MovieChat Forums > Mary Tyler Moore (1970) Discussion > A Lou Comment That I Just Don't Understa...

A Lou Comment That I Just Don't Understand


In a third season episode Lou is in the hospital to have some shrapnel removed from an old war injury.

Where were you injured?

Let's just say, France. lol

It was a funny episode but Lou says something to the nurse that I never understood. The audience laughs but I don't get it. He didn't want her to give him a shot and says that she could leave the needle and he'll give it to himself later. He says that it's okay because he knows how. He was with the Associated Press in Detroit. Does anyone know what the heck that means?

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I'm pretty sure that it is a reference to drinking alcohol and taking vitamin B12 shots.

Drinking alcohol depletes vitamin B12 and it seems that taking a B12 shot is supposed to be a way of lessening the effects of a hangover.

So, I assume that the joke is meant to imply that the Associated Press in Detroit was such a hard-drinking bunch of guys that they knew how to give themselves B12 shots.


I could be wrong, but I think that's it.




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Thanks!! That seems to make sense. I just couldn't figure it out.

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I think he was implying that the Associated Press in Detroit are a bunch of heroine junkies.

If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do...you are misinformed---Mark Twain

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Lou says something to the nurse that I never understood. The audience laughs but I don't get it. He didn't want her to give him a shot and says that she could leave the needle and he'll give it to himself later. He says that it's okay because he knows how. He was with the Associated Press in Detroit. Does anyone know what the heck that means?


It could be a reference to Detroit having so many automobile factories, with a powerful union. He may be saying that covering strikes there was like being in a combat zone (especially when he had to cross a picket line in order to interview management). So he basically learned how to be a field medic.

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"He was with the Associated Press in Detroit. Does anyone know what the heck that means?"

No, it was a reference to people getting SHOT in Detroit, the line being a pun or play on words.

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