SMBC Comics Forum

It's a pretty obvious joke, it's entirely possible they both came up with it independently. The quote is also decently old (Colour of Magic came out nearly 30 years ago), without knowing when Woody Allen said his quote, it's hard to actually know which one came first.

smiley_cow wrote:It's a pretty obvious joke, it's entirely possible they both came up with it independently. The quote is also decently old (Colour of Magic came out nearly 30 years ago), without knowing when Woody Allen said his quote, it's hard to actually know which one came first.

In my post I linked to a google books search for examples of the Woody Allen joke published before Colour of Magic, earliest I saw was in the book "On Being Funny" from 1975. And I did say that Pratchett could have come up with it independently, though I think it's a little too easy to label a joke "obvious" in retrospect, searching google books for "immortality" and "not dying" from 1900 to 1980 (you can do an 'advanced search' to control the date range of search results) I don't see examples of anyone but Woody doing this joke, and there is also the fact that his joke first seems to have been published in various places in the late 1970s, right before "Colour of Magic" which came out in 1983. Of course Pratchett might also have heard it somewhere but not consciously remembered and thought it was his own idea, that happens with musicians sometimes.

You know, it is just a throwaway joke. And still an obvious enough of one that it wouldn't be that surprising for two people to come up with it independently. I wouldn't get too worked up over this, this is hardly on par with stealing an entire song.

smiley_cow wrote:You know, it is just a throwaway joke. And still an obvious enough of one that it wouldn't be that surprising for two people to come up with it independently. I wouldn't get too worked up over this, this is hardly on par with stealing an entire song.

Why do you think I'm getting worked up? I like defending my arguments with a little research, you shouldn't take that to mean I think the point is an important one (hopefully a forum for a comic as nerdy as SMBC is one where people can understand nerdy OCD about demonstrating totally trivial points), it's not like I think Pratchett is a bad man for stealing (perhaps unconsciously) a minor joke.

Jesse M. wrote:hopefully a forum for a comic as nerdy as SMBC is one where people can understand nerdy OCD about demonstrating totally trivial points

Actually, this is kind of frowned upon.

You are quite fixated on finding Pratchett the enemy. Though I suppose your internet research is completely unflawed. After all, all information in the history of man is on the internet, so clearly it is infallible. Lets burn Pratchett at the stake!

Not so immortal now are ya Pratchet?

I didn't say it would be successful.

Kaharz wrote:The idea of non-existence does not bother me, because I won't exist so it won't matter. I'm only apprehensive about things I can actually experience. The idea of an afterlife of some sort in which I am conscious and aware is more disturbing to me.

Agreed, the idea of an afterlife scares the crap out of me.

An eternity of floating around, nothing to do, no food, no sex, no internet, no video games, no sleep. Just talking with my exes. If I'm lucky I get to be with my current sig.other, but won't being together drive us mad?

Then there's reincarnation. I don't want to be anything lower than human, that'd be horrible.

NeoTechni wrote: Then there's reincarnation. I don't want to be anything lower than human, that'd be horrible.

Isn't the idea that you'd live your life well and get to continue being a human or better? Like maybe a wealthier human or some kind of superior space alien? Hyper-intelligent dog with thumbs? The possibility of a lower than human life form would be kind of like the possibility of going to hell. Not really the goal.

I dunno, I think I'd enjoy being a puppy that lives in a good home. It's short life, but it seems like a good one.

I'm pretty sure my cats life is way better than mine. She gets to laze around all day, lie in the sun, gets food, and when she's bored kills a few things. Surely that is a superior being.

NeoTechni wrote:I don't want to be anything lower than human, that'd be horrible.

Hitchhiker's Guide wrote:For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons.

Kimra wrote:You are quite fixated on finding Pratchett the enemy.

No, I'm really not, didn't you read my last post? I already said I couldn't care less if Pratchett stole (perhaps unconsciously) a minor joke from Woody Allen, I just wanted to respond to smiley_cow's post which challenged my statement that the joke came from Woody Allen. From what I know of Pratchett I like the guy, though the only book of his I've read is Good Omens.

Kimra wrote: Though I suppose your internet research is completely unflawed. After all, all information in the history of man is on the internet, so clearly it is infallible.

Now you're just being snarky, and I don't think you even bothered to look at what my "internet research" consisted of before making this comment (all it was was a google books result showing that Woody Allen's joke had been published in a few books from the 70s, before Pratchett's book--do you really want to deny that this is the case?)

Oh sh-- someone read something I wrote. That's not how things go man. What are you doing?! Now I have to justify my words, damn.

You may think you aren't finding Pratchett the enemy, but each time you have mentioned the situation you have been certain to mention his 'theft' (however inadvertently). Just observing.

And yes I was being snarky. It's what I do. I'm good at it. However what I was implying, more than to say that your brief search was incorrect, was that perhaps with greater research (not limited to the internet) you might find that Woody Allen is also a thief. Or some other startling revelation might come about.

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