Millinocket...come to think of it, you can't get there from here.
—"Which Way to Millinocket?", from the original Bert and I...And Other Stories from Down East
Bert and I is a series of comedy albums and related works by Marshall Dodge and Bob Bryan, based around the humor of the "Down East" culture of Maine. They became the codifier of much of this humor, focused around dry wit, understatement, and folk wisdom, and were an inspiration for (among others) A Prairie Home Companion. The Down East accent is thick, although others appear as well. (If one were to Funetik Aksent the page quote, it would come out more like "You cahn't get thayah from heayah.")
Four original albums were released:
- Bert and I...And Other Stories from Down East (1958)
- More Bert and I... And Other Stories from Down East (1961)
- The Return of Bert and I: How the Bluebird II Plugged the Hole in the Machias Maru, Thus Saving the Coast of Maine and Other Stories (1972)
- Bert and I Stem Inflation (1976)
A Live Album with just Marshall Dodge, Bert and I...On Stage was released in 1977, and Bob Bryan worked with Maine comedian Tim Sample on an audio recording of How To Talk Yankee, a humorous lexicon of Down East language. Bryan and Sample put out a new album, "Bert and I...Rebooted" in 2013.
The albums have recently been reissued by Islandport Press, and are available at the Bert and I website
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Bert and I come down to the tropes around six o'clock in the early morning...
- Abandon Ship: Bert and I, after the Bluebird is sunk by the Bangor Packet.
- The All-Concealing "I": Downplayed. The narrator of the "Bert and I" sketches is unnamed, although several things can be determined about him: he's a lobsterman from Kennebunkport who works on the Bluebird with Bert.
- Artistic License – Economics: "Bert and I Stem Inflation" has quite a few, exaggerated for humor. For example, inflation is not caused by the Secretary of the Treasury signing individual dollar bills too quickly, especially not by signing his whole name instead of using his initial.
- Beyond the Impossible: Gagnon, World-Champion Moose Caller manages to summon a stuffed moose from the Natural History Museum.
- Blatant Lies: Harry Whitfield, who stepped out to go sharpen his axe, gets his car caught in the wheel well of a 747 and flown to New York City. When he arrives home several days later, his wife is standing at the door glaring at him, and his justification is, "That axe was some dull."note
- Butt-Monkey: Harry Whitfield, a recurring character who goes through several horrible stories, typically while traveling to (or returning from) visiting his niece Winona, who lives in Oyster Bay on Long Island.
- Comically Missing the Point: Very common.
- "The Sassage", talking about a sausage: "After you clean it, there's not much to it."
- "Mad Dog". "Oh, I had to shoot my dog." "Was he mad?" "Guess he weren't so damn pleased."
- "The Body In The Kelp", where Old John asks for a description of the body. "Well, then, 'tweren't me."
- In "More Bert and I", they catch a scuba diver, who is apparently stealing from their lobster traps, and apparently just think he's a weird fish. They hang him up on the fish scales, then talk about using him for bait.
- Could Say It, But...: "The Liar". "I wouldn't go so far as to call him a liar, but I heard tell from them as knows that when he wants his cows to come in from pasture, he's got to get someone else to call 'em."
- Deadpan Snarker: Harry's wife, when Harry, asleep at the wheel, crashes his car through the side of the house: "I see you're just in time for dinner."
- Deus Angst Machina: "No News" on Bert and I Stem Inflation is a variant of the "Your dog died from eating burnt horse flesh" urban legend.
- Did You Die?: Inverted in "The Body In The Kelp", where a body is found that resembles Elmer the lighthouse keeper. The narrator and friend go to the lighthouse to confirm, where they have a discussion with Elmer about the body, ending with Elmer confirming, "Well, then, 'tweren't me."
- Drives Like Crazy: The tourist driving the foreign sports car in "Which Way to East Vassalboro?"
- Greatest Hits Album: "The Best of Bert and I" (1983), which has tracks from the four studio albums, the Live Album, and a few from Marshall Dodge's short-lived TV show, "Down East Smile-In".
- Hollywood Drowning: Averted in "Bert and I"; after the Bluebird sinks, Bert is just floating about a foot under the surface of the water, and the narrator has to get him back up.
- Insane Troll Logic: Virgil Bliss argues that he's cleaner than the judge, because the judge dirties 365 or more shirts per year, while Virgil only dirties the one.
- Mathematician's Answer:
- "You're in a balloon, you damned fool" is the punchline to "The Lighter Than Air Balloon".
- From "Arthur Bunker Testifies": "You live there all your life?" "Not yet."
- From "Not Just Yet": "Where is your wife?" "She's out t'the graveyard." (She died eight years ago.)
- Pretty much all of "Directions". "Where does this road go?" "Don't go nowhere, Mister. Stays right here."
- Ominous Fog: The fog in the original "Bert and I" was described as "a dungeon of fog", and the Bangor Packet came out of it to slice the Bluebird in half.
- The Pig-Pen: The titular "Virgil Bliss", who changes his shirt once a year. He's brought into court and sentenced to a bath.
- Ramming Always Works:
- The Bangor Packet sinks the Bluebird and apparently doesn't even notice.
- Bert and I manage to plug the hole in the oil tanker Machias Maru by plugging it with the Bluebird II.
- Replacement Goldfish: The Bluebird II, after the Bluebird sinks in "Bert and I". By "Bert and I Stem Inflation", they're on the Bluebird VI.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The directions in "Directions" go through a winding and impossible-to-follow sequence to get to an intersection where it doesn't matter which way you go, as you're completely lost already.
- Short Title: Long, Elaborate Subtitle: The Return of Bert and I: How the Bluebird II Plugged the Hole in the Machias Maru, Thus Saving the Coast of Maine and Other Stories has a 6-word title and a 20-word subtitle.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Downplayed; Gagnon, World-Champion Moose Caller can call moose (and caribou), although he can't talk to them beyond summoning them.
- The Stoic: A key element of the humor.
- The narrator of "Bert and I", who calmly describes his boat getting cut in half and his friend almost drowning.
- Myron Cudmore in "The Plane Ride". The ride was $10 for 10 minutes, but if Myron and his wife kept their mouths shut for the whole ride, the ride was free. The pilot started looping and trying to scare them, then finally lands, admitting defeat. "Wasn't there a moment when you felt like shouting or saying something?" "Well, no. Except that one time when you turned upside-down and Ma fell out."
- Throw the Dog a Bone: "Kenneth Fowler Goes Hunting" - after going through a Trauma Conga Line, he goes hunting. He shoots between two foxes; the bullet hits a rock and splits in half, killing both foxes. He falls back in the river, and comes up with one hand on a beaver and the other on an otter, and his pants so full of fish that the button pops off and kills a partridge.
- Understatement: A common element of the humor, especially when mixed with Mathematician's Answer:
- From "Directions": "Is this the the road to Portland?" "Yes. But it's about thirty thousand miles the way you're headed, and there's some stretches of pretty wet wheelin'."
- The Voiceless: Bert. We only hear of him through the unnamed narrator.
- You Can't Miss It: A common element of directions given to tourists.
- "Which Way to Millinocket?" starts to describe several routes that involve things like "Just keep the river on your left."
- "Directions" includes directions like "Two miles before the red schoolhouse, you take a left."
