Walk This Way

Character 1: Excuse me, I'm looking for talcum powder.
Character 2: Walk this way, please. (Starts to saunter off)
Character 1: If I could walk that way, I wouldn't need the talcum powder.

— Old joke setup

Alternatively, the second character may follow the first character, imitating their Supermodel Strut or Silly Walk. This is a physical variant of Repeat After Me.

There is a proud tradition of 'walk in the way I do'; one book describes the zanni of the Commedia dell'Arte copying the aged miser Pantalone when told to "walk this way".

Not to be confused with the Aerosmith (and Run–D.M.C.) song. That's about, well...^note Though it is said that the song was named for the Young Frankenstein example.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Robot Carnival: In "Franken's Gears", a Mad Scientist builds a robot which proceeds to copy everything the scientist does. When the scientist trips and falls it does likewise, falling on his creator and crushing him.

Fan Works

• A Diplomatic Visit: During the epilogue of the third story, Diplomacy Through Schooling, Luna tells Pharynx and Moondancer to do so. Pharynx, walking side by side with his wife, copies her movements exactly, much to Moondancer's amusement, and getting a wry look from Luna when she hears the snicker and notices what Pharynx is doing.
• In Legends of Potter Harry offers to escort Luna to the Ravenclaw entrance and she says "Walk this way" before doing a comically exaggerated Supermodel Strut which he promptly imitates, getting laughed at by several people in the Gryffindor common room.
• The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: In chapter 18 of the sequel Picking up the Pieces, a doctor instructs Night Blade, Vix-Lei and Wind Breaker to follow him to another room with the phrase. Vix-Lei takes it to heart (but in a way that makes it clear she's deliberately joking) and walks with her head at the same angle his is.

Film — Animation

• In Quest for Camelot, Ruber is leading his steel minions towards where the main group is trying to retrieve Excalibur from a sleeping ogre, instructing them to "walk this way". They proceed after him in an exaggerated form of his creeping, leaving him to sigh and look towards the sky in disgust.

Film — Live Action

Creators

• Mel Brooks loves this particular joke:
  • In Young Frankenstein, Igor says to "walk this way", and Frankenstein follows the hunchbacked, hobbling Igor normally. Igor insists, "THIS way," and even hands Frankenstein his walking stick to help him imitate the walk.
    • It's this particular instance of the joke, by the way, that inspired Aerosmith to write their song of the same name. No, really.
  • Ditto Robin Hood: Men in Tights, when the sheriff sets it up, and everyone shrugs and walks this way without further comment.
  • Ditto History of the World Part I.
  • In Spaceballs, Yogurt says "Ha ha ha, come, walk this way, take a look", followed by "If I could walk that way..."
  • Done by the mincing Carmen Ghia (with Leo and Max following) in the Screen-to-Stage Adaptation of The Producers.

Individual films

• Done in After the Thin Man. An elderly butler tells Nick to "Walk this way" and shuffles off. Nick says "Well, I'll try" and does so.
• In Arthur (1981), the butler at his fiance's mansion instructs the title character to enter her father's trophy room with these exact words. Arthur, being Fun Personified and always up for a joke, obliges him by mimicking his walk behind his back. However, being deliciously pickled, Arthur ends up walking more like Bugs Bunny than a British butler.
• In Encino Man, as the class heads to the museum, Stoney (exaggerately) mimics the way Matt Wilson's cohorts walk, while talking behind them.
• Killer Tomatoes Strike Back!. The cop takes the tomato expert to investigate a Bad Guy Bar where the tomatoes hang out, and tells her to do exactly what he does. Cue her copying all his movements until he gets annoyed.
• In one of the Road to ... movies, an attractive woman tells Bob Hope and Bing Crosby "Please walk this way.", and does a Supermodel Strut. Hope comments "Walk that way? I could never pass the physical!"
• The Three Stooges:
  • In several shorts, a wealthy society matron who has commissioned the Stooges (or someone for whom she has mistaken them) to do a job of some sort asks them to "Walk this way" to whatever needs fixing. The Stooges look at each other, shrug, and imitate her stereotypically feminine gait.
  • In a more elaborate set up, they are being trained to be gentlemen, and are assigned a dancing instructor. She tells them this is the latest dance and do exactly as she does. Of course, at the moment the music starts, a bee flies down the back of her dress. They follow her contortions to get rid of the bee, including all of them jumping out the second floor window into a fountain below.

Literature

• At the end of the Ciaphas Cain^*HERO OF THE IMPERIUM novel The Emperor's Finest, a planetary governor's majordomo tells Cain and Jurgen to "Walk this way" to meet the governor. Jurgen mutters, "If I walked that way, I'd be singing soprano."
• The Clue book series did this twice; once with the guests merely imitating Mr. Boddy's normal walk, once with Mrs. White getting a pebble in her shoe and the guests all imitating her abnormal walk.
• In the Doctor Who New Adventures novel First Frontier, the Doctor tries to invoke it, but neither of his companions obliges:
  'Hardly. Walk this way,' the Doctor said mysteriously, and hopped away from the car in a peculiar manner. When he saw that the women were strolling normally after him, he hurrumphed loudly and wandered off towards a low rise just to the left.
• In The Magic School Bus and the Science Fair Expedition, Ms. Frizzle says, "Walk this way, children." Keesha, Arnold, and Wanda follow her to the science museum and imitate her weird walking style.
• Played with in John Varley’s Rolling Thunder:
  "Follow me, please." I was so glad he didn't say "Walk this way," because it is such an old joke (...) and there's no way I could have managed that sashay.
• The War Against the Chtorr. Captain McCarthy is saddled with Major Bellus who accidentally walks near a grove of shambler trees: Man Eating Plants hosting an entire ecology of carnivorous symbiotes that swarm when they sense the vibrations of nearby prey. McCarthy points out that these vibrations are relayed by the creeper vines lying all around them, and the only way not to trigger them is to walk out of range at five meters per hour. Cue a Silly Walk that (as McCarthy enjoys pointing out to Bellus) is being relayed via cameras to an extensive internet audience hoping they'll die in an interesting and horrible fashion. Eventually Bellus breaks down under the strain and begs for his life, so to conclude this Humiliation Conga McCarthy walks out normally, saying they weren't in any danger as the shambler grove was uninhabited. This stunt destroys Bellus career; unfortunately it also earns McCarthy the ire of his superiors who try to get rid of him with an Uriah Gambit.

Live Action TV

• In Are You Being Served?, a visiting Arab sheikh's interpreter after being told to ask his master to "walk this way" stared at Mr Humphries' mincing walk and replied, "It's more than my job's worth!"
  • In another episode Mr Humphries is walking even stranger due to a bad back. When he tells a customer to "walk this way" the customer looks at Captain Peacock in confusion before following.
• Hercules: The Legendary Journeys featured this in "Greece if Burning" with the Widow Twanky (female but played by male Michael Hurst in wonderfully camp style). Asking for help for a group of women she told them to walk this way, marching off with an over the top walk with her palms out and her hands moving up and down. Of course, the women followed with predictable results.
• The Lucy Show: Jack Benny guest starred, and answered Lucy's "Walk this way" with "I already do." (Benny had a notoriously swishy hip-swinging gait.)
• Monty Python's Flying Circus:
  • The "less naughty" Chemist Shop sketch:
    Man: Good morning. I'd like some aftershave, please.
    Chemist: Ah, certainly. Walk this way, please.
    Man: If I could walk that way I wouldn't need aftershave.
    [The chemist gives the customer a "Watch it!" gesture; a policeman enters and bundles the customer off the set.]
  • In another sketch, about the Royal Society of Putting Things On Top of Other Things, when the president instructs the members of the society to "run this way". They begin to say "If we could run that way-" but when he holds up a warning finger, they apologize and follow him.
    • Other sketches, like the Psychiatrist Milkman sketch, used that same formula: "If I could walk that way, I—" and then cut off with a warning finger.
  • "If I could walk that way" is also part of the Overly Long Name of the Very Silly candidate in "Election Night Special."
• Naturally, The Muppet Show can't stay away from this one. In one Pigs In Space sketch, Link Hogthrob tells First Mate Piggy (Fozzie in a costume) this, and the literal-minded bear does this trope.
  • This trope has gotten into a few of Jim Henson's other works too.
• Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation has Vam-Mi, a Chinese vampire, suddenly sense her missing heart after having a meal. She tells her two cohorts to "walk this way", and staggers off drunkely. The male cohort quips, "I probably would if I'd drunk that many packs of frozen artificial plasma."
• On RuPaul's Drag U, RuPaul instructs the contestants to "walk this way" and starts to walk in an exaggerated manner. Then, he turns around and tells the contestants he expects them not to merely follow him, but to imitate his gait.
• Welcome Back, Kotter: One episode had the class visiting a museum complete with a creepy, Boris Karloff curator. While showing them the museum, he says "walk this way" with his hands raised and lurching from side to side, Frankenstein-style. Cue the rest of the Sweathogs following suit.

Theatre

• In Knickerbocker Holiday, Stuyvesant, drilling New Amsterdam's army, tries to show them how to march, and they imitate his peg leg.

Video Games

• A jokey car salesman in L.A. Noire's DLC missions does this ad verbatim.
• Leisure Suit Larry 2: Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places), where a maitre d' of a snooty restaurant is disserving Larry:
  "Please, walk this way."
  You think to yourself, "If I walked that way, I'd use talcum powder!"

Webcomics

• Done in Genocide Man when a guide they are sent to meet turns out to be an intelligent giant sloth.
  Largo: Walk this way. That's a joke. Walk your way, Largo walk his way. We get there same time, probably.

Western Animation

• An episode of Animaniacs had the Warner siblings visiting a vampire's mansion. After their introductory antics left him stunned, he used the line and led them with a wavered stagger, which the Warners happily imitated.
• In the 1969 TV special Archie and His New Pals, when Archie and his friends enlist Veronica's butler to turn Moose into a sophisticate for the school election, the butler tells Moose to "walk this way", and Moose imitates the butler's gait.
• Used and Lampshaded in Avenger Penguins:
  Caractacus P Doom: "How sad. I can't believe people are still using the old 'walk this way' gag."
• The Beatles are invited to play at a duke's reception in "Rock and Roll Music". The butler greets them at the door, says "Walk this way" and starts walking sideways, back to the camera. The boys follow him in the same manner.
  John: We can't!
  Paul: We'll just have to do the best we can.
• Beetlejuice did this when he turned into Sherlock Holmes when Doomie was stolen. Lydia just shrugs and crawls on all fours after him. She does humor the bum a lot.
• In one episode of Blue's Clues, Steve (the host of the show, who's live-action), is interacting with some crudely-animated puppets made out of pieces of felt. When they ask him to follow them by saying, "Walk this way," he imitates their stiff, two-frame-loop, sideways-walking style.
• Done to death with the Red Guy from Cow and Chicken. Especially remarkable since he has one of the silliest walks imaginable. If you could call jumping on your buttocks 'walking' that is.
  • In at least some episodes, it's subverted, as he doesn't even say "Walk this way", but rather "After me", and they still do the joke.
• Danger Mouse got in on it, too. "All Fall Down" had Colonel K meet with DM and Penfold, and the Colonel told them to "Walk this way" to the scene of the crime at Puttingham-Down Research Centre and walking with an odd waddling walk. Penfold starts to imitate him and DM says reproachfully "Penfold...", to which Penfold replies "Oh, chief...you are a spoil sport!"
  • On another occasion DM said "Quick, Penfold! Step this way!" before doing his famous long stride off screen. Penfold replied, "I can't step that way, chief; my legs aren't long enough!"
• The "Longest Weekend" episode of Duckman had a character say this and prance away. Duckman to his companions: "Do it and you're off the show." Although another episode also played it straight.
• Memorably averted in Garfield and Friends, where a butler does a Silly Walk and says, "Walk this way," followed by Jon, Odie and Garfield pointedly walking after him in their normal fashions. "Don't worry, we won't do that old joke."
• In the cartoon The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Itsy is told to "walk this way," by a fat waddling ladybug, but gets a smack in the face when he actually does walk that way.
• Looney Tunes:
  • A particularly demented variant in Bob Clampett's cartoon "The Big Snooze": Bugs tells Elmer (who is in drag, trying to escape Hollywood wolves. It Makes Sense in Context. Sorta.) to "Quick! Run this way!" Has to be seen to be believed. (Occurs at 5:45)
  • Daffy Duck once followed the Silly Walk of a butler.
• In Milo Murphy's Law, when Scott the Undergrounder tells them to "Run this way!" Zack starts imitating his run until Melissa yells out that he just meant for them to follow him.
• An episode of Muppet Babies (1984) had this joke when visiting Fozzie's imaginary comedy theme restaurant:
  Fozzie: "Your table is ready. Wocka this way!"
  *walks off in a silly pose, which the rest of the group imitates as they follow.*
• An old Popeye cartoon had Bluto, disguised as a butler, invite Popeye into the house by bowing grandly and uttering the line. Naturally, Popeye bends over double as he enters.
• In an early episode of Rugrats, Grandpa is told to "walk this way" by a butler who maintains a ridiculously obsequious bowing stance while walking. Grandpa imitates his stride.
• In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) series' pilot episode, Splinter says "walk this way". Michelangelo begins the obvious joke, but cuts the gag off after an unamused Donatello smacks him upside the head with his bo staff.
• In an episode of The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, Felix and Sheba visit a haunted Rock and Roll Museum. The zombie tour guide tells them to "Walk This Way". Felix and Sheba get into pose then go "Nah!" with Sheba declaring, "That gag's cooked, man."

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If I could walk that way, I wouldn't be reading TV Tropes!

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