Schmilblick

The Schmilblick is an imaginary object first described in a nonsense prose by the French humorist Pierre Dac during the 1950s. According to its creator, the Schmilblick can be used in almost any occasion, therefore being strictly indispensable. ^[1] Dac himself credits the fictional brothers Jules and Raphaël Fauderche with its invention ("Fauderche" means "Fake arse" in French). ^[2]

The Schmilblick resurfaced in 1969, in a TV show by Guy Lux and Jacques Antoine entitled Le Schmilblic (sometimes spelled Schmilblik or Schmilblick).^{[ citation needed ]} The aim of the game was to guess the name of an object given some of its characteristics (color, shape, use and so on). This TV game actually re-uses an idea from an old radio show called Tirlipot created several years before.^{[ citation needed ]}

The word quickly became very popular in French language and was sometimes used as a placeholder name, particularly for a strange or unknown object similar to English words like "thingamajig" or "whatchamacallit". The words nowadays remains occasionally used to refer to some limited help provided by someone to solve a difficult problem. ^[3] The actual idiom is faire avancer le schmilblick ("to make the schmilblick move/get ahead", literally) and was used a lot in the TV quiz show where it meant asking a pertinent question that might make it easier to guess the object.

Coluche used this word in one of his sketches, a parody of Guy Lux's show.^{[ citation needed ]}

See also

• MacGuffin
• Schtroumpf

References

1. "Le Schmilblick". Archive de Pierre Dac (in French). Retrieved 2018-09-27.
2. Dehée, Yannick; Chauveau, Agnès (2014-01-01). Dictionnaire de la télévision française (in French). Nouveau Monde éditions. ISBN   9782365838092.
3. Macdonald, Fiona (29 September 2016). "Eleven of the world's quirkiest phrases". BBC Online . Retrieved 2018-09-27.

External links

• Pierre Dac's original sketch (in French)