History Main / TheFlappingDickey

* ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'': Tom wears one (along with a tailcoat, false shirt cuffs, [[HalfDressedCartoonAnimal and no pants]]) in "Cat Concerto", where he's attempting a serious and dignified performance of Liszt's Hungarian Waltz. The dickie malfunctioning before Jerry even shows up is the first sign of the chaos and ClothingDamage in store.

* In Disney's 1941 film ''WesternAnimation/{{Dumbo}}'', the circus ringmaster, who introduces the acts dressed in a three piece suit with red tails and while shouting boisterous hyperbole about the quality of the acts, finds his introductions vexed by his dickey flapping up and hitting him on the underside of his nose.
* A good example of this that many people would recognize is in Disney's ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'', in which part of Mr. Darling's exasperation with his imaginative children is that he's late for a party and can't find his dickey, which turns out to have been repurposed by the kids as their pretend treasure map and, naturally, it flaps up into his face during the scene.

* In ''Film/ArtistsAndModels'', a Creator/MartinAndLewis picture from 1955, Rick (played by Dean Martin) walks in on Eugene (played by Jerry Lewis) trying to get dressed before the ball. Eugene struggles with his dicky flapping straight in front of his face when he tries to powder his face, in typical Jerry Lewis physical comedy style while Rick [[LampshadeHanging chides him for being so out of date]].

* A variation using at least the elements of a loss of dignity with the loss of a shirt-front appears in Creator/LaurelAndHardy's ''Blotto'' one of their talkie shorts. They humiliate an upstanding waiter while getting drunk (hence the title) and as part of the humiliation, rip off his shirt-front. In this case the dickie was held on by some kind of giant double sided sticky bandage which they then rip of his bare chest.
* In Creator/AbbottAndCostello 1941 vehicle ''Film/HoldThatGhost'', at the end of the film, the two main characters are running a party when Costello's character, Freddie Jones, encounters a maitre d', who had fired them from an earlier job, working as a temp waiter. Freddie tweaks the waiter's dignity by ordering him to fix his tie, fix his vest and to pull down his shirt, at which point, his dicky pops up and rolls up in classic scroll-like fashion.
* While dickeys don't necessarily flap in the shorts of ''Film/TheThreeStooges'', they ''always'' come loose at some point or another. In the 1954 short "Income Tax Sappy," Shemp spreads mashed potatoes and gravy on his dickey after it gets untucked and covers his plate.

* In ''The Literature/{{Discworld}} Fools' Guild Diary'', a "false springy shirt front" is a required part of a clown's clothing.

* In ''Series/OutOfJimmysHead'', Tux the Penguin is a loud, brash, vaudeville-type comedian who, as a penguin, only wears a dickey to create the tuxedo look. He is hit in the face by his dickey (on its own, not using a pull string) on a regular basis.

** In ''WesternAnimation/ACornyConcerto'', Elmer as the presenter is wearing an ill-fitting tuxedo. He keeps trying to hold the dickey in place while introducing the first segment, and when it finally hits him in the face, he just tears it off.
** In ''WesternAnimation/LongHairedHare'', this was a part of the ClothingDamage that the pompous opera singer Giovanni Jones undergoes as Bugs Bunny forces him to sing an absurdly long note.
* This is a key part in one of the transition gags in ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle''. Bullwinkle, clad in a tuxedo from the waist up, attempts to sing an opera song, but his dickey curls up and knocks over the music stand, causing chaos on stage.
* An example of a latter-day use of the trope shows up a few times on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', notably part of Krusty's comedy schtick. Each time he does the flapping dickey gag, though, it is outright mocked for being cliche and old-fashioned, showing Krusty's desperation to get a laugh. For example, in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS9E15TheLastTemptationOfKrust The Last Temptation of Krust]]", the bit is called out by name and goes right alongside a racist [[{{Yellowface}} Chinaman]] skit.
* Tom wears one (along with a tailcoat, false shirt cuffs, [[HalfDressedCartoonAnimal and no pants]]) in the ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' episode "Cat Concerto" where he's attempting a serious and dignified performance of Liszt's Hungarian Waltz. The dickie malfunctioning before Jerry even shows up is the first sign of the chaos and ClothingDamage in store.

* In Creator/AbbottAndCostello 1941 vehicle ''Hold That Ghost'', at the end of the film, the two main characters are running a party when Costello's character, Freddie Jones, encounters a maitre d', who had fired them from an earlier job, working as a temp waiter. Freddie tweaks the waiter's dignity by ordering him to fix his tie, fix his vest and to pull down his shirt, at which point, his dicky pops up and rolls up in classic scroll-like fashion.

* While dickeys don't necessarily flap in the shorts of ''Film/TheThreeStooges'', they ''always'' come loose at some point or another. In the 1954 short "Income Tax Sappy," Shemp spreads mashed potatoes and gravy on his dickey after it comes untucked and covers his plate.

Hence the Flapping Dickey gag -- a man, typically someone who is a bit of a blowhard or who is losing his cool, will have his dickey pop out of waistband and flap up into his face. Flapping dickeys were a common vaudeville gag for decades even after laundry became much cheaper. Examples in more recent recorded media appear to be mostly aimed at children's fiction, with an audience who wouldn't be familiar with it.

* An example of a latter-day use of the trope shows up a few times on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', notably part of Krusty's comedy schtick. Each time he does the flapping dickey gag, though, it is outright mocked for being cliche and old-fashioned, showing Krusty's desperation to get a laugh. For example, in "The Last Temptation of Krust", the bit is called out by name and goes right alongside a racist [[{{Yellowface}} Chinaman]] skit.

->''"A dickie?! They still make these?!"''
-->--'''Eddy''', ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy''

-->'''Eugene:''' I can't keep this dicky down, Ricky!.\\

This concerns a ForgottenTrope whose material origins are so old that we need extra context: A dickey is a false shirt front, a roundish piece of starched cloth, paper, or synthetic material, which was used under a formal jacket to "cheat" the look of a tuxedo. Dickeys were cheap, comfortable, and easier to launder, which made them popular at a time when doing laundry was labour-intensive. But they were considered unfashionable and had a tendency (exaggerated in fiction) to flap upwards, humiliating the wearer.

Hence the Flapping Dickey gag -- a man, typically someone who is a bit of a blowhard or who is losing his cool, will have his dickey pop out of waistband and flap up into his face. Ha ha. His air of importance has been punctured. He has been made to look foolish by the very item he purchased to make him look impressive. Music/AlanisMorissette would approve.

Or she would, if this gag hadn't been run into the ground decades before she was born. A flapping dickey with a string-pulled mechanism to roll the dickey up like a piece of parchment was an obnoxiously common vaudeville gag long after laundry became much cheaper, making it a DeadHorseTrope for decades. Examples in more recent recorded media appear to be mostly aimed at children's fiction, with an audience who wouldn't have seen the gag a hundred times before. Lately, the Flapping Dickey only seems to hang on as a meta-trope about how the person who is using it is using a tired worn-out bit.

* In ''The Literature/Discworld Fools' Guild Diary'', a "false springy shirt front" is a required part of a clown's clothing.

[[quoteright:300:[[WesternAnimation/PeterPan https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/flappingdickeygagfrompeterpan_4.jpg]]]]

Or she would, if this gag hadn't been run into the ground decades before she was born. A flapping dickey with a string-pulled mechanism to roll the dickey up like a piece of parchment was an obnoxiously common vaudeville gag long after laundry became much cheaper. Examples in more recent recorded media appear to be mostly aimed at children's fiction, with an audience who wouldn't have seen the gag a hundred times before. Lately, the Flapping Dickey only seems to hang on as a meta-trope about how the person who is using it is using a tired worn-out bit.

This concerns a DeadHorseTrope whose material origins are so old that we need extra context: A dickey is a false shirt front, a roundish piece of starched cloth, paper, or synthetic material, which was used under a formal jacket to "cheat" the look of a tuxedo. Dickeys were cheap, comfortable, and easier to launder, which made them popular at a time when doing laundry was labour-intensive. But they were considered unfashionable and had a tendency (exaggerated in fiction) to flap upwards, humiliating the wearer.

* An example of a latter-day use of the trope shows up a few times on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', notably part of Krusty's comedy schtick. Each time he does the flapping dickey gag, though, it is outright mocked for being cliche and old-fashioned, showing Krusty's desperation to get a laugh. For example, in "The Last Temptation of Krusty", the bit is called out by name and goes right alongside a racist [[{{Yellowface}} Chinaman]] skit.

* An example of later day use of the trope shows up a few times on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', notably part of Krusty's comedy schtick. Each time he does the flapping dickey gag, though, it is outright mocked for being cliche and old-fashioned, showing Krusty's desperation to get a laugh. For example, in ''The Last Temptation of Krusty'', the bit is called out by name and goes right alongside a racist [[{{Yellowface}} Chinaman]] skit.

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[[AC:{{Film}}s - Live Action]]

->'''Eugene:''' I can't keep this dicky down, Ricky!.
->'''Rick:''' Anybody ever tell you that dickies went out with horse cars?! If you're going to rent, why don't you rent a modern dress shirt, something like about 1922.

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[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

Hence the Flapping Dickey gag - a man, typically someone who is a bit of a blowhard or who is losing his cool, will have his dickey pop out of waistband and flap up into his face. Ha ha. His air of importance has been punctured. He has been made to look foolish by the very item he purchased to make him look impressive. Music/AlanisMorissette would approve.

* In Creator/AbbottAndCostello 1941 vehicle ''Hold That Ghost'', at the end of the film, the two main characters are running a party when Costello's character, Freddie Jones, encounters a maitre d' who had fired them from an earlier job working as a temp waiter. Freddie tweaks the waiter's dignity by ordering him to fix his tie, fix his vest and to pull down his shirt, at which point, his dicky pops up and rolls up in classic scroll-like fashion.

->'''Eugene:''': I can't keep this dicky down, Ricky!.
->'''Rick:''': Anybody ever tell you that dickies went out with horse cars?! If you're going to rent, why don't you rent a modern dress shirt, something like about 1922.

* In ''Film/ArtistsAndModels'', a Creator/MartinAndLewis picture from 1955, Rick (played by Dean Martin) walks in on Eugene (played by Jerry Lewis) trying to get dressed before the ball. Eugene struggles with his dicky flapping straight in front of his face when he tries to powder his face, in typical Jerry Lewis physical comedy style while Rick chides him for being so out of date.