Your top Jock lines.

[Count Jockula]

This is the thread for your top Jock lines. Imho DALLAS lost a lot without Jim Davis, as Jock. Had he lived the show could well have outlived KNOTS LANDING. So what are your top Jock lines?

Some clues for your choices: real, my, dignity ........

Jock and Ellie are having after dinner drinks, in the living room of Southfork. They are discussing Bobby and J.R., as well as the family business; (a scene from season 3, DVD - 4, 1980 - '81):

Jock (with his Elvis glasses on) says to Ellie: "What about J.R.? Bobby is running Ewing Oil. It might just destroy him. Now Ellie I always hoped that someday my boys could work together, live together. Now well it's J.R. who's devoted most of his time, most of his life to Ewing Oil. Bobby had time for nothing else except sewing those wild oats of his. J.R. was right here; working in the office, in the fields, anywhere I needed him. Now J.R. is kicked out, me too for that matter. Well now I'm kinda fed up of Bobby's attitude of hands off. It's not what he's doing, it's how he's doing it. Well it sticks in my craw."

 

[Spooky Owl!]

Had he lived the show could well have outlived KNOTS LANDING.

Oh, I dunno. DALLAS ran a decade after Jim Davis' death. And some of their best storylines were derived from the fact that Jock was gone, his ghost haunting the family he left behind.

Actually, there are lines I'd like to have heard from Jock -- but you couldn't have gotten them on TV at the time: explosive, abusive profanities directed at his family at the slightest irritation.

 

[Frankenstein Underworld]

My favorite Jock line is an obvious one, which is "Nobody gives you power. Real power is something you take!"

I also liked what Jock had to say about Mitch: "Strange boy. I sure as hell need something stronger than this."

Actually, there are lines I'd like to have heard from Jock -- but you couldn't have gotten them on TV at the time: explosive, abusive profanities directed at his family at the slightest irritation.

That's exactly what Jim Davis did on the blooper reel, and it was hilarious!

 

[Spooky Owl!]

That's exactly what Jim Davis did on the blooper reel, and it was hilarious!

Yes, that's one of them I had in mind, calling Miss Ellie the c-word, the result of his holdover resentment from the fact she married him for his oil-money (and his suspicion Digger may have fathered J.R., which is why Jock always preferred Bobby, giving no mind at all to "that fairy Gary no-son-o'-mine!")

And whenever his boys made him mad, Jock would yell out, "You f**kin' f****ts!"

 

[Jock-O-Lantern]

There's so many.

To Pam; "If you think it helps, keep it up. But I get the feeling it doesn't ."

To JR; "If I find out that you had something to do with this, I'm gonna kick your ass into the next county."

To JR; "What do you mean CLOSE?!??"

To Bobby; "Real power is something you TAKE!!"

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

my favorites were not for the content, but for the snarling delivery:

-to a reporter outside the courtroom, walking with Harv Smithfield and the boys after being arrested for the murder of thieving saddletramp Hutch McKinney:

“I’M MAD AS HELL, BOY!”

-to JR in the Southfork den after seeing reports of the Ewing fortune gone in the wake of the Southeast Asian Revolution:

“Is that true? HOW MUCH DID WE LOSE??”

and on a different note, in the hospital after his heart attack, attached to various wires and machines:

“I feel like a damn TV station”

(or something like that)

 

[Piggyrella Sanderson]

- I am Takapa!!
- You´re a jackass Junior! You must learn the art of subtlety!
- How much did we lose?
- The comment about that "Leslie woman"...
- Your husband is dying and you´re gallavanting around town (...). You were DRUNK!
- I have all my life to listen to you Miss Ellie.
- I´m gonna ask you once and we´ll never talk about it again. Did you know the Asian fields were gonna be nationalized?
- He´s not your Daddy, Ray. I am!
- Money is something you take!
- You son a b...! (in The Early Years, to Digger)

Oh God, I didn´t know I was in sad a bad condition, I wrote all the quotes by heart without checking anything first.

​

 

[Angela Chilling]

My favourite Jock line is "John Ross Ewing the Third" immediately after the family are told Sue Ellen gave birth to a boy. It's the arrogance he showed in assuming that's what JR and Sue Ellen would call their son that makes the line so memorable.

 

[Digger Barnes III]

"The day we can't put our hands on $10 million dollars is the day we should close up shop!"

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

Just about everything Jock said was great, thanks to Jim Davis
Dallas was never quite the same after Jim Davis passed IMHO
I liked Steve Forrest
I wish he was Jock and that he kicked that outsider off of SF

 

[James from London]

Then there are all the things Jock used to say that he never actually said on screen.

JR: My daddy used to say, “Don’t sit on the fence if you can’t play both sides of it.”

JR: Like Daddy used to say, “When things get tough, buy, don’t sell.”

JR: Like my daddy used to say, “Can’t get in the front door, just go in the back.”

JR: Like Daddy used to say, “All Ewings at Ewing Oil.”

Miss Ellie to Bobby: Your daddy always said that the only thing that means anything is family.

JR: Remember what Daddy used to say? “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

JR: Daddy used to say, “You can shake the leaves off a tree, cut the limbs off, but the trunk will still be standing.”
Miss Ellie: There’s something else your daddy used to say. “To understand a man, you have to be in his shoes.”

JR: Like my daddy used to say, “The opera ain’t over …”
Walt Driscoll: “Till the fat lady sings”?

JR: My daddy used to say when Blackie sniffed oil, everybody was covered with crude just as soon as they started drilling.

Bobby: Like my daddy always said, “When a banker comes to you with a favour, check his wallet when he leaves.”

Punk Anderson: Remember what Jock said? “You gotta look the part!”

JR: Daddy always said beautiful women were the most dangerous.
Bobby: I know all the things Daddy used to say.

 

[Angela Chilling]

Then there are all the things Jock used to say that he never actually said on screen.

And things he said in letters:

"Any man can win when things go his way, it's the man who overcomes adversity that is the true champion."

"When your back is to the wall, remember that a cornered animal is the most dangerous."

"Keep your enemies close but your friends even closer."

"When things look darkest, remember your heritage."

"Never stop trying, never let the bastards get you down."

In fact, Jock said a lot of things after he died.

 

[Sea - Boo! - Er]

My favorite Jock line is an obvious one, which is "Nobody gives you power. Real power is something you take!"

Gotta agree. Can't go past this one.

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

“DAMMIT!”

- John Ross “Jock” Ewing, 1979

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

My favourite Jock line is "John Ross Ewing the Third" immediately after the family are told Sue Ellen gave birth to a boy. It's the arrogance he showed in assuming that's what JR and Sue Ellen would call their son that makes the line so memorable.

also, that line is kind of awkwardly cut into the scene in editing. I get the feeling Jim wasn’t the greatest at just getting dialogue out there for takes, but when he had his moments that required more than just basic dialogue he could be really good, bringing an authentic “man’s man but with a touch of sensitivity underneath” presence not many actors had.

In the famous “real power” scene you could feel how much it had hurt him to shout at Bobby like that as he sat at the table and glared out at the end of the scene. Punk and Pat Powers looked “shook and embarrassed” and JR looked like a gleeful little brat who’d gotten his daddy, whom he worshipped, to do his dirty work for him. Jim’s presence made that all possible.

There’s an interview with the great Barry “Sheriff Fenton Washburn” Corbin where he talked about working with Jim, what a great guy he was, and also how he enjoyed his “dressing room martinis” and was much better with dialogue before lunch.

here we go:

now *there* is an actor on the show who had a dyed-in-the-wool Texas accent - Barry Corbin!

 

[Werewillie Oleson]

To Bobby; "Real power is something you TAKE!!"

That has got to be one of his most famous or most popular quotes, but I also find it fundamentally flawed.
The kind of material power Jock refers to needs to be sustained and even in those ideal circumstances people will or have to answer to the highest bidder.

A power that is taken or used forcefully makes it completely unnecessary to believe in it.
Real power can only be given, imo, and ideally it should always be rejected (or at least make the gesture to do so - "weeell, if you really really really want me to sit on this throne, I'll do it!").

 

[Spooky Owl!]

But one has to remember that Jock is also bragging.

 

[The Eyes of Laurie Marr]

Davis had real presence. Apart from all the other quotes, I enjoyed his admonishment of Vaughan Leland in ‘A House Divided’ when Leland was reminded of foreclosing on the Southfork mortgage: ‘A deal’s a deal, you said. Well it was true then and it’s true now.’ In fact that entire scene was a classic

 

[Guzzler’s Frightening Hair]

That has got to be one of his most famous or most popular quotes, but I also find it fundamentally flawed.
The kind of material power Jock refers to needs to be sustained and even in those ideal circumstances people will or have to answer to the highest bidder.

A power that is taken or used forcefully makes it completely unnecessary to believe in it.
Real power can only be given, imo, and ideally it should always be rejected (or at least make the gesture to do so - "weeell, if you really really really want me to sit on this throne, I'll do it!").

I thought that line was a lot more interesting before they “disambiguated” the whole Jock-Digger story with all the Jason Ewing and Wallace Windham nonsense, where Jock ended up being something of a cross between a Horatio Alger character, JD Rockefeller, and Ghandi.

At the time it happened, Bobby could have been like “wow, maybe Digger’s more right than I thought, and Daddy forcefully *took* the power, i.e. Digger’s share of Ewing Oil”.

Bobby’s disgusted, resigned “well, I’m gonna remember that” fits with that interpretation.

 

[Werewillie Oleson]

where Jock ended up being something of a cross between a Horatio Alger character, JD Rockefeller, and Ghandi.

DALLAS was always ambitious.