What are other famous names/sayings like "Down the rabbit hole" which imply alternate reality or insanity?
Asked by
Dog (
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January 30th, 2012
I am thinking about famous characters in novels and movies that thought differently or places where what is illogical is logical and need help.
So far I have:
“Mad Hatter”
“Down The Rabbit Hole”
“Left of Center”
“Wing Nut”
Anything that means a break from reason or logical reality.
Can anyone help me add to this list? I am using the information to illustrate a writing project.
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45 Answers
Mind Screw is my favorite.
TvTropes has a list, under Absurdity Ascendant.
“Down the yellow brick road.”
Toys in the attic.
Bats in the belfry.
Out to lunch.
“Mommy Dearest”
That’s the wigged out/wacko/funny reference around our house at the moment : )
“Don’t make me go all ‘mommy dearest’ on ya!”
“We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”
Not only is reality stranger than we know. But reality is stranger than we can know.
Taking the red pill. ( The Matrix )
Twilight Zone
Losing one’s marbles
Turn to the Dark Side
“Truth is stranger than fiction.”
Sandwich short of a picnic.
Kangaroos loose in the top paddock.
Having a screw loose.
Not playing with a full deck.
I’m not sure if this is what you want though? I think I might be off track.
He’s a few bricks short of a full load.
We’re in the Bizzaro World
For example, in the Bizarro World, someone like the Newt would be a political candidate running a “family values” platform.
So, you are looking for literary euphemisms regarding the illogical and insane….. hmmmm.
My favourite English term is:
Three stops short of Dagenham. (in London, three stops before Dagenham is Barking, as in ‘Barking Mad’)
If you want to find characters in classic works that crazy:
Hamlet and Ophelia in ‘Hamlet’ (I love how she keeps ‘rue’ for herself when she is handing out the flowers.)
Captain Ahab in ‘Moby Dick’
King Lear goes crazy.
You can probably find some references to euphemisms for crazy in the texts.
ooops. I missed a real obvious one that I use frequently. ‘Tilting at windmills.’ Now there is one person with an altered state of reality! (I mean Don Quixote of course.)
Do do do do
do do do do
do do do do
do do do do
“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
“She’s off in her own world.” or “I live in my own world, but it’s OK, they know me there.”
‘Gone south’
As in “I guess it was just too much for Darrel, ‘fraid he’s gone south on us, boys.”
Off your rocker.
Your elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top.
They’re going to throw him in the Booby Hatch. (I sort of recall Ethel Merman saying something like this in Mad Mad World). I can’t seem to find the quote.
Although I did find this story by James Thurber, called A Unicorn in the Garden with a line that says, “You are a booby,’” she said, “I am going to have you put in a booby-hatch.”
He’s off his rocker.
There’s a light in the attic, but nobody’s home. (May have been from Shel Silverstein’s Poem A Light in the Attic).
He’s living in la-la land. I’ve seen some references, saying that it has to do with living in Los Angeles (as in: there are lots of crazies in L.A) but this doesn’t sound right to me. This Reference sheds a little more light on the subject.
In the movie Psycho II, Mary Loomis (played by Meg Tilley) says to Norman (Anthony Perkins) “Oh Norman, you’re mad. Don’t you know that? You’re as mad as a hatter.”
Major Frank Burns (Larry Linville) on M*A*S*H said to Corporal Klinger (Jamie Farr) “You’re a disgrace to American man- and womanhood. So stop bucking for a discharge while I’m in command, Corporal Nutsy Fagin!”
In the book Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov (1859) the character Zakhar says, “It isn’t only today Tatayana Ivanovna,” Zakhar replied, casting his sidelong glance at her, “He’s gone off the rails, that he has – makes me sick to talk of it!”
<—- not the sharpest tool in thu shed
“He won’t set the world on fire.”
Not the brightest crayon in the box.
Missing a few marbles.
The lift (elevator) doesn’t go all the way to the top floor.
I found another literary example of booby hatch (although I’m still convinced that Ethel Merman yelled it at somebody in a movie) in John Steinbeck’s book Of Mice and Men: “Want me to tell ya what’ll happen? They’ll take ya to the booby hatch. They’ll tie ya up with a collar, like a dog.” Chapter 4, pg. 72
And here is a quote from the Movie: This Island, Earth (1955) Joe Wilson: “Cal, I – I know everybody’s seeing flying saucers and screwy lights up in the sky. Well, you can put me in the booby hatch too, because, so help me, I saw this ship turn a bright green up there.”
I’ve also heard the term, “They’ll cart you off to the booby hatch.”
And don’t forget about being carted off to the “funny farm.”
One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Have to be references in there you can use.
@Bellatrix And that just reminded me of the phrase, “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”
Brick shy of a load.
Can short of a six pack.
Not the brightest bulb on the tree.
Half a bubble off level.
Also, “Through the looking-glass.”
@EnchantingEla Half a bubble off level is great. Anyone who’s built stuff would like that.
Some euphemisms for where you go (or are put) when you go off the deep end:
Acorn academy Euphemism for mental hospital.
Bat house Euphemism for mental hospital.
Booby hatch Euphemism for mental hospital.
Bughouse Euphemism for mental hospital.
Cracker factory Euphemism for mental hospital.
Crazy house Euphemism for mental hospital.
Funny house Euphemism for mental hospital.
Home Euphemism for mental hospital.
Institution Euphemism for mental hospital.
Laughing academy Euphemism for mental hospital.
Loony bin Euphemism for mental hospital.
Madhouse Euphemism for mental hospital.
Nut factory Euphemism for mental hospital.
Nut farm Euphemism for mental hospital.
Nut hatch Euphemism for mental hospital.
Nut house Euphemism for mental hospital.
Rest house Euphemism for mental hospital.
Soft walls Euphemism for mental hospital, a reference to padded cells.
Snake pit Euphemism for mental hospital.
Warehouse Euphemism for mental hospital.
Zoo Euphemism for mental hospital.
Fruit ranch (AmE, slang) Psychiatric unit in an ordinary hospital.
Flight deck (AmE, slang) Psychopathic ward.
(thank you Wikipedia, I love the last term, flight deck, lol)
You are siad to be:
Unhinged
Not playing with a full deck
sandwich short of a picnic
over the precipice
on the verge of a nervous breakdown
for literary references I thought of Moby Dick.
Here’s a reference about Ahab and others in that book:
Ahab is not the only insane figure in Melville’s Moby-Dick.Elijah,Gabriel, Pip, Fedallah, possibly Ishmael, Perth the blacksmith, and others are close to or on the other side of “the thin red line” separating the sane from the insane.
“A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Welcome to the Monkey House
There must be plenty more literary references but I am blanking now. I must be “losing it”
RealEyesRealizeRealLies I feel like it should be longer, lol. I am missing so many great characters. I have a fondness for quirky, eccentric, left of center people. They may not always be insane or even what you could call mentally ill but they see the world through a different lens and that is endlessly interesting to me.
One I can think of is Perry in the waltz scene from The Fisher King- in Grand Central Station.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lASPrnWf6cA
@Earthgirl, since we were talking about Wuthering Heights on that movie thread, do you recall any passages from that book that referred to any of the clearly crazy characters in that story?
Also Sherlock Holmes tended to be a little nutty, but most of his quirks seemed to stem from cocain and absinthe use, not really craziness, but there must be something.
Or maybe Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Gotta be something there!
How about Miss Habersham in Great Expectations? Super looney.
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