The Disgusting English Candy Drill

[Bryan Snyder]

That's the pun i understood, and proudly... got it when i read it the first
time (I'm still SO PROUD that i got one of Pynchon's jokes) but the one i
don't get is the this one... the Candy Drill... what is the pun on?

Weisenburger (sp?) the guy who wrote the companion... even says in his
description of the Frenchmen pun that the other elaborately set up pun is
the English Candy Drill.. but doesn't say what the Pun IS...

am I being really dense?? lol

Thanks though Monte!

On 3/14/07, Monte Davis <monte.davis at bms.com> wrote:
>
> Bryan Snyder wrote:
>
> > this phrase... what is the pun? I'm missing something.
>
> Hollander (at http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/jokespuns.htm ):
>
> 'The pun on "Forty million Frenchmen can't be wrong" is traceable to the
> 1927 song "Fifty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong" (Rose, Raskin and
> Fisher), popularized by Sophie Tucker, "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas."
> [also a movie w/ that title]The song satirizes the idea of the freedoms
> Americans were supposed to enjoy during the roaring twenties, freedoms
> circumscribed or forbidden by provincial convention (prudery or dress
> codes), by local laws (Statutes banning public displays of affection or
> allowing censorship) and by Federal Intervention (prohibition); and it
> offers as counterpoint the degree of freedom French society
> unflinchingly tolerated at the time (and does today), punctuating its
> assertions with the refrain "Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong." '
>
>
> If I recall correctly, "fifty" became "forty" -- and the line became a
> catchphrase -- in a misquotation by Texas Guinan, a movie actress and
> speakeasy owner, when she couldn't get permission to take a mildly sexy
> review w/chorus girls overseas.
>
>
>
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