"I went into a cigar store and the man behind the counter asked me, 'What kind of cigars do you like?' I said, 'It's-A-Boys.'"
In most works of fiction, usually in the middle of the 20th century, when a child is born, the new father likes to celebrate by passing out cigars to everyone. The origin of this is likely a variation of opening a champagne bottle in a toast for a momentous occasion. It could also be attributed to the new father being so excited about his kid that he feels generous enough to pass out his quality smokes to his friends. Alternatively, he may be so nervous that he needs something to calm him down.
A lot of times, this could be a trick by someone to get a person to smoke a cigar that is actually a stick of dynamite.
These days, this is a Forgotten Trope, though people occasionally pass out chocolate note cigars (which might also happen if the character is too young to smoke). See also Smoking Hot Sex.
Examples:
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Advertising
- This is referenced in Charlie Brown's first animated appearance in this Ford Commercial
, when Charlie Brown handed them out in celebration of Ford's economy cringe. Lucy even asks Linus if Charlie Brown had another baby sister.
Comic Books
- An old Donald Duck comic has Donald in a waiting room taking cigars offered by the new fathers and then setting up a table in the street and selling the cigars.
Comic Strips
- In an early Peanuts comic strip, Charlie Brown handed out chocolate cigars to all his friends in celebration of the birth of his little sister, Sally.
Film - Animation
- Cinderella: When the Grand Duke tries to inform the King that Cinderella ran away from the ball, the King believes that his son has made the decision to wed her already and, unable to wait for his grandchildren to come, stuffs the Duke's face with cigars ("Got to practice passing these out!").
- Robots: At the beginning, Herb is excitedly rushing home and celebrating that his baby is being delivered. He shoves metallic cigars into the mouths of two robots on a bench in his celebration, which rev like engines when they smoke.
Film - Live Action
- In the educational short film The Days of Our Years, this takes a tragic turn. Charlie the welder hears that his wife has just given birth and starts passing out celebratory cigars to his coworkers. He's so excited that he forgets to use "gentle pressure" to get the attention of the guy who's actively welding at that moment. Charlie gets burned by the welding torch and is permanently blinded.
- In Freaks, the Human Skeleton is seen passing cigars around to celebrate the birth of his child.
- At the end of Parenthood, Frank Buckman celebrates the arrival of his newest grandchild by tearing down the "No Smoking" sign in the hospital waiting room and lighting up a cigar, chuckling all the while.
- Star in the Night: In fact it's not Jose the new father who gives out cigars, but the hotel guest who was complaining about his laundry, before the Christmas spirit got to everybody. He snarks good-naturedly about giving out cigars for someone else's baby.
Literature
- Flowers in the Attic (published in 1979) mentions this happening at Chris's birth (in the 1940s). When half-uncle and niece Christopher and Corrine married, their family was lividly angry, saying their children would come out heinously deformed. After a very nervous first pregnancy, their son Christopher Jr was born perfectly fine. Christopher Sr gave away 6 boxes of cigars in his joy and relief.
Corrine: He paced the hospital corridors all night, until nearly dawn, when a nurse came up and told him he had a son, perfect in every way. Then he had to run to the nursery to see for himself. You should have been there to see the joy on his face when he entered my room, bearing in his arms two dozen red roses, and tears were in his eyes when he kissed me. He was so proud of you, Christopher, so proud. He gave away six boxes of cigars, and went right out and bought you a plastic baseball bat, and a catcher's mitt, and a football, too.
- Mr. Young attempts this trope with Crowley in Good Omens, but Crowley is in too much of a hurry to even notice him.
- In the original Mary Poppins books, when Annabel is born Mr. Banks moans to his wife about what a financial burden a new baby is and how he would have never chosen to have another child, only to immediately start skipping and handing out cigars once he leaves the room.
- In the Star Trek novel Enterprise: The First Adventure, Scotty hands out cigars to celebrate the birth of his nephew. Spock, knowing the harmful effects of cigars, mistakes it as a form of lottery to thin the population to make room for the new life and politely declines.
Live Action TV
- Inverted for a laugh in an episode of Bewitched. Darrin claims to know what a pregnant Samantha is going through, so Endora decides to punish his hubris by casting a spell that makes him suffer pregnancy symptoms. When Darrin realizes what's going on, he imagines himself giving birth in a hospital, with Sam passing out cigars to the men in the waiting room as a Proud Mama.
- Exploited in an episode of CSI: NY. Someone tries to kill a joke shop owner by posing as a new father and giving him a trick cigar that had been loaded with a far more powerful explosive.
- In the fourth season of The Flash (2014), Joe gives out cigars to the team as a way to announce that his girlfriend Cecile is pregnant, though no one is seen actually smoking them.
- Referenced in the Friends episode "The One With The Birth." When Joey is grossed out by details of Carol's labour, Monica asks him how he'll cope when he has kids himself.
Joey: I'm gonna be in the waiting room, handing out cigars!
Chandler: Yes, Joey's made arrangements to have his baby in a movie from the 50s. - In an episode of The Office (US), one of Michael's employees gives birth. Michael isn't the father, but he feels like one, so he celebrates with a cigar (and an Edward G. Robinson impression)... while still in the hospital hallway.
- Sports Night has a grandfather version. Isaac spends most of "Thespis" worried about his pregnant daughter being rushed to the hospital ten days before her due date, and him not being able to do anything because she's in San Francisco and he's in New York. When he gets word at the end of the episode that she successfully delivered a healthy baby boy, he passes out cigars among the crew.
- Star Trek: Picard: In a flashback to just after the birth of Riker and Troi's son, Troi video-calls Riker as he sits in a bar with Picard, and sarcastically inquires if he's passing around the whiskey and cigars, before telling him to get his butt home to help her with their newborn.
- After Kelso becomes a father on That '70s Show, he gets cigars for himself and his friends. They smoke them in the circle and find them disgusting... except for Jackie.
- The Young Ones: In "Cash", Vyvyan claims to be pregnant. After the "birth" turns out to be an extended release of gas, Mike (who had walked out of the room due to squeamishness) hands out cigars and attempts to light them, causing the whole house to explode.
Theatre
- In Matilda, Mr. Wormwood enters the maternity ward smoking a cigarette upon hearing of the birth of his son. The doctor chastises him, and he agrees that it's inappropriate—"This calls for a proper smoke!" Mr. Wormwood reaches into his pocket and produces a fancy cigar instead.
- In Of Thee I Sing, when the Supreme Court announces the birth of a boy to the Presidential couple, Wintergreen eagerly passes around cigars. When the French Ambassador reacts to this news by announcing that France severs diplomatic relations, Wintergreen angrily closes the humidor and takes back the cigar he gave him. Then, when the Supreme Court unexpectedly announces that they've also had a girl:
Jenkins: Cigars, sir?
Wintergreen: No. Cigarettes this time! A boy and a girl! Well!
Webcomics
- In the fanmade Super Mario Bros. comic Cake in the Oven, Luigi gives Mario a chocolate cigar after the birth of his and Peach's twin sons.
- Invoked in Something*Positive, where a Texan childbirth is referred to as being marred by the absence of "it's a mulatto girl" cigars.
Western Animation
- Classic Disney Shorts:
- In "Casey Bats Again", Casey is so excited about his wife's pregnancy that he doesn't even wait for the birth, he goes straight to the bar and holds out a fistful of cigars.
- The short "Fathers Are People" opens with Goofy passing out cigars to his coworkers to celebrate him becoming a father.
- In "No Smoking", Goofy tries to get a cigar from a coworker who became a father, but it gets yanked away when the guy remembers he just quit smoking.
- The Flintstones: In "Carry On, Nurse Fred" Fred and Barney celebrate the birth of Pebbles, buy smoking cigars, which are promptly taken away by Pebbles' nurse.
- Looney Tunes:
- In "Apes of Wrath", where Bugs Bunny is substituted by a drunken Delivery Stork with a gorilla baby, the father gorilla gives out bananas to all his friends.
- In "Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare", Bugs tricks the Tasmanian Devil into thinking he's the father to a newborn baby, to which Taz gives him a cigar. It then turns out that Taz's "baby" is actually a bomb, but it turns out Taz had played a trick of his own when Bugs finds out the cigar is of the explosive variety.
Bugs: I just wonder if he's as dumb as he looks.
- Mr. Magoo: Referenced in the short Magoo Express, when a female spy mistakes Magoo for one of her associates and gives him a bomb disguised as a cigar.
Magoo: How nice of her. I wonder if it's a boy or girl. Maybe one of each.
- Ned's Newt: In "New Year's Ned", a proud papa passes out chocolate cigars.
- The Pink Panther: The 1967 short "In the Pink" has a scene where the Panther is about to practice boxing on a speedbag, which suddenly shrinks down to egg-sized, and he chucks it away in frustration. A random chicken wanders by and sits on the speedbag, whereupon it suddenly it suddenly grows to about the size of a person. The chicken is so pleased with its egg-sitting prowess that it shoves a cigar in the Panther's mouth and runs off, clucking happily. Yeah, the shorts were weird.
- Timon & Pumbaa: In one episode, Timon uses an elaborate lie to make it seem that Pumbaa is a language translator. When a chef who speaks Pumbaa's supposed foreign tongue tries to warn everybody about a gas leak, Pumbaa makes them think he said "It's a boy" and "Does anybody have a light?".
- The World of David the Gnome: In one episode, David recalls when his friend, Harry, became a father, saying he was so excited, he passed out cigars to everyone for a month, but David later admits he was worse than Harry when his granddaughter Susan was born.
