For a good 15 years, no one was shooting more catchphrase free throws than Mike Myers. From “party on” to “donkey,” Myers was providing middle schoolers everywhere with a new vocabulary for responding to just about anything. It was a shagadelic time. Yet, despite his ability to unleash comedic earworms throughout the world, he does not plan them. At Vulture Fest this weekend, Myers explained he “never designed a catchphrase.” Instead, he just “likes how people talk,” and if there’s one thing people always say, it’s “Groovy, baby, yeah.” For example, one of his most enduring turns of phrase and the unofficial motto of cannibalistic Scottish henchmen everywhere, “Get in my belly,” was ad-libbed. As he accepted his honorary degree from Vulture, declaring the Love Guru a “Master of Culture,” Myers said, “Remember ‘Get in my belly?’ That was improv. It wasn’t’ Ladies and gentlemen, my next catchphrase.'”
As easy as it is to imagine Myers sitting down with his feather quill and scribbling, “Oh, behave,” on a tea-stained bit of parchment, that’s not how he works. Apparently, while at SNL, he learned the hard way not to put the catchphrase before the character. In the writers’ room, he and fellow catchphrase maestro Dana Carvey used to annoy Lorne Michaels by pitching catchphrase-focused comedians, eliciting a hardy “Fuck you” from Michaels. But, who praytell came up with Lorne Michaels’ catchphrase: “Ri-i-ight.” Do you want us to believe he improvised that? We will assume it was a Jim Downey creation until we hear otherwise.
English (US) ·