"Oh, The Humanity"
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Morrison's phrase "Oh, the humanity" has become an American idiom, most often used in a satirical way to ridicule, diminish and trivialize emotional displays the speaker deems overly sentimental. It is also used to satirize heinous acts of world leaders.
The phrase has also been used in a cynical way to decry exaggerated responses to minor tragedies - examples being on the The Tainting of the Screw episode of Kenan & Kel, "Turkeys Away" episode of WKRP In Cincinnati, "The One Where Ross Can't Flirt" episode of Friends, The Red Green Show, Heathers, Wayne's World, "The Pothole" episode of Seinfeld, "Rainy Days" episode of Recess, on Mystery Science Theater 3000 by TV's Frank when Dr. Forrester blows up the Underdog balloon at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, "Cow Days", "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus" and "Simpsons Already Did It" episodes of South Park, the "Lisa the Beauty Queen" episode of The Simpsons, frequently said by Soun Tendo on Ranma ½, by Lou Diamond Phillips' character in The Big Hit, "Couch Potato" on "Weird Al" Yankovic's Poodle Hat album, Celebrity Deathmatch when Marilyn Manson kills Hanson and the Spice Girls, The Grinch, twice in the television series Monk (in season 2's "Mr. Monk and the Paperboy" when Adrian Monk accidentally wipes his hands with a garage rag and gets engine oil onto them, and in season 3's "Mr. Monk and the Kid" when he is changing a diaper), in the video game Spore if and when the player destroys the planet Earth, and in Series 6, Episode 5 of the British comedy Peep Show. In the AMC drama Mad Men, Jimmy Barrett uses the line "Oh the humanity" when ridiculing the wife of an Utz potato chip businessman. The phrase was also used in an English dub of the Japanese film Kiki's Delivery Service, in which a reporter cries the iconic phrase while a dirigible is swept away by a strong wind. In Season 4, Episode 15 of The Big Bang Theory, Dr. Sheldon Cooper uses the phrase "Oh the humanities!" to express dismay at the prospect of a large donation being made to the liberal arts instead of the physics department.
Morrison seems to have used the word "humanity" or "humanities" to indicate large numbers of people; he calls the crowd on the ground "a seething mass of humanity" before the crash. The band The Reverend Horton Heat recorded a track entitled "Aw, the Humanity," which contains the lyrics, among others referencing the crash of the Hindenburg as a humorous allegory for a public breakup, "Aw the humanity, though it really wasn't clear what that guy meant when he said 'Aw the humanity.'"
Read more about this topic: Herbert Morrison (announcer)
Famous quotes containing the word humanity:
“In verity ... we are the poor. This humanity we would claim for ourselves is the legacy, not only of the Enlightenment, but of the thousands and thousands of European peasants and poor townspeople who came here bringing their humanity and their sufferings with them. It is the absence of a stable upper class that is responsible for much of the vulgarity of the American scene. Should we blush before the visitor for this deficiency?”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)