The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

Mel Welles: Gravis Mushnik

Photos 

Quotes 

• Mushnick : Oh, here are your carnations. Wait, I'll wrap them for you.

  Fouch : No, that's all right, I'll eat 'em here.

• Mushnick : It's a finger of speech!

• Mushnick : All right, explain me more.

  Fouch : Well, I remember one place that had a whole wall covered with poison ivy. Now, people came from miles around to look at that wall and they stayed to buy.

  Mushnick : The owner got rich?

  Fouch : No, he scratched himself to death in an insane asylum.

  Mrs. Shiva : [gasps]  That was my cousin Harry!

• Fouch : My name is Burson Fouch.

  Mushnick : Excellent. I am Gravis Mushnick.

  Fouch : Oh, that's a good one.

• Seymour : You mean I'm fired?

  Mushnick : No, I'm electing you President from the United States! *Yes*, you are fired!

• [shouting at Seymour, who has been singing off-camera] 

  Mushnick : Shut up from the back!

• Seymour : I didn't mean it.

  Mushnick : You didn't mean it. You never mean it. You didn't mean it the time when you put up the bouquet with the 'get well' card in the funeral parlor, and sent the black lilies to the old lady in the hospital, you didn't mean it. But this time, I, Gravis Mushnick, mean it!

  Fouch : [to Seymour]  He means it.

• Audrey : Why don't you give him a chance to resurrect himself?

  Mushnick : I give him chance to quit!

  Seymour : I ain't gonna quit!

  Mushnick : You're a brave boy, you're fired.

• Audrey : [excited about the overnight growth of Audrey Jr]  Isn't it empirical?

  Mushnick : It grows like a cold sore from the lip.

• [answering phone] 

  Mushnick : Flowers, fresh as the springtime, Mushnick's.

• Mushnick : Bring me whisky, rum, wine, gin, bourbon...

  Waitress : What?

  Mushnick : ...scotch, rye, tequila, sake, Manischewitz...

  Waitress : Did you bring the money?

  Mushnick : Don't work me with the money. I've got to get drunk, now!

• Sgt. Joe Fink : We just want to ask you a few questions.

  Mushnick : I didn't do it.

  Officer Frank Stoolie : Do what?

  Mushnick : Whatever.

• Seymour : Did you call me, Mr. Mushnick?

  Mushnick : No, I was calling John D. Rockefeller for to make a loan on my Rolls Royce!

  Seymour : Sorry I said it.

• Audrey : I wish you'd break out and tell me.

  Mushnick : All right, I'll tell you tomorrow right after I am telling the police.

  Sgt. Joe Fink : [voice-over]  But Mushnick didn't come to the police. If he had, that might have been the finish of the unhappy story. It was not.

• Mushnick : Who... I mean... what did it eat this time?

  Seymour : Uh... about a million Japanese beetles.

• Mushnick : You have perhaps an explanation?

  Seymour : No, but if you give me a minute I'll think of one.

• Mushnick : Now that is what I call a salad. What do you call that salad?

  Audrey : Caesarean.

• Mrs. Shiva : I thought possibly because I give you all my funeral business, that maybe you should possibly give to me a little cut rate.

  Mushnick : Look at me, Mrs. Shiva. What I, a philatelist?... To my throat I would be giving a cut.

• Mushnick : Girls, girls, girls, girls, girls. Please don't damage the horticulturist.

• Shirley : Mr. Mushnick.

  Shirley's Friend : We talked to the committee.

  Shirley : And they said we could use your flowers.

  Shirley's Friend : On the float.

  Shirley : And guess what?

  Shirley's Friend : We're going to feature Audrey Jr.

  Shirley : Right on top!

  Shirley's Friend : Can't you just picture it?

  Mushnick : I can picture it.

  Shirley : Oh, won't the people just eat it up?

  Mushnick : Eat up the people.

• Seymour : I gave it a name.

  Mushnick : What name?

  Seymour : Aw, gee...

  Mushnick : What? You gave it a dirty name that you can't even mention it?

  Seymour : Well... I named it Audrey Jr.

  Audrey : [excited]  You named it after me!

• Mushnick : Look, Audrey. Isn't he beautiful? Isn't he delicious? Isn't he got a $2 raise? What happened to your fingers?

  Seymour : Bee stings. Oh, so how come I am all of a sudden so wonderful?

  Mushnick : Five bees, one for each finger?

  Seymour : [hold up both hands]  Ten bees.

• Shirley's Friend : Doesn't it have a scientific name?

  Mushnick : Yes, of course. But who could denounce it?

• Mushnick : Oh, fine. In this fancy shmancy restaurant, you are holding hostages, right?

  Waitress : Right.

  Mushnick : Excellent. You eat up Audrey. I'll be back in a flash with the cash.

• Mushnick : Are you hungry?

  Audrey : Sure am. I could eat a hearse.

• Mushnick : Good morning, Mrs. Shiva. How are we today?

  Mrs. Shiva : Oh, the same, Mr. Mushnick. My sister's nephew Henry died yesterday in Little Rock, Arkansas.

  Mushnick : Oh, what happened?

  Mrs. Shiva : He got blown up. Who knows how?

  Mushnick : That's nice. You may want some flowers for the funeral?

• Mushnick : Let me wrap your carnations...

  Fouch : Oh no thanks, I'll eat 'em here.

• Fouch : Look, I've eaten in flower shops all over the world. And I've noticed that the places that have the most weird and unusual plants do the best business.

  Audrey : See?

  Seymour : See?

  Mrs. Shiva : See?

  Mushnick : What is this, a tango?

• Seymour : It's a cross between a butterworth and a venus flytrap.

  Mushnick : Venus flytrap! And what are the habbits of this Venus flytrap?

  Seymour : Well, the book says it eats insects. It eats them three times in it's life - and then it's full grown.

  Mushnick : Excellent! And how many times is this one eat?

  Seymour : Well, once or twice.

  Mushnick : You don't remember?

  Seymour : Well, this is kind of an unusual type flytrap.

• Mushnick : I'll send Seymour right away. Who am I to argue with science?

• Mushnick : I can see it all now. We are in the poorhouse. That big sign in the sky it is reading: "Seymour Krelborn. Rest in Peace." In Arabic!

• Mushnick : Here. Here are several dozen carnations on the house - courtesy of Gravis Mushnick, the bloom tycoon.

• Mushnick : I want to talk on you about the future. Look on this fly trap. Look on it. Soon we got no more Skid Row. We will be rich. Us. I am building for you, a giant greenhouse in which you are making impossible flowers, which in turn I am selling at ridiculous prices in my giant new flower saloon in Beverly Hills. Do you see that big sign in the sky? It is saying, "Gravis Mushnick", in French.

  Audrey : Isn't it exciting? And we'll have an orchestra right by the cash register, and Gravis will wave his arms and the orchestra will play Mendelssohn's Spring Song. I'll come out in a gown, wrapped by somebody expensive and say...

  Mushnick : "The carnations are 600 dollars a dozen, two dozen for a thousand!"

  Seymour : It's a bargain!

  Audrey : Get 'em while they last!

• Shirley's Friend : She'll be so cute!

  Shirley : Oh, you could just eat her up.

  Mushnick : Eat up the girl.

• Mushnick : Don't get smart with me, girlie. I'll have you know that in my shop in the cash register. I'm having the total day's receipts, which is summing up to more than nine dollars. You'll bring the rest of the food and I'll go the the shop and get the money!

  Waitress : You are playing my favorite song. Now, look here, buster. One of you is gonna go down right now and get the loot while the other one stays here until the first one gets back. If you get what I mean?

• Mushnick : Now, Seymour. Talk on me!

• Mushnick : By the by, I understand you want to take Audrey out on a date tonight. That's very good with me. Because I am staying to keep an eye on that meshugana plant.

• Mushnick : Hungry? And other fine kettle von fish! Who would you like to have tonight?

  Audrey Jr. : You look fat enough.

  Mushnick : We not only got a talking plant, we got one that makes with smart cracks. Will you listen to me, you botanical bum? Food you wouldn't get. Not from Gravis Mushnick.

• Mushnick : I tell you, this business is worse than being a conductor in a revoluting door. I'll be glad when this day is finished.

• Mushnick : Look, we don't need no eyes kept on nothing.