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IMDb > "Drop the Dead Donkey" (1990) > Memorable quotes
Gus Hedges: Just a thought I wanted to pop into your fishbowl to see if it blows bubbles.
Hospital Bureaucrat: Actually, can't stop now, just wanted to pop something into your mental microwave, see if it defrosts.
Gus Hedges: I have the strangest feeling I've met him somewhere before...
Gus Hedges: Morning hotshots. Are we cooking with napalm? You bet.
Gus Hedges: There is just something I'd like to pop into your percolator, see if it comes out brown.
Gus Hedges: Let's keep kneecapping the opposition.
Gus Hedges: We do rather appear to have an ongoing underwear entanglement situation...
Gus Hedges: We've got to downsize our sloppiness overload.
Gus Hedges: Could we interlock brain spaces in my work area?
Gus Hedges: Well, butt-kickers, what's cooking?
Gus Hedges: Coach, if I could input into your mental mainframe for a moment...
Gus Hedges: Morning talent base. Are the afterburners on full thrust? You bet.
Gus Hedges: Yes, well, publicity-wise this is a rather regrettable gonads-in-the-guillotine situation.
Gus Hedges: Are we nuking the opposition news busters? Terrific.
Gus Hedges: We're merely running our bulletins through the cappucino machine of innovation, see if it comes out frothy.
Gus Hedges: Jill, could you come for a brief scuba in my think tank?
Gus Hedges: Morning, mountaineers. Climbing the north face of newsmaking again are we? Terrific.
Gus Hedges: Helen, if I could just park in your mental multi-story a moment...
Gus Hedges: Morning ratings busters. Are we scraping Pete Punter with sexy scoops? You bet.
Gus Hedges: You see, when it comes to sexual interfacing with the female gender group, I've always been caution-orientated due to ongoing problems of an adaptive nature regarding the gooiness factor on the physical front.
Gus Hedges: I think we have a slight togetherness shortfall here.
Gus Hedges: If Mrs. Whitehouse saw this, she'd have our collective danglies in a Magi-Mix.
Gus Hedges: Let's operate a zipped-lip scenario on this one.
Gus Hedges: I'm a committed anti-tittle-tattle person.
Gus Hedges: I've never been at a burial scenario before.
Gus Hedges: Sorry, Helen, had a bit of a composure shortfall earlier.
Gus Hedges: George, can we pool our brainspaces in a center of excellence?
Gus Hedges: I'm in major cellular rejuvenation mode, fast-tracking my way to eternal biological viability.
Gus Hedges: Good morning scoop busters.
Gus Hedges: From now on I'm going to employ relaxation techniques to turn off stress river and mosey gently down contentment creek.
Gus Hedges: Problems are just the pregnant mothers of solutions.
Gus Hedges: Anyway, heads down, chins up, chests out, terrific, well played team.
Gus Hedges: Today is tomorrow's tadpole of opportunity.
Gus Hedges: What stories are we scorching the opposition with today?
Gus Hedges: I feel a very real sense that we ought to be wary of running any unsubstansiated stories if we're to avoid a feces and fan situation.
Gus Hedges: Yes, well, I sense we may be straying down Tangent Boulevard here.
Gus Hedges: My place is here, with my family of co-achievers.
Gus Hedges: I'm setting you free. Free to roam the high seas of enterprise as the buccaneers of our broadcasting future.
Gus Hedges: D'you know who I'm basing my tactics on? Isn't it obvious? John Major. The Iron Man, banishing those rebels to the wilderness.
[On having friends]
Gus Hedges: I'm reading this great new book on the benefits of reciprocal social integrational relationships within the work environment.
Gus Hedges: Look, Henry, if it's any help, I do have a sleep area overcapacity situation.
Gus Hedges: Quality stress dissipation opportunities here.
PM's Spokesman: The PM will require a glass of water.
Alex Pates: To drink or to walk on?
Damien Day: Did anyone see World In Action? They sneaked inside a maternity ward to show how poor security is. I mean. I did that two years ago. D'you remember that, George?
George Dent: How could we forget?
Damien Day: I put the baby back! I mean all right, it was in the wrong cot but it all got sorted out in the end! If you ask me those mothers just overreacted.
Gus Hedges: I'd just like you to stir-fry a few ideas in my think-wok.
Sally Smedley: Either I get a formal response to my request for the same lunch allowance as Henry or I shall withdraw my labor. How would you like that?
Joy Merryweather: How would we know?
Damien Day: [loudly] Hello everyone. What a lovely morning it is. I hope nobody's got a HANGOVER. Personally I feel terrific.
Gus Hedges: Joy, can I have a quick word?
Joy Merryweather: You can try.
Gus Hedges: Is Mr. Newshound in his kennel? You bet.
Henry Davenport: Oh yes, they say this woman with the sexual harrasment case may be able to make Bill Clinton exhibit his penis as evidence. The question is...
All: Will it stand up in court?
Gus Hedges: You see, I have a very important function in those meetings.
Helen Cooper: Good. And that is?
Gus Hedges: Well, I'm a sort of hands-off, eyes-on, overviewing, non-participatory, sort of hands-off... I'll get back to you on this... cunning bitch.
Dave Charnley: When I woke up with you that morning, somehow there was something special about you.
Helen Cooper: Yes, you knew my name.
Henry Davenport: Over the last twenty-five years, I have read the news drunk, concussed, stoned, with a live stoat in my underpants and once on regional television with my trousers round my ankles and a Lithuanian prostitute under the news desk.
Sally Smedley: Any messages, Joy?
Joy Merryweather: Yes, your planet called, said your mission on Earth was over and could you go home.
Henry Davenport: Last week I took this actress back to my flat. She had five orgasms.
Joy Merryweather: Oh, she must be a bloody good actress.
Gus Hedges: So what's it like living in insert name and town?
[Joy takes a phone call for Sally]
Helen Cooper: From the look on your face, Joy, I'd say Sally's house just burned down.
Joy Merryweather: Oh, much better than that.
[Sally is having plastic surgery]
Damien Day: Sally, there's something in my eye.
Sally Smedley: What is it?
Damien Day: My nose.
[Sally is having plastic surgery on her thighs]
Helen Cooper: Who's going to see your thighs under a newsdesk?
Henry Davenport: Well, there was that rumour about the floor manager during the election coverage.
Helen Cooper: [seeing Henry walk in singing "If I were a Rich Man"] You're in a good mood.
Henry Davenport: Indeed I am. I'm in the sort of mood that a eunuch who's just heard about micro-surgery would be in.
Gus Hedges: [entering the news room] Henry!
Henry Davenport: [Jerking his head towards Gus] And talking of eunuchs.
[the news team discovers that the Senior Staff's shares in Merchant Communications have substantially increased in value, just before Gus walks in]
Gus Hedges: Morning newsbusters. Have we struck gold?
Henry Davenport: I don't know. You tell us.
Joy Merryweather: Everyone okay? Shame, I was hoping you'd all died in the night.
Dave Charnley: Bloody hell, she must have got out of the wrong side of her coffin this morning.
Helen Cooper: [indicating Joy] We're going to have to do something about her.
George Dent: Well, she's probably going through a bad patch. Maybe someone's making her unhappy.
Sally Smedley: I'd be ever so grateful if you'd not put that on my side of the desk.
Henry Davenport: Pardon me for breathing.
Sally Smedley: Well, if you'd stop doing that, I'd be really grateful.
Helen Cooper: Are you unhappy working here?
Joy Merryweather: Is Pavarotti fat?
[Damien has handed Dave a 1938 Luger]
Damien Day: Had a heck of a job getting the guy to let go of it.
Dave Charnley: Yeah, I can imagine.
Damien Day: Had to saw his fingers off in the end.
Dave Charnley: [Putting the gun down] You sawed the fingers of a dead soldier?
Damien Day: Well, I wouldn't saw the fingers off a live one.
Damien Day: What's exactly wrong with collecting weapons?
Dave Charnley: Nothing. I was interested in guns for years - then I reached puberty.
Sally Smedley: Would you stop tossing your rubbish over my desk?
Henry Davenport: What, you've got bloody airspace now?
Henry Davenport: [after Sally has divided the desk] No, I shall not stoop to her level. You see, this is ridiculous, she's only put a line down the middle of... wait a minute, that's not the middle, you've stolen some of my desk.
Sally Smedley: No I haven't.
Henry Davenport: Yes you have, you're as bad as the bloody Israelis!
Henry Davenport: Look, I need every inch I can get.
Sally Smedley: Yes, that's what I heard.
[Damien has tricked Dave into destroying some videotapes]
Damien Day: You were asking for it.
Dave Charnley: You putrid piece of rat droppings!
Damien Day: Look, I told you, don't mess with the big boys.
Dave Charnley: You dirty, conniving bastard!
Damien Day: Look, I'm sorry, you're just not in my league.
Dave Charnley: You have all the scruples of Mark Thatcher.
Damien Day: Now look, careful, you can go too far.
Helen Cooper: [reading from the story list] Is this it? Jonathan Aitken calling the European Union sluggish and complacent?
Dave Charnley: Well, maybe they haven't paid his hotel bill yet.
[Gus has asked for an advance copy of Henry's autobiography]
Henry Davenport: I'm not going to show this book to a living soul.
Joy Merryweather: Still in with a chance there, Gus.
[George has been booked to appear on Newsnight]
Damien Day: [to George] Was it Right to Reply where you sweated so much you fused the microphone?
[Damien's cameraman, Gerry, has suffered another mishap]
Damien Day: Joy, could you phone Gerry's wife for me. She gets hysterical when she hears my voice on the phone.
Joy Merryweather: Morning, Gus.
Gus Hedges: [surprised] Is Joy ill?
George Dent: No, I had a quiet word with her. That seems to have done the trick.
Helen Cooper: [Gus and Helen are watching footage of Sir Royston Merchant having sex] Recognise that bottom, Gus? You should do, you've kissed it often enough.
George Dent: Does the Pope shit in the woods?
Henry Davenport: I'm trying to fill in one of these National Lottery tickets. I thought I'd put down the number of times I had sex last month, but they don't go higher than 49.
[he laughs]
Joy Merryweather: Try sticking to the number of times someone else was there.
Helen Cooper: I can't believe I'm saying this, Dave, but while I'm away you'll be in charge of ethics.
Joy Merryweather: It's in the dictionary, under 'E'.
[Henry has just suggested that the Pope should undergo a sex change before being artificially inseminated]
Sally Smedley: For that remark, Henry, you will burn in Hell for all eternity.
Henry Davenport: Doesn't worry me - I've sat next to you for three years.
George Dent: [Sally Smedley will be reporting on an international summit] All she has to do is say, "The mood is one of cautious optimism" and flash her cleavage at the camera. A parrot with tits could do it.
Helen Cooper: [Sally is unable to make an outdoor broadcast without a teleprompter] We're going to have to use idiot-boards.
Sally Smedley: I think you mean cue-cards.
Helen Cooper: I know what I mean.
Dave Charnley: [Dave finds an entry for Maastricht while reading through the index for Henry's planned autobiography]
[Looking up]
Dave Charnley: Maastricht?
Helen Cooper: Oh, that'll be when Sally misread the autocue, and announced to a waiting nation that the Government had finally agreed to ratify the Maastricht tea tray!

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