Wow. Okay. Do we have a winner?

First of all, I'd like to thank "Rufus R. Jones" on the Snopes boards for pulling this one out of his hat, and making a pretty good case for it. That being said, I don't really think that it's the root of this whole thing, but who knows, it's certainly a start.

The Thread 

The Clip

RIP the IMDB thread
As of sometime in the past week, the famous thread on IMDB that had set out to get to the bottom of this question, was made read only. After about three years, and topping out just under 1400 replies, it's hardly surprising, but still kind of depressing.

To read the whole thing:
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000001/thread/1180562?d=1180562#1180562

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
"Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;"
-Alexander Pope

I'm toying with the idea of starting a new thread, but I'm not sure it would be the same.

The age of us posing our answers willy-nilly is done- now there is nothing left but to ask the question of ourselves and truly TRULY consider its context. The time has come to dig out those films that seem to fit these few lines and investigate for ourselves whether or not our memories have served us properly.

Excerpt from "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett
VLADIMIR: What does he do, Mr. Godot? (Silence.) Do you hear me?
BOY: Yes Sir.
VLADIMIR: Well?
BOY: He does nothing, Sir.

'Nuff dancing around
Since interest in this whole affair is dying, and more and more people are resigning themselves to the idea that the quote doesn't exist, I decided to take a more direct approach. Being that I had already found the earliest occurance of this quote on the internet, I decided to email the ORIGINAL POSTER (not Sswyak, but the one he heard it from) and just ask her where the hell she heard it from in the first place:

Hi,

I don't mean to bother you, and if you've gotten this
same question a million times, than feel free to
ignore me. But, as far as I can tell, you were one of
the first people online to pose the question of the
source of this quote:

"What does it do?"
"It doesn't DO anything. That's the beauty of it."

The question was posed on the Hatrack Forum, April
3rd, 2003. If you don't remember, that's fine. And
no, I'm not stalking you or anything, I was just
curious as to whether you were aware just how much
your question has captured the curiousity of half the
internet. You see, I'm insanely curious to know where
YOU heard it from. Do you remember? I'm thinking of
writing an article about it.

All the best,

Megan

ps- the only thread still mulling over it is this one:
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000001/thread/1180562?d=26464084#26464084

Repost from the IMDB thread- "This quote probably doesn't exist"
That would make sense, except for the fact that certain quotes have a tendency to get used for so long, that no one remembers where its from. Again, as I stated in an earlier post, my favourite example of this is: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here" which has been re-used and re-worded and re-stated MANY times in MANY places, but it originated in Dante's Inferno. But the question I posed the first time I mentioned this is- how many people know that? It is a famous quote, no doubt, but you may not neccessarily think Dante, when you hear this quote. Just like for the longest time, I didn't associate "Be afraid, be VERY afraid" with Cronenberg's "The Fly", because I had no idea that was where it was from (but the movie buffs all know it)

So I think it is actually possible that we all find it familiar, but can't pin down why. This quote has always been for the movie geeks, and I think that may have hindered this search a little- yes, the question has permeated itself to many corners of the internet, but mostly it has been posed to the movie geeks.

So- what if it's not from a movie? What if it's a historic quote? What if it's from a play or a book? How many art-literature finatics or history finatics will have seen or will see this question online? We have to eventually resign to the fact that this quote doesn't exist, but I think we first have to admit the possibility it might not be from the medium we think it is.

After all, if dozens of people can imagine Danny DeVito saying this quote in a Simpsons episode when HE NEVER SAID IT, then it's possible that since everyone is assuming its from a movie, their minds are creating a context for it. (since everyone says "I can hear so-and-so saying it, etc)

That being said, I've spent countless hours on Bartleby.com and freebooks5000.com, which little success, since they don't come with search engines that work well with this sort of search.

First post
I just created this blog as a quick system for posting updates to my little site, not to compete with kcor1953's Blog, which is much more substantial than my site. For a greater amount of careful research and intelligent commentary, please go there.

For a quick list of the films that have been suggested visit Ellen Ripley's thread.

For now, I'm just using this site as an all-purpose link page for the most popular suggestions as to the source of this quote. Many of the same films and shows get suggested over and over, and sometimes people need convincing or need a reminder of specific dialogue in a movie.

Yes, I will be tempted to throw in my own observations and theories.