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I'm doing some research on vaudeville for a show I'm working on and came across these little linguistic tidbits. Knew the last, but the first two entymologies were new to me:
Vaudeville contributed several phrases that are still in common use. For example --
"The red carpet treatment" - Performers anxious to protect expensive costumes had bright red carpets laid between their dressing rooms and the stage. This color made it easy to see if the carpeting was really clean.
Vaude slang referred to unsophisticated comedy as being "stuck in the corn," soon shortened to "corny."
Whenever a performer got a sensational response, the next act had to work twice as hard to capture audience attention. So it was a great compliment when you were called "a tough act to follow."
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear WO'N: Not a quote from vaudeville, but I remember my mother taking me to a matinée
when i was too young to get ribald songs, and wondered why everybody laughed so hard
when a big buxom babe kept beltubg out a chorus about her boyfriend:
"And every night he brought me peeeeeeenuts!"
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Carpal Tunnel
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The corny one sounds OK, but that red carpet one sounds kinda non sequital to me.
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Carpal Tunnel
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the red carpet treatmentWell, after much searching (nothing on Bartleby's or Phrasefinder) I found this...stay tuned, there may be more: >June 16-22: New York to Chicago to "Celebrate the Century of the Century!" Is there anybody reading this page who is not familiar with New York Central's "20th Century Limited," arguably the most famous train in the world? It's inaugural run was on June 15, 1902, and the railroad's practice of rolling out a crimson carpet to welcome passengers to the train gave rise to the phrase "red carpet treatment."< (scroll down halfway) http://www.nyc-3.com/future.html
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ohhhhhhh, nooooooooooo!!!Someone made this up as another possible etymology for (gulp) "the whole nine yards"... >Wipe your feet! The longest "red carpet" is nine yards. Only Royalty and VIPS are given "The whole nine yards" of the "red carpet treatment". The rest of us get the shorter "red welcome mat" treatment.< (scroll halfway down) http://members.tripod.com/ArsFreeRadical/nopost.htmlCould we be entering into some more of that "nine yards"/"full monty" territory with this "red carpet" bit? 
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Carpal Tunnel
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This from an intriguing site called Stump Me...this is one that's still stumping him (sigh): >• Why does the "red carpet treatment" use RED carpet? http://www.mindlesscrap.com/stumpme/stumpme2.htm
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Carpal Tunnel
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Then this, a Biblical reference: >Indeed, during the last week of His ministry on earth, the Lord Jesus was recognized as the promised Messiah and proclaimed as King by many of the Jewish people who had known Him and who seen the power of God manifested through Him. Spreading their cloaks in the path of the Lord, they imitated the red-carpet treatment that was accorded to royalty in the ancient world.< And with that, as they say, back to the drawing board. Although, this is from a Cathlic Mass text for Passion Sunday, so the translation from the original Latin is questionable. Here's the url, Faldage, if you want to run it through the Google translator and see what you get (8 paragraphs down): http://www.catholicdoors.com/homilies/2002/020324.htm
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Carpal Tunnel
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And this from Wordwizard:
>What is the origin of Red carpet welcome
Submitted by: Sudhir DD (Bangalore - India)
The phrase comes from the practice of laying down a red carpet to greet royalty, dignitaries and sundry VIPS. The first use as cited in the OED is dated 1934.
Answered by the Word Wizard on January 13, 1999<
I'm also wondering, although I know their basically connected, if "roll out the red carpet" and [give them] "the red carpet treatment" are two different coinages?
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old hand
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old hand
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a Biblical reference
The homily is the part of the Mass that all the other religions call "the sermon". It's written by the priest who's saying Mass. So it's not from the Bible at all. I mean, the bit about spreading cloaks is probably paraphrased from the Gospel for that day, but the priest's interpretation of it as "red-carpet treatment" is just his way of explaining it for the congregation.
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