Verbal Tic / Live-Action Films

aka: Film

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• In The Apartment, the office workers in the film have the habit of adding -wise to words. At one point, Baxter even says "otherwise-wise."
• In the third Austin Powers movie, the eponymous Goldmember has a tendency of quoting a famous song, then whispering the copyright distractedly. "And that's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it! (KC and the Sunshine Band...)"
• Especially so with The Big Lebowski, as the BluRay comes with a bonus feature that counts every use of "Lebowski", "Dude", "Man", and "Fuck". Lebowski has the lowest count by far, though it's notably just short of 100 uses.
• In Blonde Crazy, Bert adds "hon-eh!" to a lot of his sentences.
• Kenneth Williams in the Carry On movies and elsewhere: "Nnnnnnnnoooooooooooo, stop messin' about!"
• In the Cisco Kid movies, Gordito's verbal tic is "I think".
• Mr. Deltoid, yes, from A Clockwork Orange, yes, has a tendency to insert the word yes into every sentence, sometimes at the beginning, yes, but often at the end as well, oh yes. It also begins to rub off on Alex, but more so in the book than the film.
• The antagonists in Dark City, (Mr Book, Mr Hand et al) tend to close most of their affirmative or interrogative phrases with Yes?. "We remember, yes?".
• The Dark Crystal: The Skeksis Chamberlain constantly makes a simpering "...mmmmMMMMMmmmmmm..." sound whenever he's thinking or reacting to something. The Garthim Master yells at him for "whimpering," causing the Chamberlain to intensify it.
• The uh, Joker, in The Dark Knight, can't, uh, seem to manage a sentence without using the word "uh," and enunciattting everythingggg.
• Dude, Where's My Car?:
  • "And... theennnnn."
  • "Zoltan!"
• In Fargo, stereotypical Minnesota verbal tics are mined for comedy. Natives frequently say things like "ya," "you betcha," and "you're darn tootin'!" Natives are so fixated on saying "aw geeze" when they're upset that Wade says it when he gets shot.
• Juan in A Fistful of Dynamite has his own verbal tic, ah?
• Goodfellas: Joey Two-Times. "I'm gonna go get the papers, get the papers."
• In The Good, The Bad, The Weird, Tae-goo has a verbal tic in the English subtitles, man.
• A Good Woman is Hard to Find: Lucy has a habit of repeating words she hears. Sometimes it's funny, other times... not so much.
• In Gunless, Larry has a habit of clicking his tongue three time between items when he is listing things; especially when he is trying to look worldly wise, such as when he is reeling off nicknames for the Montana Kid's Colt .45. The Kid gets exasperated and snaps at him to stop doing that.
• Guns, Girls and Gambling: The Blonde really likes use the poem "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe as a way of introduction, saying a part of it as she walks up to someone with a gun at the ready. Turns out that the poem has a deeper meaning than it first looks: it's part of her relationship with John Smith.
• The resident Straw Character, Max Brinker, in Heroes for Sale, does a “tisk, tisk, tisk” noise when he disapproves. Usually for an un-communist way of thinking.
• Vanheden from the Jönssonligan films has a tendency to add "du vet/vet'u" and "va?"^translation "you know/y'know" and "[...], right?" respectively to most of his sentences, as an exaggerated form of Stockholman speech patterns at the time. The second film exaggerates this to the point where one of his longer sentences contains four "y'know"s but after that he tones it down a bit, only using either of those phrases in about half his lines (including things that would translate to "Sure, y'know").
• Spoofed in the film Kung Pow! Enter the Fist, in which the villain Betty constantly ended his sentences with "nngggggg!" and love interest Ling said "Weeee-ooo-weee-ooo-weee!". (Both were done by the voice actor to fill in the gaps made by the lip movements.) By the end of one scene, they were conversing entirely in these sounds.
• George III, as seen in The Madness of King George, has one of these, wot wot? This is actually true of Nigel Hawthorne in general.
• Manos: The Hands of Fate: The Master woUlD noT apProVE. YoU canNot stAy. ThE MasTeR wOulD noT apProVe. NoT deAd tHe waY yOu kNoW iT. He iS wiTh uS aLwaYs. NoT deAd thE wAy yoU kNoW iT. He iS wItH uS alWayS.
• In M*A*S*H, Hawkeye Pierce has an odd habit of whistling during conversations. By the end of the film, Radar does the same.
• In The Master of Disguise, one of Pistachio's disguises is Mr. Turtle, who says "turtle" at the end of his sentences.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail: the Knights Who Say NI!.
• Mr. Popper's Penguins has Mr Popper's assistant, Pippi, a person who has a perchant for words prefaced with a P, concurrently with I Am Very British.
  • At the end, she falls for a man named Quint who does the same thing, but the letter Q instead of P.
• Zaneeta in The Music Man with her classic "Ye gods," and Tommy Djilas with "Great auk!" (In the stage version, Tommy's is "Jeely cly.")
• Mystery Road: As, Hugo Weaving puts it in a cast interview, his character, drug detective Johnno, "Has a habit of repeating, repeating words" which adds to his somewhat creepy nature.
• In Office Space there's Bill Lumburgh, Peter's hated boss, who litters his speech with smarmy verbal tics. He begins every conversation with a shallow, "What's happening?" He always tells workers to "go ahead" and do things, to mask the fact that he's handing down disagreeable orders. After delivering an order, he tells the person, "That'd be great," as a threadbare attempt at encouragement. He also punctuates many sentences with a drawn-out "yeeeeaahhhh" or patronizing "mmmkay?"
• Pirates of the Caribbean:
  • Captain Jack Sparrow. Savvy? This expression comes from French colonists and first pirates, who added "'savez?", for "vous savez?" ("you know?", as in "get it?") at the end of sentences to make sure the natives... well, got it.
  • In the sequels, Davy Jones has a tendency to punctuate sentences with an "-ah".
• Raymond from Rain Man often says "yeah", "definitely" and "uh-oh".
• When he was playing mobsters, Edward G. Robinson had a distinctive Verbal Tic, ya see? So he fits this trope, see?
• Rocky Balboa in the Rocky series "Ya know!"
• The Room (2003): Everyone greets each other by saying, "Oh, hi (name)!" often leading numerous people to say this to each other.
• Fingers, in the film Shira: Vampire Samurai is practically an English-speaking version of Naruto, ending almost every sentence with a hearty "Believe that!"
• Number (Johnny) Five from Short Circuit has a habit of listing synonyms for various words as he speaks. Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you recall that the first serious input he got was reading an entire dictionary.
  "Number 5... furious! Livid! Perturbed!"
  "I have questions. Queries. Posers."
• Skyfall's Raoul Silva often inserts "bip" and "oof" into his speech.
• Link Static, the communications expert from Small Soldiers, often ends his sentences with radio static.
• Split has Kevin's alternate personality Hedwig, who speaks with a lisp and occasionally ends sentences with one of these, et cetera.
• In The Squid and the Whale, the tennis instructor Ivan tacks "my brother" onto the end of every sentence. Eventually, he becomes a dubious role model for his young pupil Frank, who starts imitating the same goofy tic.
• Star Wars: The Phantom Menace: Watto ends many sentences with "methinks".
• Doyle Lonnegan in The Sting. Ye follow?
• Curly from The Three Stooges, who liberally adds "nyuk-nyuk-nyuk" or "woo-woo-woo" at the end of his lines.
• TRON's Master Control Program exhibits this. End Of Line.
• In Under the Piano, Rosetta has a habit of ending phrases and sentences with "Absolutely."
• The View Askewniverse character Jay does this some version of this constantly in nearly every film, as well as the animated series. Variations include "Snooch!", "Snoochie boochies!", "Snooch to the Nooch!", and "Snoogans". He even lampshades it in both Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. According to director and longtime friend Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes was doing that in real life long before the films were made.
• We're the Millers: Scotty P., y'know what I'm sayin'? It really annoys David and Rose.

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