take a wrong turn at Albuquerque

From the 1945 film Herr Meets Hare, often repeated in several Bugs Bunny cartoons afterwards.

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

take a wrong turn at Albuquerque (third-person singular simple present takes a wrong turn at Albuquerque, present participle taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque, simple past took a wrong turn at Albuquerque, past participle taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque)

1. (idiomatic) To take a wrong turn or miss a turn in a journey, so reaching a place distant from the original goal.
   • 2008, Paul Beatty, Slumberland‎, page 158:

     Against the glacial backdrop he looked like a lost minstrel who'd taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

   • 2010, Elaine Chaney, Sanity, Interrupted..‎, page 18:

     Anyways, he must have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque because I walked in on him using our restroom facilities and appearing to be very confused.

   • 2013, Liliana Cohen, Daniel M. Shindler, “17: Congenital Heart Disease”, in Christopher Gallagher, John C Sciarra, Steven Ginsberg, editors, Board Stiff TEE: Transesophageal Echocardiography, 2nd edition, page 163:

     Since cardiac embryology can be summed up as 9 months of looping and unlooping, you can think of the congenitally malformed heart as having taken the wrong turn at Albuquerque, and not just one time.

   • 2014, Michael W. Corrigan, Debunking ADHD: 10 Reasons to Stop Drugging Kids for Acting Like Kids‎, page 44:

     But somewhere on the road to creating a useful tool for psychiatry, in my opinion the wheels fell off the bus, or, more accurately, the carpool's navigators took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

   • 2021 July 14, A. A. Dowd, “Space Jam: A New Legacy is one big, witless commercial for Warner Bros. properties”, in The A.V. Club‎:

     It takes 25 minutes for Bugs Bunny to tunnel his way into that sequel, becoming the first Looney Tune to appear in this supposed Looney Tunes movie. Maybe the rabbit and his studio both took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

• make a wrong turn at Albuquerque
• make the wrong turn at Albuquerque
• take the wrong turn at Albuquerque