The Story of “How About Never” (2014) | Hacker News Reader

The Story of “How About Never” (2014)

newyorker.com

66 pointswalterbell16 comments

I have the book (memoir) that this article is about. It's a fun read (yes it mentions the Seinfeld episode about how incomprehensible some of the cartoons are); my favourite part is the chapter about the New Yorker cartoon caption contest, which mentions difficulties judging it, things that don't work, and the first/only celebrity to win it (Roger Ebert, https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/the-new-yorker-no-the... https://www.rogerebert.com/features/yes-i-won-the-new-yorker... https://www.rogerebert.com/features/many-of-my-losing-entrie...)

Okay it’s not Ebert’s but I have to say that “O.K., let's slowly lower in the grant money” from that first link is nearly Gary Larson-tier humor, IMO.

It's up there with On The Internet Nobody Knows You'e A Dog. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...

Not sure he can claim the phrase. On cursory glance, can find the phrase in multiple books prior to the publication of the cartoon, using the same phrase. Seems it was already in the vernacular.

1986: "How about the afternoon?" "How about never?”

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Wild_Nights/IaAA0LV0zWk...

1981:

there had to be someone else in the whole school he could talk to besides her. "How about never?" She turned back to her notes and didn't even notice when Harry left the room.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_New_Voice/4pQSCfcy4...

It looks like you're talking about just the phrase “how about never?”, but the full text of the cartoon—the quote attributed to him—is:

> No, Thursday's out. How about never—is never good for you?

It's the whole second sentence that is funny/memorable, and when he says that the phrase is entrenched in culture, that's the part that is meant, e.g. with the quoted “They said to the president, How about never? Does never work for you?”.

(BTW in case it's not obvious from the article, when the title says The Story of “How About Never” it means the story of the cartoon known by that name, not the story of the phrase itself.)

I got to help with his talk at Google:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kogikw3InpY&t=4s

That's Udi Manber introducing him. They knew each other, somehow.

Such a perfect cartoon.

It ends with a broken link to a paywalled video of what might be an interesting video. There must be a cartoon in there somewhere...

https://web.archive.org/web/20220622080307/https://www.cbsne...

That's the comic? It's completely cliche and uninspired.

Sorry to be so blunt--i just don't see the appeal.

Things become cliched through repetition. The _first_ occurrence by definition _isn't_ cliched, since it's the thing all the others were repeating.

Of course this isn’t really monumental, but it can be hard to understand history if you’re looking at it through a modern lens. Humor was different, and this phrase was not in the lexicon like it is now. It was fresher then.

The cliché part is due to its enormous popularity. As the article points out, after the cartoon was published, the phrase became part of the common lexicon. Hence, your view of it being cliché.

That's like a friend's reaction to seeing Casablanca: "Everybody is speaking in clichés!"

Or Every Shakespeare play. “Out, Out damn spot.”

The dialogue was original to the film, but in terms of plot and characters, Umberto Eco actually thought that Casablanca was full of clichés, and that this was the secret of his success: he titled his essay “Casablanca, or, The Clichés are Having a Ball” (1994), and wrote “Two cliches make us laugh. A hundred cliches move us.” https://biblioklept.org/2013/05/26/casablanca-or-the-cliches...

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