Oh? Then that's no MacGuffin.

Does everyone know this word except me? I noticed that Leo offhandedly use the word "MacGuffin" in the latest episode of Security Now - Episode 131 (about 80% into the show). I hadn't heard the word until I was watching the special features on a Hitchcock DVD recently. Hitchcock used a MacGuffin as the driving theme of a movie plot, which ended up not being so important in the end. Hitchcock explained the MacGuffin with this joke:

Two men were riding on a train in Scotland. One turned to the other and said, “What's in that black box on the luggage rack?”

“A MacGuffin,” the other replied. 

“What does it do?” 

“It catches lions on the Scottish highlands.” 

“But there are no lions on the Scottish highlands,” the man protested. 

“Oh? Then that's no MacGuffin.”

I asked Leo about the reference and he said basically that he knows he's got a smart audience so he imagined many had heard of a MacGuffin. Anyway I love that kind of stuff and I think I'll buy this book "Hitchcock" by Francois Truffaut, where they discuss the MacGuffin and a lot of other things.