Tonsils?


Anyone know the source or origin of Chester's admonition, "This number's as dead as Chelsea's tonsils!"? A quick Google search turned up only references to "Footlight Parade." I wondered if it was an in-joke, a reference to a popular figure of the day, etc.

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Just a wild guess: Chelsea, Manhattan was the site of the Grand Opera House, which featured operettas and other live musical productions for many years before
becoming a movie theater. Its last stage production was about 1915, so maybe the comment referred to the place no longer featuring live singers anymore?


I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!

Hewwo.

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Thanks! It makes sense, especially since many of the theater's performers lived, and undoubtedly practiced, in the Chelsea district.

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While this is a charming and well-imagined answer, the truth is that the phrase is 'Kelsey's...tonsils' not 'Chelsea's'.

'Deader than Kelsey's nuts' is the actual phrase (fairly common in the '30's, increasingly so later on). If you google it, you'll find a bunch of info on wheel lug-nuts made by a company named 'Kelsey'. However, it is entirely possible that the censors even in pre-Code Hollywood would not pass a phrase that seemed to refer to gentlemen's wedding tackle. The punning possibilities of 'nuts' would have appealed to men in the era.

If you listen carefully, you'll hear a perceptible pause between 'Kelsey's' and 'tonsils' as Chester Kent substitutes one paired body part for another. Everyone in the audience would likely have known the original phrase and would have laughed.

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