Question about "The Revenge"

Might sound like a dumb question but what is a 'mickey' ?

George slipped one to his boss in this episode but i'm guessing this is an American slang term and don't know what it is.

Anyone help please?

"Richard Cotton" writes:

A "Mickey Finn" is a drink with a drug slipped into it (usually with the aim of knocking the unknowing recipient unconcious)

Good question. I had heard the phrase but didn't know the origin. I recall Bones on Star Trek said "slip a mickey" in one episode.

On Wed, 16 Jan 2002 18:38:04 +0000 (UTC), "Richard Cotton" wrote:

From: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_092.html

As for what's in it--well, take your pick. A 1931 magazine article says it's croton oil, a purgative, while a slang dictionary says it's chloral hydrate, a sedative/hypnotic. To further confuse things, you sometimes see references to "croton chloral hydrate," which from the sound of it accelerates business at one end of you while slowing it down at the other. Others say a Mickey is cigar ashes in a carbonated beverage, or merely an industrial strength drink.

Most word books say the origin of "Mickey Finn" is obscure. But Cecil has come across one colorful if not necessarily reliable explanation in Gem of the Prairie, a 1940 history of the Chicago underworld by Herbert Asbury. Asbury claims the original Mickey Finn was a notorious Chicago tavern proprietor in the city's South Loop, then as now a nest of hardened desperadoes. In 1896 Finn opened a dive named the Lone Star Saloon and Palm Garden, where he fenced stolen goods, supervised pickpockets and B-girls, and engaged in other equally sleazy enterprises.

Around 1898 Finn obtained a supply of "white stuff" that may have been chloral hydrate. He made this the basis of two knockout drinks, the "Mickey Finn Special," consisting of raw alcohol, water in which snuff had been soaked, and a dollop of white stuff; and "Number Two," beer mixed with a jolt of white plus the aforementioned snuff water. Lone Star patrons who tried either of these concoctions soon found themselves face down in the popcorn. At the end of the night they were dragged into a back room, stripped of their valuables and sometimes even their clothes, then dumped in an alley. When the victims awoke they could remember nothing.

Finn evidently paid off the cops but became such a nuisance even by Chicago standards that his joint was ordered shut down in 1903. He was never prosecuted, however, and after a brief hiatus returned to bartending, having sold the MF recipe to other tavern owners. Eventually "Mickey Finn" became the name for any sort of knockout punch. How lucky we are that no one sells things like that today.

--CECIL ADAMS

In article , [email] says...

Straightdope? I think the dope was given to him straight.

No kidding! I never knew there once really existed a guy named Mickey Finn. I am so surprised because I'm also a big Laurel & Hardy fan and in their 1937 feature Way out West they encounter a criminal saloon owner called Mickey Finn (played by James FINlayson), so I guessed I've missed that joke for years.

Bart

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"Richard Cotton" writes:

It's slang for putting a drug called Rohypnol into someone's drink. That's a drug that makes a person sleepy, willing to do anything and makes them forget everything the day after. That's why it's popular with rapists. I believe it's banned now, it used to be prescribed as a sleep tablet before this was known.

R

"Fidelio" wrote in message news:a24qt5$1f0$[email]...

I think you'll find the term "Mickey Finn" was in use long before there was such a thing as Rohypnol. It pretty much applies to any knockout substance that can be slipped into a drink. If I remember rightly, the pellet with the poison was in the vessel with the pestle... ;-)

Ian

A "mickey" is a slang term for a drug type of liquid or powder that someone drops into someone else's drink to make them sick, or pass out, etc.

On 16 Jan 2002 21:52:55 GMT, [email] (NYRfan25) wrote:

Just like in the movies! I'm gonna slip him a mickey!

Scott