[General] Gingerbread men & Michael DeBakey

[emp0608]

Hi folks,

Could anybody explain to me what Dorothy Zbornak meant when she said the following line in The Golden Girls, Series 1, Episode 21? They were talking about home remedies for a cold.

Rose: My mother always used to sing to us. And make us gingerbread men.
Dorothy: Really, Rose? I think Michael DeBakey does that before surgery.

Thanks as always,

emp

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

A gingerbread man is a big ginger-flavored cookie shaped like a person.

(The British call cookies biscuits.)

Mom sang to them and baked gingerbread men for them.

 

[Rover_KE]

Michael DeBakey was a famous surgeon at the time. [link]

 

[Tarheel]

Look up sarcasm. www.dictionary.com

 

[Skrej]

There's also a subtle pun in the doctor's name that ties into the gingerbread cookies. His last name is DeBAKEy.

I'm not sure if that was intentional or not on the writer's part, but I found it amusing.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Look up sarcasm. www.dictionary.com

Or just plain wit.

 

[jutfrank]

I don't get the joke.

 

[teechar]

Neither do I, unless it's about the pun Skrej has pointed out, in which case it's a bad joke, in my opinion.

 

[jutfrank]

Neither do I, unless it's about the pun Skrej has pointed out, in which case it's a bad joke, in my opinion.

What?! How dare you even imply that The Golden Girls could ever include such a bad joke!

(Now that's sarcasm, Tarheel. ;-))

 

[teechar]

I should have perhaps said "a poor joke" instead. I remember the Golden Girls, but their jokes were typically not in bad taste. Perhaps I'm not remembering well.

 

[Tarheel]

It was typical of Dorothy to make jokes at Rose's expense. (Rose never got the joke whatever it was.)

 

[Skrej]

Dorothy often got frustrated with Rose's folksy stories, which frequently did involve pointless routines or whimsical methods of the way things were done back in St. Olaf.

In this case, she's mocking the effectiveness of the remedy by suggesting it has such value that a world-renowned cardiovascular surgeon would also employ it in a major surgery.