IHWTH: Willie & Frankie

Speaking last week with my brother, I realized the relative obscurity of my occasional references to I Hate When That Happens. I'll explain.

All too often I run into news stories so excruciating and incomprehensible they'd be absurd if they weren't true--stories of a failed suicide involving a nail gun, a husband who wakes up with a headache because his wife shot him, a woman with 3" of pencil embedded in her head for over fifty years.

"I Hate When That Happens" (IHWTH) is a reference to an old SNL bit (mid 1980s) by Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest (Spinal Tap, Best in Show, etc.). It consists of a couple of security guards, Willie and Frankie, played by Crystal and Guest.

The shtick is absurdist, two masochists take turns recalling the most painful personal experiences imaginable--pounding meat thermometers in their ears, etc. After each recollection, the other responds, "Oh! Ouch! I hate when that happens!"

Here's a transcript to one of the bits.

It's on Billy Crystal's disc Mahvelous!, which also means it's also available on music services such as Yahoo! Music, Rhapsody, etc.

The bit still makes me laugh. The real life analogues are incomprehensible.