Quote about watching TV by candlelight originated with a comedian, not Marjorie Taylor Greene

An image being shared on social media ridicules U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., for saying something that doesn’t make sense. 

"If it weren’t for electricity, we’d all be watching TV by candlelight," the statement attributed to her says. 

"Great moments in stupidity with Marjorie Taylor Greene," reads text appearing alongside an image of the representative that’s been altered to look like she’s wearing a tinfoil hat. 

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stated on September 27, 2024 in a video

Shows video of damage from Hurricane Helene.

We looked online and found no evidence that Greene said this. It didn’t appear on her @RepMTG Twitter account, in credible blogs or news reports. We didn’t find it attributed to her in articles and news broadcast transcripts collected in the Nexis news archive. 

But we did find it in a 1991 Los Angeles Times obituary for comedian George Gobel.

"Producer David O. Selznick chose him as the only live comic for TV’s two-hour salue to Thomas A. Edison on the 75th anniversary of the inventor’s invention of the incandescent lamp," the obit says. "Gobel’s remark from the late 1954 special — ‘If it weren’t for electricity we’d all be watching television by candlelight’ — remains one of the classic one-liners of American comedy."

We rate claims Greene said this False.