Daily Dialogue — February 27, 2019

Morris: Pound for pound, Sugar Ray Robinson’s the greatest fighter that ever lived!
Clarence: Aw, come on, man! What about Joe Louis?
Saul: The Brown Bomber! Now that was a great boxer!
Morris: You damn right!
Sweets: I suppose nobody in here ever heard of Cassius Clay?
Morris: He got a point. Cassius Clay was a bad motherfucker!
Clarence: I ain’t saying Clay ain’t bad. I’m just saying I stopped liking Cassius Clay once he changed his name to Moh-hammad Ali! What kinda shit is that?
Saul: Wait a second, wait a second! A man has got the right to change his name to whatever he wants to change it to. And if a man wants to be called Muhammad Ali, God damn it, this is a free country, you should respect his wishes, and call the man Muhammad Ali!
Morris: His Momma named him Clay, I’m gonna call him Clay.
Clarence: Mmm-hmm! That’s right!
Sweets: I say Clay.
Saul: Get outta here.
Clarence: Ha-ha-ha! That’s right! That’s right! He gonna always be Clay to me. I don’t give a fuck what he change his name to. He is Clay! He Clay to me. I say Clay.
Saul: Well, then, you’re a putz. The three of you. Three putzes. You should change the name outside from My-T-Sharp to The Three Putzes.

— Coming to America (1988), screenplay by David Sheffield & Barry W. Blaustein, story by Eddie Murphy

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Barber Shop.

Trivia: According to John Landis, it was his idea to have Eddie Murphy wear make-up to play a Jewish man, as a sort of payback for Jewish comedians wearing blackface in the early 1900s.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Ah, barber shop conversations. We’ve all heard them. This is a particularly spirited one.