Run it up the flagpole

Background

The phrase was associated with the advertising agencies then located on Madison Avenue in New York, and with the "men in the grey flannel suits". Comedians, when mocking corporate culture, were certain to use it, along with expressions such as the whole ball of wax and the use of invented words adding the suffix -wise (e.g. "We've had a good year, revenue wise").

The phrase was also used as an ice breaker between serious moments in the motion picture 12 Angry Men starring Henry Fonda. The line was delivered by Juror no. 12, an advertising executive played by Robert Webber.

In Stan Freberg's 1961 comedy album, Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America Volume One: The Early Years, General George Washington, after having just received the nation's new flag from seamstress Betsy Ross, announces that he'll just "run it up the flagpole... see if anyone salutes."

In Allan Sherman captured the essence of this phrase in his 1963 album My Son, the Celebrity, with a parody of Gilbert and Sullivan's "When I Was a Lad". In Sherman's lyrics, the narrator joins an advertising firm:

I learned most every advertising term. I said to the men in the dark gray suits, "Let's run it up the flagpole and see who salutes."}}

In a double entendre reflecting the narrator's mental dissonance, the group Harvey Danger used the phrase in their 1997 song "Flagpole Sitta": Mine can't forget the curves of your body And when I feel a bit naughty I run it up the flagpole and see who salutes (But no one ever does)}}

As it became hackneyed, it got a second life as a launching point for the invention of joking variations, such as "Let's drop it in the pool and see if it makes a splash", "Let's throw it against the wall and see if it sticks", "Let's put it in a saucer and see if the cat licks it up", and "Let's put it on the five-fifteen and see if it gets off at Westport" (i.e., let's put it on a New York City commuter train and find out whether it is destined for Westport, Connecticut, a town thought to be the home of many successful executives).

References

References

1. (2018-06-03). "Run it up the flagpole".
2. "12 Angry Men". Penguin Classics.
3. "Script".
4. (2007-03-10). "When I was a lad".
5. Melchior, Al. (June 2024). "The Timeless Meaning Behind "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger".
6. Partridge, Eric. (1985). "A Dictionary of Catch Phrases, revised and updated edition". Scarborough House.