There’s no denying that The Simpsons has had a huge impact on things since it first graced our TV screens back in 1989. A great many would even have you believe that the nearly 40-year-old cartoon series can predict future events—like people selling ferrets disguised as poodles, for instance.
Amusing as it is to entertain such ideas, not everything that exists in our world originated with The Simpsons. That includes popular catchphrases long thought to have been coined by the show, a few of which predate the series by decades. Let’s take a look at some of the more noteworthy examples below.
1. “EAT MY SHORTS”
Originally used in the show’s second episode, “Bart the Genius,” the phrase “Eat my shorts” was ad-libbed by Nancy Cartwright during a table-read. Cartwright, who voices Bart, remembered yelling it out while she played the trumpet in her high school marching band back in the 1970s. The earliest known usage of “Eat my shorts” is from the November 7, 1972 edition of The Daily Utah Chronicle, in which a college student recalled saying it at a campus event. It can also be heard in a few different ’80s movies, most famously in John Hughes’s The Breakfast Club, as spoken by Judd Nelson’s character, John Bender.
2. “DON’T HAVE A COW”
Episode 4 (entitled “There’s No Disgrace Like Home”) brought us another one of Bart’s well-known catchphrases, “Don’t have a cow.” While sources vary on just how old the saying is, it was being used in its current context as far back as the 1950s. In a December 8, 1957, ad from Washington D.C.’s Sunday Star, the WTOP-TV program Jay Perri’s Sock Hop is promoted as follows: “…so don’t have a cow, play it kool—J.P.’s Sock Hop’s the Saturday rule!” It popped up again years later in John Hughes’s 1984 movie Sixteen Candles.
2. “COWABUNGA”
By the eighth episode of the series, “The Telltale Head,” we hear Bart use the phrase “Cowabunga” while skateboarding around town. This one has a long history that dates back to the ‘50s as well. It was first said on TV by the character Chief Thunderthud in a 1954 episode of The Howdy Doody Show. It stayed in our collective vocabulary in part because the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were using it around the same time as Bart.
1. “D’OH”
One of Homer’s most quoted lines unquestionably is “D’oh,” which he was shouting as early as when the Simpsons were part of The Tracey Ullman Show. The voice of Homer, Dan Castellaneta, took inspiration for the “annoyed grunt” from Scottish actor James Finlayson, best known today for his many collaborations with the famous comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. Finlayson appeared in more than 20 films with the pair between the 1920s and 1940s and incorporated his elongated version of the exclamation into several of them. Here’s a clip of him using it in one of the team’s most popular movies, Way Out West:
The post The Stories Behind Your 4 Favorite ‘Simpsons’ Catchphrases appeared first on VICE.
