A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

Recent entries:
“Never underestimate my desire at any given moment to go home” (4/23)
“I’m a better person when I’m tan and holding a margarita” (4/23)
“You ARE a good driver. That curb DOESN’T belong there” (4/23)
“‘It’s been a long week.’—Me, in the middle of Tuesday” (4/23)
“Buying frozen pizza is such a lie. ‘Oh I’ll save this for when I don’t feel like cooking’. Surprise, surprise. Day one” (4/22)
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Entry from December 20, 2015
“Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’”

New Yorkers have been known to curse. New York-born Woody Allen said in his standup comedy act (about 1964):
 
“I don’t know what else to tell you about myself, I was a writer and an actor, I was a television writer and, ah, I wasn’t an actor, I was in acting class. We did a play in acting class by Paddy Chayefsky called “Gideon”, and I played the part of God, in “Gideon”. It was typecasting. It was method acting, so two weeks beforehand, I started to live the part offstage, y’know. I really came on God, there, I was really fabulous, I put on a blue suit, I took taxi cabs all over New York. I tipped big, ‘cause he would have. I got into a fight with a guy, and I forgave him. It’s true. Some guy hit my fender and I said unto him…I said, “Be fruitful and multiply”, but not in those words.”
 
The line, “Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ but not in those words,” has been frequently cited.
 
   
Wikipedia: Woody Allen
Heywood “Woody” Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg, December 1, 1935) is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker and playwright, whose career spans more than 50 years.
 
He worked as a comedy writer in the 1950s, writing jokes and scripts for television and publishing several books of short humor pieces. In the early 1960s, Allen began performing as a stand-up comedian, emphasizing monologues rather than traditional jokes. As a comedian, he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he maintains is quite different from his real-life personality. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen in fourth place on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians, while a UK survey ranked Allen as the third greatest comedian.
         
OCLC WorldCat record
Woody Allen, standup comic, 1964-1968
Author: Woody Allen
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif. : United Artists Records, 1978.
Edition/Format:   Audiobook on LP : LP recording : English
 
Woody Allen - Standup Comic
Side Track
1 Private Life
(...)
I don’t know what else to tell you about myself, I was a writer and an actor, I was a television writer and, ah, I wasn’t an actor, I was in acting class. We did a play in acting class by Paddy Chayefsky called “Gideon”, and I played the part of God, in “Gideon”. It was typecasting. It was method acting, so two weeks beforehand, I started to live the part offstage, y’know. I really came on God, there, I was really fabulous, I put on a blue suit, I took taxi cabs all over New York. I tipped big, ‘cause he would have. I got into a fight with a guy, and I forgave him. It’s true. Some guy hit my fender and I said unto him…I said, “Be fruitful and multiply”, but not in those words.
 
Google Books
Woody Allen:
Clown Prince of American Humor

By Bill Adler and Jeffrey Feinman
New York, NY: Pinnacle Books
1975    
Pg. 98:
“I got into a fight with a guy, and I forgave him. It’s true. Some guy hit my fender the other day, and I said unto him, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply.’ But not in those words.”
 
Google News Archive
2 April 1978, Pittsburgh (PA) Press, “Where Are Clowns? On Vinyl” by William Allan, pg. K-8, col. 3: 
WOODY ALLEN has the biggest album, two long plays, United Artists, (LA849-J2- 0998).
 
Actually, it is made up of the best of his 1964-1968 abums, which are no longer available at retail.
(...)
Less strenuous efforts include a stuttering dog that barks “B-B-B-Bow-Wow,” trying to make opium from VFW poppies and telling a nuisance “to be fruitful and multiply, but not those exact words.
 
Google Books
The Fourth—and by Far the Most Recent—637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
By Robert Byrne
New York, NY: Atheneum
1990
Pg. ?:
620
Some guy hit my fender, and I said to him, “Be fruitful and multiply,” but not in those words.
Woody Allen
 
Google News Archive
5 June 2007, Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette, “Adam Kokesh, a brave marine at home, too” by Tony Norman, pg. A-2, col. 1:
As if recycling an old Woody Allen joke, Kokesh suggested politely to the officer that he “be fruitful and multiply” — but not in those words.
 
Twitter
Jewish Comedians
‏@JewishComedians
Woody Allen: Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, “Be fruitful and multiply,’ but not in those words. | #Quotes
10:23 AM - 21 Dec 2015

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityTransportation • Sunday, December 20, 2015 • Permalink


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