Mickey Finn (drugs)
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- This entry is about the knockout drink. For other uses of the term, see Mickey Finn (disambiguation).
A Mickey Finn (or simply Mickey) is a slang term for a drug-laced drink given to someone without their knowledge in order to incapacitate them. Serving someone a Mickey Finn is most commonly referred to as "slipping a mickey."
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[edit] History of term
The Mickey Finn is reputedly named for the owner and bartender of a Chicago establishment, the Lone Star Saloon and Palm Garden Restaurant, which operated from 1896 to 1903 in the city's South Loop neighborhood on the west side of South State Street north of Harrison Street. This part of State Street was then known as "Whiskey Row". Before his days as a saloon proprietor, Mickey Finn was known as a pickpocket and thief who often preyed on drunken bar patrons.
The act of serving a Mickey Finn Special was a coordinated robbery orchestrated by Finn. First, Finn or one of his employees, which included "house girls," would slip a drug (Chloral Hydrate) in the unsuspecting patron's drink. The incapacitated patron would be escorted or carried into a back room by one of Finn's associates who would then rob the victim and dump him in an alley. Upon awaking the next morning in a nearby alley, the victim would remember nothing. Finn's saloon was ordered closed on December 16, 1903. This account of the origins of the "Mickey Finn" was first given by Herbert Asbury in his 1940 book Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld. His cited source is the 1903 testimony of Lone Star prostitute "Gold Tooth" Mary Thornton.
This origin has been disputed, however, with some sources reporting that the original Mickey Finn was the horse laxative Glauber's Salt or some other unpleasant substance used in a drink to get rid of a drunkard, not knock him out. By the time the term entered popular usage, Mickey Finn had become something of a generic Irish-sounding name, making any specific meaning difficult to pin down.
[edit] In popular culture
- The act of slipping someone a Mickey was a popular plot device in detective and suspense movies during the 1950's (W.C. Fields used it in one of his films)
- In an episode of M*A*S*H, A Full Rich Day, Hawkeye Pierce attempts to incapacitate a wounded Turkish solider by adding chloral hydrate in a glass of prune juice; unfortunately, Radar O'Reilly drinks the spiked glass, and the Turk returns him to the 4077th and drives off.
- In Robert Bloch's novelette "The Big Binge", there is a bartender named Mickey Finn
- In the TV sitcom Seinfeld (episode "The Revenge"), George tells Jerry that, in order to take revenge on his former boss, he's "gonna slip him a mickey."
- In Spider Robinson's book series Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, an extraterrestrial is named Mickey Finn after the events in the first story.
- On the show The Venture Bros., a villain tricks Brock Samson into smoking a cigarette laced with chloral hydrate, which promptly knocks him unconscious just as he realises what it is.
- In the song It's a Hard Knock Life, from the musical "Annie" the orphan girls vent their frustrations behind Mrs Hannigan's back and threaten to 'make her drink a Mickey Finn.'
- A Mickey Finn is used in the song Lady T from the album A Night on Earth by Crazy Penis
- In the Home Movies episode "Life Through a Fish Eye Lens", Brendon Small asks if his mother has heard the phrase "slipped him a mickey" in an attempt to convince her of the necessity of a fish eye lens for the production of his current film.
- Gene Hunt in the BBC TV drama Life on Mars explains to Sam Tyler that he has been "slipped a Mickey" following a honey trap set up by local gangster Stephen Warren. Tyler had been handcuffed to his own bed by one of Warren's girls who had drugged him earlier in the night.
- In the James Bond film and novel From Russia With Love, Red Grant plants chloral hydrate in Bond girl Tatiana Romanova's Chianti so that she does not participate in the ensuing fight.
- In the James Bond film The Living Daylights, Bond is given a vodka martini by the Bond girl Milovy and soon becomes disoriented. Once more tasting the vodka martini, he pronounces "chloral hydrate...," realizing his mistake and the secret ingredient in this vodka martini-Mickey Finn, before passing out.
- An Irish band from New York is called The Mickey Finns [1].
- In Season 3 of Oz (TV series), the Irish American inmate Ryan O'Reily "slips the mickey" into the drinking water of the odds-on favorite in the sponsored prison boxing matches, either for advancing his brother Cyril O'Reily or big gains in underground bets.
- In The Big Lebowski, The Dude is drugged with a Mickey Finn in a White Russian, at which point he has a musical dream sequence to Kenny Rogers' "What Condition My Condition Was In".
- In Red Dwarf VIII, during a basketball match between the convicts and the guards, David Lister announces to his teammates, "We've Mickey Finned their drinks," alluding to the fact that he has spiked the opposition's half-time drinks bottles with a super-powerful virility drug.
- The Pogues song London You're a Lady, from the album Peace and Love, recalls a bar where "Chinamen played cards and draughts, and knocked back Mickey Finns."
- In The Friends of Mr. Cairo by Jon and Vangelis, the Sam Spade character is slipped a double gin Mickey Finn by "the double-crosser".
- In her song "Certainly", Erykah Badu sings about wanting to escape a controlling love affair: "You tried to get a little tricky/Turned my back and then you slipped me a Mickey."
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Herbert Asbury, Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1940).
- James A. lnciardi, "THE CHANGING LIFE OF MICKEY FINN: Some Notes On Chloral Hydrate Down Through the Ages", Journal of Popular Culture, Winter 1977 - Vol. 11 Issue 3 Page 591.
[edit] External links
- The Straight Dope — supporting the knockout explanation
- Word Detective — supporting the noxious substance explanation, but acknowledging common usage as knockout drug.
- Chicago City of the Century - supports Chicago bartender origin
