"It's a play where something went wrong, 'Cause it's five hours, twelve minutes long. If you sit there, my friend, From beginning 'til end, Then your bladder better be strong!"
About this Quote
A roast disguised as a show tune, this rhyme doesn’t just complain about theater length; it ridicules a particular kind of cultural self-importance. Allan Sherman aims at the prestige production that mistakes endurance for artistry: the “something went wrong” isn’t a botched scene change, it’s the decision to make an audience sit through five hours and twelve minutes of solemn ambition.
The joke works because it collapses high culture into low, undeniable biology. By ending on the bladder, Sherman punctures the aura around “serious” art with a fact no program note can outwit. It’s a democratizing move: you don’t need refined taste to judge bloat; you just need a body. The singsong meter and neat internal timing (“five hours, twelve minutes”) mimic the clocklike tyranny of the performance itself, as if the line is already tapping its foot.
There’s also a sly intimacy in “my friend.” He’s not scolding from a lectern; he’s sharing a conspiracy with the listener, inviting them to admit what etiquette forbids: boredom, restlessness, resentment at being held hostage by cultural duty. In the early 1960s, when Sherman’s comedy records turned suburban living rooms into comedy clubs, that sensibility was potent. Postwar audiences were negotiating new tastes and new “shoulds.” This lyric gives them permission to laugh at the idea that suffering through art is a badge of sophistication.
The joke works because it collapses high culture into low, undeniable biology. By ending on the bladder, Sherman punctures the aura around “serious” art with a fact no program note can outwit. It’s a democratizing move: you don’t need refined taste to judge bloat; you just need a body. The singsong meter and neat internal timing (“five hours, twelve minutes”) mimic the clocklike tyranny of the performance itself, as if the line is already tapping its foot.
There’s also a sly intimacy in “my friend.” He’s not scolding from a lectern; he’s sharing a conspiracy with the listener, inviting them to admit what etiquette forbids: boredom, restlessness, resentment at being held hostage by cultural duty. In the early 1960s, when Sherman’s comedy records turned suburban living rooms into comedy clubs, that sensibility was potent. Postwar audiences were negotiating new tastes and new “shoulds.” This lyric gives them permission to laugh at the idea that suffering through art is a badge of sophistication.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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