that doesn’t concern them. When I tripped and fell walking to my class in West Lafayette, Indiana, many people, even some mother/child combos, came to check out my condition: mothers usually tell their child to not run away or drag the child with them while walking towards me. In Atlanta or Los Angeles, I would be lucky not to be spit upon if I trip and fall.
Or perhaps we didnt notice that kind of things and they happen a lot of times…
Some people might be afraid that it’s actually a trap to steal your pocket. I guess that’s rarely the case but if it just happens to you, you’ll likely never to try help someone in the same situation again and when you tell others about it, they might feel the same way. I think the desire to help someone is rarely truly altruistic, it’s more like an unwritten social contract, as old as civilization itself: If you help people, they will eventually help you. As others have written, this still works in rural areas but in urban areas anonymity changes how people see themselves in the context of others. The more people there are, the less likely it is that anyone helps you, often also because they assume there are enough people around, so anyone else could jump in. If everybody thinks that way, obviously nothing will happen. Further, if everyone sees who anyone else passes by without helping, they feel even less bad about it thanks to group dynamics. Another important factor is that people usually avoid getting into situations they are unfamiliar with. Even if objectively it doesn’t make sense, these situations can be quite scary. After all that’s why it’s called civil “courage” and not “civil implicitness”.