Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B | 330 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT My Dinner With Awkward
By Couch Baron | Season 2 | Episode 3 | Aired on 2008.08.10
Don is in a movie theater, watching a black-and-white French film. Midge would be so proud!
Okay, I was going to leave it at that. With most shows I would have left it at that. But I figured with this show, there would be some real meaning wrapped up in the film choice. And I want you to know that while I don't mind spending time with Google doing research for these recaps when I feel it's warranted, trying to slog through Google France is a bit more effort than I normally feel obligated to expend. But what I found is this: While I couldn't identify the film itself, the narration, word for word, is from a lyric poem entitled Ballade Des Dames Du Temps Jadis," which translates as The Ballad Of The Ladies Of Yore and concerns a Frankish queen known as Bertha Broadfoot. The last ten lines on this page are what you hear the narrator speak, and as the page notes, one of them, "Mais où sont les neiges d'antan!," is the derivation of the line "Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?" which you might recognize from Joseph Heller's Catch-22. However, the words I find most relevant come right before the ones we heard spoken, to wit: "La royne Blanche comme ung lys, Qui chantoit à voix de sereine?" This translates as, "What befell the lily-white queen/Who sang with her voice like a bird?" Given Betty's alabaster skin and her nickname of "Birdy," I think you'll agree that the research was worth it. You'd better, anyway.