Tuesday, August 24, 2010

What exactly does Doc Holliday (the Tombstone version) mean by "I'm your huckleberry"?


YouTube comments aren't usually the most stirring of threads, but the comments for the famous Doc vs. Johnny Ringo shootout scene has some interesting opinions about what Doc's getting at when he says he's Johnny's "huckleberry." Now you might assume that these mostly revolve around gay panic jokes, or at least old Hannah Barbera references, but they actually boil down into two differing schools of thought: 1) He says "hucklebearer". Huckles are the handles on caskets, and Doc used to provoke men by offering to carry their corpses to the grave. 2) He says "huckleberry", and huckleberries are something you look for.

I'm pretty sure it's "huckleberry", and though I'm not sure about the veracity of any of the YouTube comments, my favorite one comes from Childrenofpwnom:

"A huckleberry is a delicious berry, that men spent much of their time looking for. Or that is how the story goes. When he says "I'm your huckleberry." what he means is "i'm what your looking for.""

My favorite part is that he characterizes hard core Western gamblers, cowboys, outlaws, and lawmen (even the kind that ride around romantically with actresses) as spending a lot their of looking for berries, and well, I think that's just Smurfy.


1 comment:

  1. A-B,

    I've seen the movie 50 times. He definitely says "I'm your huckleberry". I love the Childrenofpwnom description, but I always though Doc was just being funny.

    Joe G.

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