That's right ... Iceman ... I am dangerous

"Top Gun" is on TV these days more than the year it first buzzed the tower at theaters. I consider this movie a "target-rich environment" for quoting at nonsensical times during my workday.

My coworkers, on the other hand, are ready to go "Cougar" on me and turn in their wings. (Which is fine, because that gives me my dream shot -- Miramar!) I'll pulled no less than a "4-g negative dive" today at the office, bringing up memorable lines more lines than Iceman waxes that flattop of his. (God bless, Val Kilmer.)

I know what you're thinking: How can I irritate my friends and coworkers in similar fashion? I'm here to help.

TOP 10 TOP GUN LINES TO RECITE TO ANNOY COWORKERS:

10. Swilling down Starbucks on the way in from the parking lot: "I feel the need ... the need for speed." (Or, if you're already caffeinated enough, "Time to kick the tires and light the fires!")

9. When coming in the office door: "Good morning, gentlemen, the temperature is 110 degrees."

8. When your boss asks you to do something: "That's a negative, Ghost rider, the pattern is full."

7. When seeing your friend in the restroom: "Hey Goose, you big stud!" (Or, if you're feeling daring, "Great balls of fire!")

6. After that three-martini lunch to nobody in particular: "I flew with your old man. VF-51, the Oriskany. You're a lot like he was. Only better... and worse."

5. When passing off an assignment to a subordinate: "If you screw up just this much, you'll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dogs--t out of Hong Kong!"

4. On spotting targets at Happy Hour after work: "Too close for missiles, I'm switching to guns."

3. What to tell your wingman at Happy Hour after switching to guns: "Do not fire until fired upon."

2. What you tell yourself when your ATM won't cough up more cash: "Son, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash."

1. And whenever you get the chance: "Take me to bed or lose me forever."

Comments

[Marissa]

Love numero uno. I don't know when I'd have the chance to use it, but I'll keep it on the tip of my tongue ... just in case.

This is superb, Steve. Truly. What would I do without your and your Rainman-like abilities to pull quotes from the sky, huh?

[Eric62]

8 and 7 are funny, but I like No. 8's answer to No. 7's situation, especially an hour or so after everyone hits the coffee machine for the third time before lunch.

[jane]

Number one. Hot. Very hot. So hot it evokes number nine.

And I'm liking number six -- especially the "nobody in particular" part. Nothing like a good ramble after a three (vodka) martini lunch.

[Spears]

I was seriously tormenting everyone in ear-shot of me yesterday with these lines. Wait 'til today.

Maybe I'll switch to Lawrence of Arabia: "Nooo prisoners!"

[Marissa]

I have exactly one co-worker who gets my movie quotes. However, only those from Ferris Bueller. She has the movie memorized. My talents are so wasted in my workplace.

Oh, and Steve, I wanted to let you know this: "The Last American Virgin" is enroute to my home.

[Eric62]

Isn't this mostly a male thing? I can't go a day without hearing something from Caddyshack or The Blues Brothers or Patton. And I mean virtually everyday of my professional, post-1984 life, but maybe 2 percent of it comes from women. So our hat's off to Marissa.

[Big Tex]

Funny stuff, Steve. When I switched from VHS to DVD about 10 years ago, Top Gun was the first DVD I purchased. Talk about a guilty pleasure. Also funny is Q. Tarantino's deconstruction of Top Gun from the horrible movie Sleep with Me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW9YutYlUHo

Marissa, if you've never seen that movie before, be prepared for an ending that will rip your heart out and leave you with your mouth agape.

[jane]

It's not just a dude thing... I'm always referencing some movie or TV quote. My problem is that they're often lost on my audience. Philistines.

Go-to quotable films for me: "This Is Spinal Tap" and "So I Married An Axe Murderer." Not a day goes by without a reference to at least one of those flicks.

[Marissa]

Big Tex, that clip is brilliant! Top Gun has always been suspect of that, but Tarantino puts it perfectly.

Today at work I'll just shout out "SWORD FIGHT! SWORD FIGHT!" as if I have tourettes. Much like the times I say, "Mama, No!" and people look at me as if I have a horn growing from the middle of my forehead.

[Marissa]

...and Eric62, thank you.

[Spears]

When it comes to quoting movies to Sean, yesterday was more of a Blues Brothers day. I kept hitting him with the "Bring me my cheez whiz, boy?!?" over and over again.

[Spears]

Oh, and a little Lord of the Rings to get us fired up before recording the podcast:

"SHIIIIRE!!! BAGGINS!"

It never fails.

[Bassnote]

Big Tex that clip made me laugh hysterically. I so hate the movie Top Gun, and I love seeing someone slam it like that.

[Jeff in Cuba]

If you want to get crap thrown at you in a military office, you should use this Top Gun gem:

"I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you."

That line has become so hackneyed and abused that it's not even effective when used by someone who could, in fact, kill you.

[Jeff in Cuba]

BTW, I was at Officer Candidate School when Top Gun came out, and on our rare opportunities to go out, my buddies and I would hang around the theater in our whites, waiting for nubile young women to emerge with "Take My Breath Away" still ringing in their ears.

Like shooting fish in a barrel...

[Douglas Arthur]

Who told you I got a plane ticket to Kakakaneeeee?

Seriously, though. I think Top Gun is waaaaaaay over-rated. It was a jingoistic propaganda film of the cold war and made me sick to my stomach when I went to it. I was dragged with a group of friends who wanted to see it, and big surprise, I was the only one who hated it! The whole dog-fight at the end with the Ruskies would've sparked a war in real life. Plus I thought there was absolutely no chemistry between Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise. The whole "relationship" seemed quite fake. Sure there are a few good quotes, but those quotes are held together with the cinematic equivalent of chewing gum and baling wire.

Its too bad there wasn't a sequel crossover with Lou Gossett, Jr.'s "Pappy" Sinclair character from Iron Eagle. He would have kicked everyone's buttocks.

later, you can ask me how I really feel.

[VineyardWoman]

I'm with Jane and Marissa - always quoting movies - and while my friends get it...my coworkers most definitely DO NOT. Top Gun is one of my favorites, and my boyfriend and I are always using #1, replied with "Show me the way home!", and evoking #9. :-)

Jeff, wish I could have been a fly on the wall watching you and your buddies "in action" ... what a riot!

[DoctorDrew]

Jeff,

You can't tell me that before marriage you never threw around this classic,

"I can see it's dangerous for you, but if the government trusts me, maybe you could."

[DoctorDrew]

In my less sensitive youth, when my buddies and I would see a plus sized woman we would say, "Any of you boys seen an aircraft-carrier around here?"

[Spears]

Ah, Doc. I just spit half a bagel on my monitor after reading that one.

[jane]

Jeff, I totally applaud your ingenuity -- you slick operator you.

And although I'm not a big fan of the flick, I so would have been one of those fish in the barrel.

[Walter Cox]

I'm sitting here wondering if Spears has a habit of flexing his arm for any possible cameras nearby when he checks his watch.

[Clark]

I saw this movie once, didn't like it and STILL quote it from time to time. Not as much as I quote "Silence of the Lambs", but still.

Who's the most quotable actor of the 80's? I'm putting in a preliminary vote for Bill Murray.

[Rodger]

Tom Cruise is a trouser trout. and a phsycotologist.

[Walter Cox]

Clark: Harrison Ford?

[DoctorDrew]

Clark - interesting. Probably Murray, but what about Costner? Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, The Untouchables, Dances with Wolves (depending on whther 1990 is considered the 80s or not); and the oft overlooked but quite quotable Silverado.

In thinking it over though, I would have to throw my support behind Eddie Murphy --

Coming to America (1988)
Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)
The Golden Child (1986)
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
"Saturday Night Live"
Trading Places (1983)
48 Hrs. (1982)

[Jeff in Cuba]

Believe it or not, I've actually seen spontaneous renditions of "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" break out in Navy Officers' Clubs. Twice as a joke, but once in an attempt to woo a fair maiden.

And the wooing appeared to work. Not in the Top Gun "I-gotta-leave-my-homoerotic-volleyball-game-and-go-to-my-hot-date" sort of way, but in a "Sure,-you-can-sit-here-and-buy-me-a-drink" sort of way.

To quote Hollywood: "Gutsiest move I ever saw!"

[Eric62]

Murray, yes. Murphy, yes. Even Chevy Chase, yes.
But let's not forget Leslie Nielsen. Not a wide range of films, mind you, but the sheer tonnage of Airplane! lines outweighs virtually all challengers.

[jane]

Murray for certain. Murphy as well -- although with both of those guys, I find myself quoting their SNL stuff almost as often as their movie stuff.

Although I love movies with a supreme passion, deep down, I'm really a TV babe at heart.

Oh -- Leslie Nielsen and the quotability of Airplane (actually, the movie as a whole) puts him high on that quotable list as well.

[DoctorDrew]

ACK! Leslie Nielson, excellent. Although many of the best lines in Airplane are not his, there is The Naked Gun.

[ZombieFan]

I have to admit, I have actually used #8 when a boss asked me if I could take on something new while I already had projects going. It got a laugh. I got the work. Like Maverick, my boss buzzed the tower anyway.

[cheezstake]

Funny you should bring up Top Gun. At work, we've been circulating the "Gay Top Gun" video. Watch it, and the movie will never be the same again. It's a spin on Tarantino's view of the movie.

Thanks to Big Tex for bringing up SWORDFIGHT!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHklGtW3rwU

[Bruce Hammond]

Lame, lame, lame!!!

[Samantha]

These are just plain embarrassing.

[Andrew]

What!? No "You can be my wingman anytime."

How could you miss that one? Talk about classic. Almost as homoerotic as the football game, though.

[Cookie]

Next time you watch this, you have to notice how hard they try to make Tom Cruise look taller than (or at least the same height as) Kelly McGillis.

She always seems to be walking down the hall waaay far behind him. And he sits down at every opportunity.

what about popquiz hot shot?

[Patrick Murphy]

And how many of us wouldn't like to go up to a co-worker and say, "Slider, {sniff] You stink."

[Spears]

"Pop quiz, hot shot" is from the movie "Speed," I believe.

I tried to work in the "wingman" line, but that's one I never badger coworkers with.

And yeah, I really do use those lines at work.

[Bill K]

You're missing the best one...

At the dinner the other night with some friends... "Yeah, she shot her the bird."

::dead silence::

Me: "You know... the FINGER!" ::hand motion::

[Superman]

What about when you screw up and you're in the bosses office and he asks "what were you thinking?". Your response HAS to be "You don't have time to think up there. If you think, you're dead."

[Spears]

Every time I try "The Bird" line and "You don't have time to think up there" lines with the bosses, I find myself in deeper water.

Guess they're not 80s fans.

[Matt Janovic]

And let us all remember that Top Gun is based partly on the experiences of Randy "Duke" Cunningham when he was in the Air Force. Gotta love that s**t. And why do so many car dealers love this movie so much? Yes, because they're stupid, that's why.

[Matt Janovic]

And let us all remember that Top Gun is based partly on the experiences of Randy "Duke" Cunningham when he was in the Air Force. Gotta love that s**t. And why do so many car dealers love this movie so much? Yes, because they're stupid, that's why.

[Squirrely Girl]

I go with "The Big Lebowski" when I need to quote.
For example:
"Eight year olds, Dude."
"You want a toe? I can get you a toe."
"The usual. I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback."
"That rug really tied the room together, did it not?"
And my personal favorite - "Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules."