Guys and Dolls/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Crowning Moment of Funny:
    • "These dice ain't got no spots on them--they're blank!" "I had the spots removed for good luck, but I remember where the spots formerly were."
    • "I'm REALLY sorry."
    • "I will add nothin' to what Sky said, except to say that there are many here, upon who, if they get outta line, I would squeal with pleasure."
    • "Adelaide's Lament" is an example of Crowning Music of Funny.
    • The following sequence:

Sarah: You who drink too much, you who gamble at cards and dice and horse racing. Let us help you not to lose your money in gambling dens and bookie joints.
Benny Southstreet: This doll has captured my attention.
Sarah: Let us give you the strength to stop your drinking, to stop your gambling!
Benny Southstreet: She has lost me.

    • And later:

Sarah: This may not be a church, but it is a mission! How dare you blaspheme!
Sky: How dare you misquote the Bible!

    • Adelaide and Nathan discussing their relationship, and the lies Adelaide's been telling her mother about it:

Nathan: Of course we'll get married, sooner or later.
Adelaide: Nathan, after fourteen years it's already too late to be 'sooner', and if it gets much later, soon it'll be too late to even be 'later'. Besides, I don't know what to do anymore about Mother.
Nathan: Mother? What about your mother?
Adelaide: There is something I haven't told you ... but my mother, back in Rhode Island, she thinks that we're ... that we're already married.
Nathan: How could she think such a thing?
Adelaide: Maybe because I wrote to her that we were already married.
Nathan: That would make her think so.
Adelaide: Well, in Rhode Island, people do not stay engaged for fourteen years, they get married!
Nathan: So how come it's such a small state?
Adelaide: Futhermore, after about two years ... after about two years, we -
Nathan: We got a divorce?
Adelaide: We had a baby.
Nathan: You wrote your mother we had a baby?
Adelaide: Well, I had to, Nathan. Mother kept after me and after me and finally I just ran out of excuses.
Nathan: What type of baby was it?
Adelaide: It was a boy. I named it after you, Nathan.
Nathan: Thank you.
Adelaide: You're welcome.
Nathan: So tell me, what has Nathan Junior been up to all these years?
Adelaide: Well, right now he's in boarding school. As a matter of fact, I wrote Mother that he won the football game last Saturday.
Nathan: Wish I'd had a bet on it.
Adelaide: But Nathan ... That isn't all.
Nathan: You're not going to say we also have an Adelaide Junior?
Adelaide: ... All these years, Nathan. Mother believes in big families, and, and we had such an early start.
Nathan: Just give me the grand total.
Adelaide: ... Five.
Nathan: Adelaide! How could you do this to a nice old broad like your mother?!

    • Nathan and his buddies are listing possible places to hold the craps game:

Nathan: And things being how they are, the back of the police station is out!