Even though it was released more than 20 years ago, the Coen Brothers movie “Raising Arizona,” starring Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, John Goodman, William Forsythe and Frances McDormand, remains my favorite comedy.
That is mainly because of the hilarious lines that lace this 94-minute movie about a former convict (H.I.) and policewoman (Edwina, or “Ed”) who marry, then find they are unable to have children. So the unlikely couple kidnap one of the Arizona quints, the children of loudmouth unpainted furniture store owner Nathan Arizona.
John Goodman and William Forsythe play Gale and Evelle, H.I.’s former prison mates who break out of jail and end up in the middle of the kidnapping craziness. See “Raising Arizona” for yourself to learn the rest, but enjoy these top 10 lines from the movie:
10. “You’re just hurtin’ yourself with this rambunctious behavior.” So said the chairman of the parole board to H.I. when springing him from prison early in the movie. And a bonus from the same scene: “You done served your twenty munce, and seeing as you never use live ammo, we got no choice but to return you to society.”
9. “Guumint do take a bite, don’t she?” What the cashier at H.I.’s job tells him when he sees his first paycheck, after the IRS had taken its share.
8. “We released ourselves on our own recognizance.” What Gale, a former prison mate of H.I., tells him to explain his and his brother’s presence in H.I. and Edwina’s living room. They had escaped from prison by tunneling out, hitting a sewage line along the way.
7. “Whyncha breast feed him? You ‘pear to be capable.” What Gale tells Edwina when discussing the baby. Gale and Evelle didn’t know the baby wasn’t Edwina and H.I.’s natural-born son.
6. “Sir, it’s been rumored that your son was abducted by UFOs. Would you care to comment?” … Nathan: “Now don’t print that, son. If his mama reads that she’s just gonna lose all hope.”
5. “Course I don’t really need another kid, but Dottie says these-here are getting’ too big to cuddle.” H.I.’s supervisor says this to H.I. when threatening to report the abduction to the authorities if H.I. doesn’t turn the baby over to him and his wife Dottie to raise.
4. “These blow up into funny shapes at all?” … “No, not unless round is funny.” This is an exchange between Evelle and an old man in a convenience store when Evelle was stocking up on baby supplies after kidnapping the baby from H.I. and Ed.
3. “Come on, Hi, you’re young, you got your health. What would you want with a job?” This is what Evelle tells H.I. when trying to persuade him to rob a bank.
2. “I dunno, they were jammies! They had Yodas’n sh*t on ’em!” Nathan Arizona’s response to the policeman asking him what type of pajamas Nathan Jr. was wearing the night he was taken by H.I.
1. Drum roll, please. … And the number-one line in my favorite comedy of all time is … “Son, you got a panty on your head!” This is all the “hayseed in the pickup” has to say to H.I. when H.I. is carjacking him. H.I. was still wearing pantyhose on his head from his botched robbery of a convenience store and was being chased by police. He needed to get back to where he had dropped his stolen pack of Huggies. Classic Coen.
Source for exact lines: “Raising Arizona: The Screenplay,” Joel & Ethan Coen; 1988
