One of the many mysteries surrounding Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark since the books were originally published in the 1980s was what, exactly, the phrase “Me tie dough-ty walker!” means.
The strange series of syllables appear in the story of the same name from the original volume of Alvin Schwartz’s book, in a story about a severed head that falls down a chimney, singing the unusual phrase and frightening a dog to death.
That severed head makes an appearance in the new film Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, directed by André Øvredal (The Autopsy of Jane Doe), and according to the director, the film came very close to finally revealing what the words mean!
Well, kind of. When Bloody-Disgusting asked Øvredal what they refer to, his first response was: “Absolutely no idea. I’ve been trying to figure it out myself.”
But the director says the script did offer one explanation, although the actual moment never found its way into the finished film.
“I remember in one draft it was a theory that it was something, like words of some cement company that the head saw when it rolled out, and it saw the letters that we half scratched off and it became that,” Øvredal explains. “[There] was another something but I can’t remember. Actually, I really liked that idea but it didn’t survive into the movie.”
Of course, the misread name of a cement company isn’t necessarily the deep and meaningful answer fans of Scary Stories have been yearning for all these decades, but at least it would have been SOMETHING, right?
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is playing in darkened theaters right now! You can read my review here.
