IDENTIFY THIS QUOTE...

[Mark Jackman]

A "friend" has been taunting me with the password "The fat man walks alone..."
for years, and I've never known where it's from. Occasionally it comes up in
other media, films, tv, casual conversation, etc., but always as a
_reference_, as a sort of standard secret-spies-genre password. No one who
referred to it in my presence ever knew its actual source, and I've sworn to
find out both the source and the correct couter-password. Who can help?
Replies either here or by email directly to ma...@etak.com, thanks.

Mark Jackman "Well, if you could just tell us what level of insolence
ma...@etak.com you _will_ tolerate, Sir, we'd be happy to adjust."

[Lipton Ann Meredith]

From an episode of Family Ties, actually. So rec.arts.movies isn't really
the place, but what the hell. The episode where Tom Hanks comes to visit --
he's a relative -- and he's on the run, and claims everything is okay but talks
in code on the telephone. One of the things he says is, "The fat man walks
alone."

Firestar

--
I don't bite, you know. | Find me and turn thy | It is better to have loved
Unless it's called for. | back on heaven. | and lost than to have your
-- Audrey Hepburn, Charade | -- R. W. Emerson | finger caught in a blender.
*******************************************************************************

[Matt Brockman]

In article <1993May3.0...@leland.Stanford.EDU> fire...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Lipton Ann Meredith) writes:
>In article <1993May2.2...@leland.Stanford.EDU> ma...@samish.stanford.edu (Mark Jackman) writes:
>>A "friend" has been taunting me with the password "The fat man walks alone..."
>>for years, and I've never known where it's from. Occasionally it comes up in
>>other media, films, tv, casual conversation, etc., but always as a
>>_reference_, as a sort of standard secret-spies-genre password. No one who
>>referred to it in my presence ever knew its actual source, and I've sworn to
>>find out both the source and the correct couter-password. Who can help?
>>Replies either here or by email directly to ma...@etak.com, thanks.
>

>From an episode of Family Ties, actually. So rec.arts.movies isn't really
>the place, but what the hell. The episode where Tom Hanks comes to visit --
>he's a relative -- and he's on the run, and claims everything is okay but talks
>in code on the telephone. One of the things he says is, "The fat man walks
>alone."

Yes, this quote does appear in Family Ties, but is not original.
(The other quote in thsi episode is "The Eagle has landed." which
is, of course, from the Apollo mission to the moon.)

I believe that "The Fat Man walks alone." is from the Manhatten project
(to build atomic bombs during WWII.) The two bombs used at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki were nicknamed "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" (insiration of the title
of a good movie starring Paul Newman about the Manhattan Project, "The
Manhattan Project" being the title of another pretty good film about a
high school kid.) Anyways, I think that the phrase "The fat man walks alone."
was code for something relating to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Perhaps
meaning that the Enola gay was on its way or that the bomb had been dropped.

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Matt Brockman mbro...@ecn.purdue.edu
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"While a llama may produce some of the world's finest of wools, prized
around the world, their breath, on the other hand, could only
be prized somewhere in the far reaches of llama hell."
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