Comments on: I’m not an X, but I play one on TV

By: Monet Madness! - iOS Photo Apps

Monet Madness! - iOS Photo Apps — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 05:11:06 +0000

[...] no artist (and I don’t play one on TV), but it took me just a few minutes to create this with MobileMonet on my iPhone. I used [...]

By: kevin

kevin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 06:07:38 +0000

In one of the mock ads in their 1970 LP Don’t Hold THat Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers the Firesign Theatre’s Phil Austin utters the line, “Im not a doctor, but I do look like one,” which is where I first encountered any of these variants.

By: Arnold Zwicky

Arnold Zwicky — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:49:42 +0000

Blogged about in a series of postings on Language Log in October 2005: here, here, and here.

By: David Craig

David Craig — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 22:46:49 +0000

I was once part of a community access TV program that did sendups of just about anything we could (and some things we couldn’t). One of our women one time as part of the taping of one show said, “I’m not an actor, but I play one on TV.” In the metacommunity we had established in the show she not only played several roles, she also played the actress that played those roles.

By: mollymooly

mollymooly — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:56:06 +0000

I don’t think the original ad ever reached Britain or Ireland. When I first came across the snowclone on the interweb, it baffled me. (Similarly: “objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.”) The nearest ad was a toothpaste ad c.1989 that said “I’m not a dentist, but I recognise this: [holds up tool to camera] It’s the tool dentists use to scrape away plaque.” The speaker was just a generic anonymous TV-ad actress. I don’t know of any snowclone based on that; it had potential, but the moment passed.