0:00

Before we begin, this episode contains

0:02

some adult language.

0:09

You know one when you hear one.

0:11

Bazinga. I'm talking about a catchphrase.

0:14

How you doing? A catchphrase is a phrase.

0:18

Maybe it's just a few words. Eat

0:20

my shorts. Ugh, as if. Yeah,

0:23

baby. Maybe

0:26

it's even a made up word. Shazanyan.

0:30

It could be that made up word twice.

0:32

Nanu. Nanu. Or three

0:34

times. Yada yada yada, I never heard

0:36

from him again. It's often very closely associated

0:39

with a performer or character.

0:41

If you smell

0:46

what the rock is

0:47

cooking. And it catches

0:50

on seemingly everywhere. Go

0:52

ahead, make my day.

0:55

Not only do people recognize a phrase like this,

0:57

they use it. And I have only one thing

0:59

to say to the tax increasers. Go

1:02

ahead, make my day. That's

1:07

President Ronald Reagan quoting the line

1:09

made famous by Clint Eastwood. It was 1985

1:12

and the famed monoculture was reaching millions

1:15

of people, delivering the same snappy

1:17

sound bites to all of them. And

1:19

doing it so effectively that decades

1:21

later, we're still swimming in catchphrases

1:24

from the past. Well,

1:27

don't have a cow, man. It's time for a

1:29

mua-palooza, the signature

1:31

event at the Wisconsin State Fair.

1:33

Oh yeah, good day to get out and scream

1:35

yabba dabba doo. It's gonna be nice. I

1:38

want to thank everybody here and hasta

1:41

la vista. Baby, thank you.

1:44

That's from former British

1:46

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's farewell speech

1:48

last year. And yet he's quoting an

1:50

Arnold Schwarzenegger line that's more than three

1:53

decades

1:53

old. Hasta la vista,

1:56

baby. And it is difficult

1:58

to find a recent catchphrase. that's quite

2:00

so recognizable. But that's

2:03

not because the catchphrase is dead.

2:06

It's just because it's changed. What

2:09

the what? What the what? What

2:11

the what? What the what? What

2:14

the what? What the what?

2:20

This is Dakota Ring. I'm Willa

2:23

Paskin. Every catchphrase has

2:25

a life cycle. It starts like any other

2:27

line, but then audiences warm

2:29

to it. They love it. They elevate

2:31

it and it starts to get repeated. And

2:34

as it does, some of the people who loved

2:36

it start to roll their eyes when

2:39

they hear it. Even as this

2:41

phrase is burrowing deeper and deeper

2:43

into our collective lexicon. And

2:46

this isn't just what happens to any one

2:48

catchphrase. It's what's happened

2:50

to the catchphrase itself.

2:53

A form some people love and others

2:55

sneer at even as it remains

2:58

totally inescapable. So

3:00

we're gonna look at the catchphrase with clear

3:02

eyes and full hearts. We're gonna consider

3:05

how they lived long and prospered

3:07

until they did not.

3:08

So

3:10

come on down, lend me your

3:12

ears, treat yourself as today

3:15

on Dakota Ring, we ask what

3:17

happened to the catchphrase?

3:27

Okay.

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4:17

Once you start noticing catch phrases, it's

4:19

hard to stop. That's what she said. Oh

4:22

my God. You've got

4:24

Austin Powers catch phrases and Ace

4:26

Ventura catch phrases that are still in 2023 year

4:28

of our Lord, still being said

4:31

by people, which is wild. Sean

4:33

Green

4:33

is a graphic designer and podcaster

4:35

and he has a nickname. I go by Bingo. I

4:38

gave it to myself, which is tacky, but I do, I

4:40

am Bingo. Bingo's also a listener

4:42

and he wrote to us because he was curious about

4:44

the catch phrases whole deal. I

4:47

love sitcoms more than any other

4:49

art form. It's my favorite art form. And I know that

4:52

it's hokey and saccharine and plastic and cheesy.

4:54

I like when sitcoms jump the

4:57

shark and get even worse. And one

4:59

of the things that are in sitcoms so,

5:01

so much are catch phrases.

5:04

That ain't no mike. Hmm.

5:06

You got it, dude. What

5:09

you talking about, Will? But it's

5:11

not just sitcoms. There are also the big

5:13

mainstream movie comedies Bingo mentioned

5:16

earlier. One million dollars.

5:19

Oh, righty then. My wife.

5:22

And there are other super well-known phrases that don't

5:24

come from films or TV shows. Where

5:26

I work, people, again, in this

5:29

year are saying who

5:31

let the dogs out as a,

5:33

as like a sort of a catch phrase.

5:36

Who let the dogs out? Who,

5:38

who, who, who, who? Like it can get so

5:41

much bigger, like political slogans.

5:43

We will make America

5:47

great again.

5:48

Are they catch phrases? What about

5:51

advertising slogans? What's

5:52

that? What's that? What's

5:55

that? Are they catch phrases?

5:57

I don't think it counts. It's selling an idea.

6:00

selling a brand, selling a

6:02

call to action to a certain degree. Whereas,

6:05

did I do that?

6:06

Did I do that? Is just being

6:08

like, oh, Urkel said that thing, and everyone's

6:10

really happy about it. Bingo is referring

6:12

to Steve Urkel, the nerdy catchphrase-spouting

6:15

star of the 1990s sitcom Family

6:17

Matters. And Bingo actually has a theory

6:20

about Urkel that we're gonna get to later. But

6:22

before that, we need to start with when

6:24

the modern catchphrase caught on.

6:29

People have been repeating pithy phrases

6:31

to one another for a very long time.

6:34

This is the basis of epic poetry and

6:36

many religious rituals. Shakespeare

6:38

was as quotable then as he is now, and

6:40

Vaudeville acts relied on catchphrases

6:43

too. But we're gonna begin when

6:45

mass audiences could hear these

6:47

phrases simultaneously

6:50

for the first time. K-E-L-L-O

6:55

The Jello Program, starring Jack Benny

6:57

with Mary Living. Were there catchphrases in

6:59

radio shows, like in the olden

7:02

radio days? Of course there were catchphrases

7:04

on radio in olden days.

7:07

Susan Douglas is a professor of media and

7:09

communication at the University of Michigan

7:11

and the author of Listening In, Radio

7:13

and the American Imagination. Remember,

7:16

this is a medium that

7:17

denies sight to

7:19

its audience. So voice

7:22

and language matters totally.

7:25

Henry, Henry

7:27

Aldrich, coming, mother. And

7:30

those voices were reaching people on an unprecedented

7:33

scale. Radio was such a phenomenon

7:36

by the late 1920s and early 30s. You

7:39

have 40 million people sometimes listening

7:42

to the same thing

7:43

simultaneously.

7:46

["Ain't No More a Man's Day"] Good

7:51

evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to

7:53

the Amos and Andy Show. Amos and Andy was

7:55

a signature program from

7:57

the early radio. It

8:00

featured the voices of two white actors playing

8:02

black men who had migrated from the south

8:05

to the north. It has not aged

8:07

well. It was a combination sitcom and

8:10

minstrel show.

8:11

Not unproblematic, but also

8:13

hugely popular. Susan says

8:15

when Amos Nandy came on the radio, people

8:18

stopped everything to listen. If

8:20

you were in the movie theater, the movie theater

8:22

had to shut the film down for 15 minutes.

8:25

Toilets remained unflushed. Taxis

8:28

remained unhealed. And we still

8:31

know some of its catchphrases. Everybody

8:33

starts saying, Holy Mackerel. Holy

8:36

Mackerel at three o'clock now. And there are other

8:38

phrases from early radio that are also

8:41

still with us. Ah, don't touch

8:43

that dial, because there's nothing else on.

8:46

The shadow knows. Now

8:48

cut that out.

8:53

Growing up, I knew all of these phrases.

8:56

Not because I was alive in the early days of

8:58

radio, but because they'd survived

9:00

into my own childhood. A version

9:02

of Jack Benny's Now Cut That Out

9:05

even made it onto my favorite sitcom

9:07

in elementary school, the late 80s, early

9:10

90s, Full House.

9:11

Cut it out. But

9:14

for all the catchphrases that have lingered, there

9:16

are more that have not. A

9:19

lesser known comedian was

9:21

a guy named Joe Penner, who

9:23

was a huge hit on

9:25

radio. And Joe Penner

9:28

knew how to use his voice

9:30

really well. He would just slide

9:32

it up and down. You nasty

9:35

man. You

9:37

nasty man became

9:39

a huge catchphrase. Here's one

9:42

that is completely inexplicable. You

9:44

want to buy a duck? Why? Who

9:46

knows? The other one was,

9:49

don't ever do

9:50

that. Don't

9:54

ever do that. Those

9:57

all became catchphrases in the

9:59

early 90s. Remember,

10:01

there would have been something novel about just

10:04

how many people knew these phrases,

10:07

and that was something radio performers used

10:09

to their advantage.

10:09

There's a repetition,

10:13

and then there becomes a knowingness

10:16

to the repetition because the person

10:18

uttering the catchphrase now knows

10:21

it's become

10:21

a catchphrase. And so

10:24

they use it even more to emphasize

10:26

wink, wink to the audience that it is a catchphrase

10:30

and it pulls audiences in. It

10:33

makes them feel like they're part of

10:35

this imagined community. You know, that

10:37

was a power that radio had that

10:39

Rodville or Broadway simply

10:41

didn't. Television

10:46

had that same power, and as commercial

10:48

TV took off in the 1950s, radio

10:51

shows and stars flock to it and

10:53

the catchphrase came with them.

10:55

Now you could see a catchphrase

10:57

on a show like The Honeymooners. You want

10:59

the world of tomorrow, Alice? Want

11:02

the world of tomorrow? I'll give you the world of tomorrow.

11:05

I'm going to the boom.

11:08

Or on the George Burns and Gracie Allen

11:10

show. Say goodnight Gracie. Goodnight. Goodnight.

11:14

In the 1960s, Batman's sidekick,

11:17

Robin, varied his catchphrase

11:19

every time he said it. Holy

11:21

magician. Holy alphabet. Holy

11:23

ball and chain. Holy fruit salad.

11:26

And the variety sketch show, Rowan and

11:28

Martin's Laffin, varied who said

11:30

it? It's socket to me time.

11:32

Socket to me, socket to me, socket to me, socket

11:34

to me. Socket to yourself. Socket

11:37

to me, honey. Laffin was

11:39

the number one show in America from 1968 to 1970. Its

11:43

title was a riff on Beins and Lovins

11:46

and it was aimed at a young audience. It

11:48

had political jokes and groovy psychedelic

11:50

sets and it popularized the phrase

11:52

socket to which was said by cast

11:54

members and guest stars including Sammy

11:57

Davis Jr., Milton Berle and

11:59

in April.

11:59

particularly memorable cameo from 1968,

12:03

then presidential candidate Richard

12:05

Nixon. Suck it to me. On

12:09

Laughin, the catchphrase was cool and

12:11

the Nixon campaign wanted some

12:13

of that. And Laughin wasn't the only

12:15

hit variety show in which the catchphrase

12:18

abounded. Live from New York,

12:20

it's Saturday night. Saturday

12:22

Night Live debuted in 1975, subversive,

12:25

counter-cultural, and loaded with quotable

12:28

sayings. Cheeseburger,

12:30

cheeseburger, cheeseburger, pork pepsi, two chips.

12:32

Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, two pepsi, one

12:34

chip. In short order, SNL's live

12:37

studio audience was waiting in anticipation

12:40

for familiar characters to deliver

12:42

their familiar lines.

12:45

We are two wild

12:47

and crazy guys. Yeah! Yeah!

12:50

And this same frenzy also greeted

12:53

the most popular character on

12:55

TV. How come you don't get to pay

12:57

anything? How come?

12:58

Because I'm the Fonz, huh? Yeah! Yeah!

13:02

The Fonz, also known as Fonzie, also

13:04

known as Arthur Fonzarelli, was the leather

13:07

jacket-wearing star of the sitcom Happy

13:09

Days. Though that hadn't been the creator's

13:11

intention.

13:12

When we first started Happy Days, Fonzie

13:15

was not an important character. Bill Bickley

13:17

has been a television producer and writer for 53 years,

13:20

and he was a showrunner on the early seasons

13:22

of Happy Days. He showed

13:24

up very little in some of the early

13:26

episodes because it wasn't really about

13:28

Fonzie at all. Instead, the show, which

13:30

premiered in 1974, though

13:33

it was set in the 1950s, was

13:35

supposed to be about a family. But

13:37

audiences took a liking to Fonzie,

13:39

who was played by Henry Winkler, and the writers

13:42

noticed. By its second season, Happy

13:44

Days had reoriented around the Fonz

13:46

and become a huge hit. And

13:49

in just about every episode,

13:51

Fonzie would say, Hey! Hey!

13:54

Hey! This

13:57

wasn't the only thing the Fonz repeated. He

14:00

would also flash a thumbs up, mesmerize

14:02

women with a snap of his fingers, and he

14:04

could start a jukebox just by banging

14:07

it with his fist.

14:13

One time he even got all the animals in a

14:15

suburban backyard to quiet down.

14:19

Call it!

14:21

That was taken

14:23

way too far. Hey,

14:25

the thumbs up. Those things

14:27

started to get repeated. And

14:30

it really got boring. It seems worth

14:32

mentioning here that the term Jump the

14:34

Shark, which is now regularly used to

14:36

describe when a show stops being good

14:38

anymore, was coined in the mid-1980s

14:41

in reference to a Happy Days episode

14:45

in which the fawns water

14:47

skis over a shark

14:50

while wearing a tiny bathing suit and

14:52

his leather jacket. In the

14:55

1980s, the catchphrase itself was jumping

14:57

the shark, shedding its cool while staying

14:59

extremely popular.

15:01

And no one captured these

15:03

highs and lows quite like the decade's

15:06

most catchphrase-laden breakout

15:08

character.

15:11

When we come back... Mmm, got any

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cheese?

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plus. Thank you. Now

16:48

back to the show.

16:53

So I have to confess that despite my brain

16:55

being jammed with catchphrases, I'd

16:57

never really thought about them until we got

16:59

that email from the listener you heard from earlier.

17:02

I go by Bingo. Bingo wrote

17:04

to us with an observation about one

17:07

sitcom character in particular. I

17:09

haven't done the full science on this, right, because I

17:11

have a full-time job, but I do believe

17:13

that Steve Q. Urkel from

17:16

the hit show Family Matters has

17:19

the most

17:21

catchphrases of any fictional character ever created.

17:23

Steve Urkel was a nerdy, sweet, black

17:25

kid with glasses, suspenders, and

17:28

his pants hiked up to his chest. And

17:30

he was the star of the sitcom Family Matters.

17:33

He was played by Jaleel White, and Bingo's

17:35

right. Urkel does have a

17:37

lot of catchphrases.

17:39

Well, the classic is, of course, Did

17:41

I do that? Did I do that? Did I do that?

17:44

Did I do that? No, no, don't stink! Did

17:46

I do that? No, no, no, don't stink! Did I

17:48

do that? No, no, no, no, don't stink! Did

17:50

I do that? Did I do that? No, no, no, no, no, no, no,

17:53

no.

17:55

That one is the most famous, but

17:58

it's just the beginning. pet,

18:00

you got any cheese? You love me, don't you? Look

18:03

what you did. I'm falling

18:06

and I can't get up. All

18:08

told, Bingo counted 16 Urkel

18:11

catchphrases, and they are a great example

18:14

of just how well these quips can

18:15

work until they start to drive

18:18

you up the wall. Hehehe. K-k-k-k-k.

18:21

Hehehe. K-hehehe. K-hehe.

18:24

K-hehe.

18:27

The story of Steve Urkel begins with a

18:29

whole other series. The

18:33

Cosby Show premiered in 1984 on NBC. It

18:37

was about the Huxtables, an affluent black family, and

18:39

it was not just a huge hit. It was

18:41

a seismic cultural phenomenon.

18:44

Soon, every TV network wanted

18:47

a Cosby Show of its own.

18:49

The network actually came to us and

18:51

said, could you do a black family?

18:53

That's Bill Bickley, the writer-producer you heard

18:56

from earlier, who worked on Happy Days. So,

18:58

my partner, I, who was also white, we

19:02

just dreamed up these characters, and

19:05

so we went into the network, and they, they,

19:10

it was a very easy sale. It

19:12

was easy because Bickley and his writing partner, Michael

19:14

Warren, were already working for the network,

19:17

ABC, on the hit sitcom Perfect

19:19

Strangers. They took a minor character

19:21

from that show, an elevator operator, gave

19:24

her a police officer husband, added three

19:26

kids, a grandmother, an aunt, and a house

19:28

in Chicago,

19:29

and the Winslow's were born.

19:37

When Family Matters premiered in 1989, it wasn't a flop, but

19:40

it wasn't quite a hit either. The network

19:42

wasn't happy with the ratings, and the writers were

19:44

struggling to figure out the character's dynamics

19:47

and what the show was really about.

19:50

Jaleel White, who wasn't a part of the cast yet, actually

19:53

remembers watching the show at home, and

19:55

he could see it wasn't quite working. Like,

19:58

there was this moment when the aunt... plopped

20:00

down into a chair.

20:02

She's exhausted and she's like, Oy vey.

20:04

This is White in a 2021 interview with

20:07

the rapper Talib Kweli on his People's

20:09

Party podcast. They let that Black

20:11

woman come through the door and just say, Oy vey.

20:14

And so there's a lot of moments like

20:16

that and why the show wasn't even so funny

20:19

because you had a White room

20:21

writing for Black people in Chicago.

20:24

Midway through the first season, Bill Bickley

20:26

and the show's other co-creator, neither

20:28

of whom were Jewish, by the way. They actually met

20:30

at church, were desperate for ideas.

20:33

So they borrowed from themselves, repurposing

20:36

part of an unsuccessful pilot script

20:38

they'd written about a White family.

20:41

It was like, okay, what if your father,

20:43

meaning well, got you the worst

20:45

possible date for your first dance? That

20:47

was the idea.

20:48

And the name of the kid who was the worst possible

20:51

date? Steve Urkel.

20:53

It was supposed to be a one-episode part, but

20:55

then Jaleel White came in for the audition.

20:58

It's Jaleel White that

21:01

actually invented the character

21:04

of Steve Urkel. His father

21:07

was a dentist. He borrowed the glasses

21:09

you wear to protect your eyes, and he hiked his

21:12

pants up, and this kid

21:14

blows us away. This kid

21:17

is fantastic. So they signed a deal to

21:19

make him a regular in a hurry. Urkel

21:22

debuted in the 12th episode of Family

21:24

Matters.

21:25

Hi, Laura.

21:26

I

21:29

hear you can't get a date for the dance. So

21:33

you wanna go with me? Urkel

21:36

immediately reoriented the show.

21:38

The largely White writing staff finally understood

21:41

what the show should be about. It

21:43

should be about Urkel.

21:46

There was a kid who needed family and

21:49

latched on to the Winslow's on

21:51

all levels. That was the, to me, that

21:54

then gave us a key for the series. Now

21:56

we have that thing that

21:58

could really drive the show.

21:59

show. Now, as far as my character

22:02

is concerned, the thing that I always

22:04

love is Steve

22:06

loved cheese,

22:10

poker, played the accordion.

22:12

Everything about him was white

22:15

and weird. Jaleel White again. So

22:17

it made him as a character easy

22:20

to write for the writers. They were

22:22

excited now. Like, they were hyped.

22:24

Finally, we got something we can write for.

22:27

And then just, you know, now this is where I will

22:29

tip my hat a little bit. Just as a credit to myself,

22:32

I would find a way to inject soul

22:36

and a uniqueness.

22:39

With Urkel in the cast, the ratings started

22:41

to climb. Jaleel White single-handedly

22:44

turned Family Matters into a top five

22:46

hit as Urkelmania swept the

22:48

country. Urkel was on talk

22:51

shows and award

22:52

shows. Ladies and

22:54

gentlemen, here is the reason that ABC's

22:56

stock saw 12 points in the

22:58

last quarter. He inspired an episode

23:00

of The Simpsons in which Bart rockets to

23:02

fame on the back of an Urkel-esque

23:05

catchphrase. I didn't do it.

23:11

And meanwhile, Urkel's

23:13

own catchphrases kept coming. Steve,

23:17

shh. I'm gonna bore

23:19

you. I'm wearing you down, baby.

23:22

I'm

23:23

wearing you down. I

23:25

don't have to take this. I'm going

23:27

home. I'm going home. I'm going home. And

23:31

a number of them even ended up being used

23:34

for an Urkel doll. He's got my looks,

23:36

my laughs, my voice and all. Can

23:38

I do that? So if you can't have me,

23:41

get the next best thing. Talking Urkel. A just

23:43

full machine.

23:44

This was all familiar territory

23:46

for Family Matters co-creator Bill Bickley.

23:49

What had happened with Fonzie on Happy

23:51

Days was happening all over

23:53

again with Urkel.

23:55

I've got a Steve Urkel doll

23:57

over there. He keeps saying these things and haunts

23:59

me. Bill would actually cut Urkel's

24:01

catchphrases out of scripts or try

24:04

to bargain and say, do them twice, not

24:06

three times.

24:07

It was a losing battle. The network

24:09

latches onto shit like this. It wasn't

24:12

just the network, though. I would laugh

24:14

so hard, but you know when

24:16

I laugh there is like,

24:17

you don't have any control over the laugh. It just comes

24:20

out. Kenny Lucas is one half of the

24:22

comedy duo, The Lucas Brothers, and

24:24

he and his brother Keith were around six

24:26

or seven when Urkelmania hit its peak.

24:29

It was perfect timing for us. Oh,

24:31

yeah. If we had been a little older, I

24:34

don't think we would have appreciated

24:36

the silliness of Urkel. Urkel did

24:38

get very silly. Over its nine-season

24:40

run, Family Matters had Urkel clone himself,

24:42

get a suave doppelganger named Stefan

24:45

Urkel, and go to space.

24:47

It was weird. The

24:48

Lucas Brothers' own comedy can also

24:51

be surreal, and they count Urkel as an influence.

24:54

They even did a sketch about him in 2014 spoofing

24:57

the writers who fatefully retooled Family

24:59

Matters.

25:00

Okay, all right, fine. If they want to cancel

25:02

our show after 11 episodes, then I

25:04

say let's go down in flames. Yeah,

25:06

yeah, yeah. Wait, what

25:09

y'all got in mind? Look, I was thinking, right?

25:12

What about a black nerd? But there aren't

25:14

black nerds. No, dud, that's

25:16

the point, man. So when we add one to this TV

25:18

show, it'll be so terrible every executive

25:21

will lose their jobs to what?

25:23

I'm curious what both as

25:25

viewers of Family Matters, but also as comedians.

25:29

You make of the

25:31

catchphrase. Oh, did I

25:33

do that? I mean, iconic. Existential,

25:37

you know? It's

25:39

like, yeah, of course he did

25:41

it, but it's like he still poses the question,

25:44

and it hits every time.

25:47

But you think you

25:49

were watching episode 163, like the tail

25:51

end of season eight. I'll

25:56

be honest, I stopped watching after season seven.

26:00

Like, this is ridiculous. After a while, you're

26:02

like, all right, the catchphrase

26:04

isn't working anymore. For some, it had

26:07

never worked. I just didn't like Urkel.

26:09

William Evans is a writer and also the co-creator

26:12

of the website and book, Black Nerd

26:14

Problems.

26:15

When there are a few at the time, when you

26:18

see these images of yourself in media, there

26:21

kind of is this instant, you

26:24

know, am I like this person?

26:26

Do I know someone like this person kind of a thing?

26:29

And I just remember watching

26:31

that like, don't nobody know who

26:34

this month, like who, what? Why

26:36

am I dealing with Urkel? Urkel's peak popularity

26:39

came in the early 1990s when Gangster

26:41

Rap was on the radio and the LA riots were

26:43

in the news. And William thinks that has something

26:45

to do with a character's appeal.

26:47

I think Urkel in

26:50

itself becoming so popular was

26:53

really indicative of how

26:55

thirsty

26:58

folks were

27:00

to see a black

27:02

caricature that was not threatening, that

27:05

was quote unquote cute and adorable. No,

27:07

sweet my pet. Even with all

27:10

his qualms, you should know, William

27:12

sometimes watched Family Matters. It was inescapable,

27:15

though less and less

27:16

as it went on. Yeah, I got to a point where

27:18

I was like, I'm good,

27:20

I'm good. By the

27:22

time Family Matters ended in 1998, after 215

27:24

episodes, Jaleel

27:27

White was pretty sick of it too. He

27:29

is much more measured about it now, but

27:32

he once said to a reporter, if

27:34

you ever see me do that character again, take

27:37

me out and put a bullet in my head. The

27:41

catchphrase had helped make Urkel, but

27:43

now everyone just wanted to get as far

27:46

from the character and his quips as possible.

27:50

When we come back, that feeling about

27:52

catchphrases carries into the new millennium.

28:08

In 2011, Saturday Night Live

28:10

aired a sketch called The Original Kings

28:13

of Catch-Raise Comedy. The

28:19

segment skewered stand-up comedians who rely

28:21

on the catch-rays. There

28:28

are other catch-raises including Slappy

28:30

Pappy Wang Wang and a comedian who uses

28:33

someone else's catch-rays.

28:35

This

28:40

was not 2011's most successful

28:43

SNL sketch, but it seems close to the heart

28:45

of the comedians who made it and it would get two

28:47

follow-ups. Saturday Night Live,

28:49

the show that had and continues to

28:51

give the world a disproportionate

28:53

number of catch-raises was making

28:56

fun of them as something hokey and

28:58

hacky. Former SNL head

29:00

writer Tina Fey teased them too

29:03

on her show 30 Rock when her character, Liz

29:05

Lemon, greedily comes up with a catch-phrase

29:08

of her own. Sitcoms,

29:09

especially the traditional multi-camera

29:12

ones whose stock and trade was the catch-phrase,

29:25

were

29:30

increasingly seen as old-fashioned, even

29:33

as the form, along with the big studio

29:35

comedy, was falling on hard times. The

29:38

audiences for these tried and true catch-phrase

29:41

delivery systems were fragmenting

29:43

and they were reaching fewer people

29:45

than before.

29:46

Catch-raises do sometimes still

29:49

come from scripted entertainment. Huh.

30:01

Cool, cool, cool. But comedies in particular

30:03

supply them far less often than they used

30:06

to. And if you think that means we've

30:08

stopped saying the same things,

30:10

that's not quite right either. A

30:14

couple of years ago, some pictures of a whiteboard

30:16

crammed with writing started making their way

30:18

around the internet.

30:20

The board is like a

30:23

three by four whiteboard,

30:26

just listing every line

30:29

that you've heard repeated for the last 20 years.

30:32

Anders Holm is an actor, writer and

30:35

co-creator of the comedy Workaholics

30:37

about a group of friends who work and live together.

30:40

It ran for seven seasons on Comedy Central,

30:42

and the whiteboard is a creation of its

30:44

writers room.

30:46

I think we had planned to do a teaser

30:48

that was going to be exclusively

30:50

these jokes.

30:52

And it was going to be like a two minute

30:55

machine gun of

30:57

nailed it. He's right behind me, isn't he?

31:01

I didn't not fart. Are you having

31:03

a stroke? Why are you whispering? Random.

31:06

Zero fucks given. I

31:09

just peed a little. I think I just peed a little.

31:11

I think I just peed a little. Like

31:14

all the ones that we know and

31:16

they're good. And when you hear them the first time you

31:18

go, whoa, she threw up in her mouth

31:20

a little bit.

31:21

Hilarious visual.

31:23

But then when like it's been 10 years

31:26

and somebody at Target says

31:28

that to you after they like hold

31:30

up a bag of rotten apples or whatever, then

31:34

you go, do they know that's from Dodgeball? I

31:36

said we should date sometime, you know, socially. Go

31:38

out and kick it. Are

31:41

you OK?

31:42

I'm fine. I just threw

31:45

up in my mouth a little bit.

31:47

The famous catchphrases of the past tended

31:49

to be closely associated with the people

31:51

flogging them, a comedian, a character,

31:54

a comedy that repeated them over and over.

31:57

But now they're often untethered, which

31:59

actually makes them.

31:59

easier for other professionals

32:02

to use. The Workaholics team

32:04

didn't end up making that teaser, but they kept

32:06

compiling these kinds of jokes.

32:09

Eventually, they had so many, they had to start

32:11

a second whiteboard, over 100. And

32:14

to be clear, it's not exactly

32:16

that Anders and the other writers dislike

32:19

these phrases. They just have

32:21

a sense of professional pride when

32:23

it comes to using these jokes in

32:25

their own show.

32:27

They are funny, but

32:28

they're not surprising anymore,

32:31

right? And surprise is part of comedy.

32:33

When we meet somebody new, like

32:36

a new actor, and we kind

32:38

of never seen their sensibility before, it's

32:40

like shocking how funny they are. And

32:43

then after a while, you kind of aren't surprised

32:45

anymore. I'm realizing I'm like a personality

32:47

type now, and maybe not a good one,

32:49

but I'm like,

32:51

yeah, I remember like going out

32:53

of my way in college to not say

32:55

I know right. Dude, that

32:57

was crazy, I know, right? And I was like,

32:59

why are we all saying this now? I have

33:01

to stop saying

33:02

this. As befits someone who pays

33:04

this much attention to language, Anders

33:06

and the other writers wanted to come up with

33:08

catchphrases of their own.

33:11

We were like, let's see what's

33:13

like the craziest thing we could say

33:15

and see if people

33:17

will start saying it on the street. That, my

33:20

friend, is totally loose butthole. Excuse

33:22

me, this entire outfit is completely

33:25

tight butthole. We started saying tight butthole

33:28

out of like an experiment. And tight butthole

33:31

wasn't the only line that got picked up. Let's

33:34

get weird, let's get weird,

33:36

weird. That's from

33:38

when Adam and Blake went to go see Weird Al

33:41

at the OC Fair and started a chant,

33:44

let's get weird. The National Hockey

33:46

League decided to use it for a promotional

33:48

campaign one season. Let's

33:51

get weird, let's get weird. And

33:53

we were like, huh? Oh, okay,

33:57

great. This line had a very specific.

33:59

origin, but it could work in a much

34:02

more general way for a major

34:03

sports league. It had become

34:06

the kind of punchline that

34:08

could go on the whiteboard. In 2023,

34:11

there are still catchphrases we all use to communicate,

34:14

and some of them are even very closely associated

34:17

with the people who originally said them.

34:19

Good morning world. Bless up. We

34:22

did it. We did it, y'all. I

34:25

hate to say it. I hope I don't sound ridiculous. I don't know

34:27

who this man is. Sorry

34:29

to this man. But there are even

34:31

more that come from just somewhere. Maybe

34:34

it's a TV comedy, a commercial, or

34:36

some other legacy media, but

34:38

it's just as likely they're from a meme, a

34:40

tweet, a TikTok, a YouTube video,

34:42

an influencer, or some random viral

34:45

moment. And often, it's hard to tell

34:47

where they began at all. What

34:49

you can tell is that all of a sudden, it

34:51

feels like something lots of people are

34:54

saying. Maybe too many.

34:56

Maybe relatives are saying it, strangers too,

34:59

people at work, and it's in your own

35:01

mouth. Or maybe you've only ever

35:03

written it in a group chat or shared

35:05

it as a gif on social media. And

35:09

the reason for using these phrases, these

35:11

modern cliches, is the

35:13

same as it ever was. It brings

35:16

people together. It is literally

35:18

language that we share, however

35:21

unoriginal

35:21

it has become. And

35:23

we've found a way to keep sharing this kind

35:26

of language, even as the way

35:28

we receive it has changed. It's

35:31

actually kind of resourceful of us. We may not

35:33

know exactly where these lines come from,

35:35

but we'll take our catch phrases and

35:37

the sense of community they create anywhere

35:40

we can get

35:41

them.

35:44

Come on Lisa, say something funny. Like

35:47

what? Oh, something stupid like Bart would say. Baka

35:49

Baka or Wuzza Wazzle, something like that.

35:51

Forget it dad, if I ever become famous I want

35:53

it to be for something worthwhile, not because of some

35:56

obnoxious fad. Noxious

35:58

fad?

35:58

I don't-

35:59

worry son. You know they said the

36:02

same thing about Urkel.

36:14

This is Decoder Ring. I'm Willa Paskin.

36:16

If you have any cultural mysteries you want us

36:18

to decode, you can email us at decoderring

36:21

at slate dot com. This

36:23

episode was written by me, Willa Paskin. I

36:25

produced Decoder Ring with Katie Shepard. This

36:27

episode was edited by Joel Meyer. Derek

36:30

John is Slate's executive producer of narrative

36:32

podcasts and Merritt Jacob is our senior

36:34

technical director. Thank you to

36:36

Steven Langford, Doug Dietzelt and The

36:38

Good, The Bad and The Sequel podcast

36:41

and to Sean Green for the suggestion and the

36:43

Urkel clips.

36:44

I'd also like to thank all the Slate staffers

36:46

who helped us brainstorm catchphrases.

36:48

I mentioned Slate Plus earlier in this episode.

36:51

Please sign up. Members will get an upcoming bonus

36:54

episode about how this season was made.

36:56

We'll also talk about one more untethered

36:59

catchphrase with Slate writer Luke Winky.

37:01

The ubiquitous let's go.

37:03

And you should go to slate dot

37:06

com slash Decoder Plus to sign

37:08

up now. If you haven't yet, please

37:10

subscribe and rate our feed and Apple podcast

37:13

or wherever you get

37:14

your podcasts and even better, tell

37:16

your friends. That's it for this season.

37:18

We'll be back in October. Until

37:20

then, thanks for listening.

37:26

Transcribed by https://otter.ai