Elementary, my dear Watson: Someone's just watched the season 4 trailer for Sherlock.
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"Elementary, my dear Watson." was ranked 65th in the American Film Institute 2005 list AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes.
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Gillette's Holmes is widely credited with being the first to utter "Elementary, my dear Watson"—a phrase that never appears in Conan Doyle's stories. It was also Gillette who introduced the famous curved pipe as a trademark Holmes prop.
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The story was included in the 1974 collection The World of Psmith, published by Barrie & Jenkins, London.McIlvaine (1990), pp. 122–123, B15. One of the earliest known uses in print of the phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" appeared in Psmith, Journalist.
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See List of misquotations and "Elementary, My Dear Watson" at Snopes.comWebb did say: "All we want are the facts ma'am". See Just the facts, ma'am, List of misquotations and "Just the Facts" at Snopes.comGreatest Film Misquotes - Part 2, Tim Dirks at filmsite.
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The exact phrase used in the book is "Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary". It appeared in the fourth part of the serial, published in January 1910. A similar phrase, "Elementary, my dear fellow, quite elementary", was used in the previous Psmith novel, Psmith in the City.
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In the book, Psmith says after making a deduction, "My dear Holmes, how—! Elementary, my dear fellow, quite elementary." This appeared in the second part of the serial in The Captain magazine, published in November 1908. The phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary" is used by Psmith in the following novel, Psmith, Journalist.
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An excerpt from the novel was included in the anthology Benny Green's The Cricket Addict's Archive, published in London by Elm Tree Books in 1977 and by Pavilion Books in 1985.McIlvaine (1990), p. 195, E53. The book contains an early use in print of a variation of the phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson".
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Of Funerals and Fish (4 January 1973). The pilot episode of the World's longest-running sitcom, Last of the Summer Wine. The Rescue (11 January 1973) starring Moyra Fraser, Peter Jones and Nicholas Parsons. Elementary, My Dear Watson: The Strange Case of the Dead Solicitors (18 January 1973) starring John Cleese, Willie Rushton and Bill Maynard.
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An adaptation of The Speckled Band aired on the early TV anthology series Your Show Time, and starred Alan Napier as Holmes and Melville Cooper as Watson. John Cleese played Holmes in a 1973 episode of "Comedy Playhouse": Elementary My Dear Watson. William Rushton played Watson. In 1988, the animated series Alvin and the Chipmunks aired an episode entitled "Elementary, My Dear Simon", which stars Simon as Holmes, Theodore as Watson, Alvin as Professor Moriarty, and Dave as Inspector Seville.
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Zecher, Henry, William Gillette, America's Sherlock Holmes (Xlibris Press, 2011), pp. 7, 9, 28, 328, 581 And it was in his play, not in Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, that Holmes first said "This is elementary, my dear fellow," which subsequently became "Elementary, my dear Watson".Zecher, Henry, William Gillette, America's Sherlock Holmes, p. 655 Gillette assumed the role onstage more than 1,300 times over thirty years, starred in a silent motion picture based on his Holmes play, and voiced the character twice on radio.
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In particular they praised concepts explored about computers and artificial intelligence as well as the Data and Geordi character sequences. The episode's title "Elementary, Dear Data" was noted as a play on the Sherlock Holmes phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson".Sherlock Holmes and Philosophy: The Footprints of a Gigantic Mind Page 299 In 2011, this episode was noted by Forbes as one that explores the implications of advanced technology, in this case for exploring an apparently self-aware software program. TIME (magazine) rated the holographic Professor Moriarty as the 5th best villain of the Star Trek franchise in 2016.
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The quote "Elementary, my dear Watson" was made popular by this film. Although it was spoken in the 1929 talkie The Return of Sherlock Holmes starring Clive Brook, it was never featured in a canonical Arthur Conan Doyle story, although once Holmes said, in the 1893 story "The Adventure of the Crooked Man", "Elementary". During the scene in which Holmes crashes the garden party dressed as a music hall performer, he sings "I Do Like To be Beside the Seaside". This is an anachronism, since the film is set in 1894 but the song was written in 1907.
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Other misquotations include "Just the facts, ma'am" (attributed to Jack Webb's character of Joe Friday on Dragnet), "Heavy lies the crown" from Shakespeare's Play Henry IV, Part 2, "Elementary, my dear Watson" (attributed to Sherlock Holmes; it was, however, said in the films The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Return of Sherlock Holmes), "Luke, I am your father" (attributed to Darth Vader in Star Wars), "Play it again, Sam" (attributed to Ilsa in Casablanca), "Do you feel lucky, punk?" (attributed to Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry) and "We don't need no stinkin' badges!" (attributed to Gold Hat in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre).The Holmes phrase originated in a radio play.
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