[edit] Thank you, chef! But our reference is in another castle.
Strong Bad's greeting, "it's-a me! The chef-a!" is a play on Mario's famous line, "It's a-me, Mario!".
From: Date Nite
Posted on: 16:51, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Arguments for:
- The line is very similar, with the replacement of "Mario" by "the chef-a".
- The Brothers Chaps are notorious Nintendo fans, and the extremely popular SMB64 is very likely a game they know inside and out.
- The line format "It's-a me, #####" is most prominently used either by or as a reference to Mario, especially the opening to SM64.
- Why would Strong Bad say "It's Me, the Chef"? Adding -a to words is a stereotypical accent, but choosing the phrase "It's-a Me!" is a clear reference to Super Mario 64.
- I think this is a reference. It was pretty much the first thing that came to mind when he said it.
Arguments against:
- Strong Bad is playing the part of a stereotypical Italian; adding "-a" to the ends of his words is not specific to Mario.
- Specifically, he's playing a stereotypical waiter at an Italian restaurant, as implied by Marzipan's line about how it's a French restaurant and Strong Bad's comment that he didn't research the part too well.
- Possible, but not necessarily, and kind of a stretch.
- TTATOT plain and simple. It's a stereotypical italian joke, not specific to mario.
- Strong Bad has used the "-a" style of speaking several times before in previous toons. While this is the first time I can think of where he's specifically tried to make himself sound Italian, none of these instances have sounded enough like Mario to be worthy of a reference. Strong Bad also attached the unnecessary "-a" sound to the ends of several other words within the context of this "reference," which seems to indicate that he was only making a poor attempt to sound Italian.
- I agree, it's TTATOT. The phrase "It's-a me" may be a slight nod to Mario (though, in honesty, how else should he introduce himself? "It is-a I-a, the chef-a?"), but not a reference.
- An old radio program called "Life With Luigi" or similar, had an Italian immigrant who often said a very similar "It's-a Me, Luigi."
Additional comments:
- See original discussion here.
- I added in the bit about SMB64 because I believe that that's the first game it appeared in; also, this line is featured very prominently when you first turn the game on (see here). If somebody knows more than me about this, please adjust the fact accordingly.
- Actually, Mario's voice was assigned before SMB64 by the animated cartoon series. Not an exact match, but close enough.
- Some not-very-scientific statistics: Google'ing for the phrases "it'sa me" or "it's a me" returns about 79,700 hits combined. Repeating the search with the same criteria plus pages without the word "mario" gives 36,000.
- Anybody siting N64 is definitely not old to remember The Super Mario TV show from the late eighties that popularized this Mario line, way before Super Nintendo even came out!
- Ooh, good to know. I remember the show, but I didn't remember him saying that line. Well, I removed the SMB64 part — that's not the issue at hand anyway.
- The Super Mario Bros Super Show, despite being the first to use a voiced Mario, never used the term; it's first appearence was in SMB64. Not an arg pro or con, just a statement
- I honestly think that there's a pretty evident similarity, and that anyone who watches the cartoon could easily realize that and arrive at the possibility that TBC may have intended the phrase to be a reference. While the similarity's there, it's extremely evident simply by watching the cartoon, and there's no way to assume that it's a reference. On the basis of both these facts, the alleged reference simply doesn't seem worthy of mention.
- These two 'facts' seem to be in direct contradiction. How can something that is unprovably a reference be "extremely evident." Moreover, how is something that is "extremely evident" not a direct and viable reference.
- Did you even read what I just said (or wrote, rather)? The similarity is evident. That it's actually a reference, however, is highly doubtful.
Proposed revision:
"It's-a me!" is a form of speech generally used to stereotype Italian speaking.
Arguments for:
- Since most of the people thought that it was more related to Italian speaking than Mario, this revision should focus more on that than the fact Mario said it.
Arguments against:
- Unremarkable.
- Takes away any form of notability.
Additional comments:
- Hmm, I was about to say it was too obvious, but then I remembered we explained French pronounciation on narrator... So now I'm neutral.
- I don't see any Fun Fact on narrator mentioning French pronounciation.
- Maybe it got del-et-ed... I should find why.
- This brings to mind two recent STUFFed Fun Facts. The reference was removed from a revision, leaving "...refers to a common stereotype..." or somesuch, which isn't noteworthy. If it's a common stereotype, everyone should *know* that, which means it's just explaining the joke.
- I don't think I've heard anyone say "it's-a me" except Mario (with the obvious exception of Strong Bad). At any rate, I didn't think it was a reference in the first place, common stereotypes aren't notable, and the stereotype is more the added "-a" sound anyway, rather than the specific phrase.
- This is even less fun fact worthy than the original.
- Strong Bad states he did not research the role of a italian chef, so he added an "a" vowel to make "it's-a me", "the chef-a" and "in the face-a". Those sentences uses the "a" letter three times, so it's not the phrase that is the stereotype.
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