All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy is a proverb. It means that without time off from work, a person becomes both bored and boring.

History

Though the spirit of the proverb had been expressed previously, the modern saying appeared first in James Howell's Proverbs in English, Italian, French and Spanish (1659), and was included in later collection of proverbs. It also appears in Howell's Paroimiographia (1659), p. 12.

Some writers have added a second part to the proverb, as in Harry and Lucy Concluded (1825) by the Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth:

“

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.

”

Uses in popular media

While the proverb is used in several examples of popular media (from James Joyce's short story, "Araby", to Jack Kerouac's Big Sur, to the 1957 movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai), probably the most famous example appears in the 1980 horror movie The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick. In this film, the main character (played by Jack Nicholson, and also called Jack) is found to have abandoned his latest novel in favour of typing this sentence over and over onto reams of paper. Kubrick's addition of a psychotic edge to the proverb has had some effect on popular culture, inspiring several other works to include a direct homage to the scene, for instance:

In film

• It is said by Oliver Hardy in the 1933 film Sons of the Desert.
• It is mentioned in the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai.
• It is featured prominently in the 1980 film The Shining.
• It is also mentioned in the 2004 film Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London.

In literature

• It appears in the 1985 novel Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, as Peter Wiggin's mother addresses him.
• It appears also in James Joyce's story "Araby" as the nameless narrator's uncle mentions the old saying.
• It appears also in Paul Austers novel Squeeze Play from 1997.
• It appears in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Jailbird from 1979.
• It appears in Lee Child's 2006 novel the hard way.

In music

• In chorus of the song "Boy's Chorus (La Sui Monti Dell' Est)" on Malcolm McLaron album Fans_(Malcolm_McLaren_album) (1984), but Jack is replaced with Mac.
• The song "Angry Chair" (1992) by Alice In Chains contains the verse "I'm a dull boy, work all day".
• "American Dream" by Casting Crowns begins with the phrase.
• In 2007 the metal music band Mudvayne released a song called "Dull Boy" with the quote included in their lyrics.
• In 2012 the Post Hardcore band Averia quote this in their song "The Overlook"
• In 2013 the Electronic Music producer HVOB released a song called "Jack" with the quote included.

In television

• A 2002 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Gone", includes a scene where Buffy Summers fills a social worker's report with pages consisting entirely of repetitions of "All work and no play make Doris a dull girl".
• One 2001 episode of CSI includes a scene where Greg Sanders is caught dancing in the lab by his boss, and says "All work and no play makes Greg a dull boy". Gil Grissom responds by saying that all play and no work makes Greg an unemployed boy.
• More recently it was used in Season 1, Episode 5 of the TV series Downton Abbey, when Mary tells Matthew that "You know what all work and no play did for Jack" and Matthew answers that "You think I'm a dull boy anyway, don't you."
• The episode of the cartoon Ed, Edd n Eddy titled "Stop, Look and Ed" features Eddy telling Rolf that "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy".
• In a 1999 episode of Family Guy, "Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater", when Stewie was riding his tri-bike at Lois's big inherited house and met the twins from The Shining at a corridor and they said "Come play with us Stewie for ever, and ever and ever", Stewie replied back to them "All work and no play makes Stewie a dull boy".
• In Supernatural, Dean Winchester reads an insane doctor's writings about the "treatments" he used on his patients and comments "all work and no play make Doctor Ellicot a very dull boy." The same phrase is used again in Season 2 when Dean investigates a crime scene and finds sheets of paper with the same name printed over and over, in reference to the film "The Shining".
• During "Cafe Disco", an episode on the popular NBC series The Office, Dwight makes a remark after Michael states that the office has gotten boring, saying "All work and no play makes Michael a dull boy!".
• One 1994 episode of The Simpsons, "Treehouse of Horror V" contained a Shining parody, where Marge finds a piece of paper with just two words - "Feelin' fine" - typed up, before noticing No TV and no beer make Homer go crazy written all over the walls. This is also parodied in the 1997 episode "The Springfield Files" as a cascading text, in the manner of The X-Files. The proverb is also referenced in the chalkboard gag of season five episode The Last Temptation of Homer.
• In a 2009 episode of Wizards of Waverly Place, Max Russo played by Jake T. Austin, says the line to Alex Russo played by Selena Gomez when he is doing an impression of Jack Nicholson. This reveals that he has seen The Shining.
• In the 1999 episode of Melrose Place "When cheerleaders attack" Lexi Sterling played by Jamie Luner says the line "all work and no play makes Megan a dull girl" to Megan Lewis played by Kelly Rutherford
• In the third episode of Twin Peaks, "Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer" Jerry Horne says to his brother Benjamin Horne: "All work and no play makes Ben and Jerry dull boys"

The "Sunday" computer virus, a member of the Jerusalem virus family discovered in 1989, contained a reference to the proverb. Infected files will contain the string "Today is Sunday! Why do you work so hard? All work and no play make you a dull boy! Come on! Let's go out and have some fun!" The virus's payload prints the proverb on the screen and then deletes all files running while the virus is a resident in the memory, as the original Jerusalem did every Friday the 13th.^{[citation needed]}