In Popular Culture
Much use was made of the supposed properties of alum as a comedy gag in films, primarily in the 1920s and 1930s. In a typical situation it would be introduced by accident or intent into foodstuffs, with ingestion causing the victim's mouth to assume a tight pucker. Speech was usually difficult or impossible. Alum's use at the time as an astringent gargle for curing sore throats provided inspiration for the gag. In animation, cartoon physics could magnify the effect — a man or woman who ingested alum would learn that it caused his or her head to shrink and/or his or her voice to become several octaves higher. This gag was famously used on Sylvester Cat in 'I Taw a Puddy Tat' and 'Birds Anonymous,' and by Bugs Bunny, on Giovanni Jones, in the cartoon Long-Haired Hare.
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Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture is seductive; high culture is imperious.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead-drunk in the street, carried to the duke’s house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke’s bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince.”
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