exactamundo was Re: gigung(o)us, gigund(o)us, gigunda, gigundo

[Towse]

On 4/28/05, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at rci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Apr 2005 09:27:17 -0500, Mullins, Bill
> <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL> wrote:
> >> And influencing the thus-far-unrecorded _exactamundo_ (1990,
> >> or perhaps earlier?):
> >
> >From Newsbank:
> >ORANGEMEN WIN IN A NEAR-WALK -
> >DON'T CALL IT A MASTERPIECE OF BASKETBALL
> >Syracuse Herald-Journal (NY)
> >March 20, 1989
> >Author: Bud Poliquin
> >
> >"``It,'' said Owens, ``was like playing a scrimmage game.''
> >
> >Exactamundo. And, never mind that the teams didn't go skins-and-shirts."
>
> I believe "exactamundo" was popularized by the cartoon series "Teenage
> Mutant Ninja Turtles", which aired in the US beginning in 1987.  The
> character Michelangelo had a penchant for faux-Hispanicisms/Italicisms.
>
> -----
> http://www.geocities.com/dreamcatcher_12466/nqh-an.html
> Some of Michelangelo's favorite expressions are "Exactamundo," "Awesome,"
> "Tubuloso," "Primo to the extremo," "Holy Guacamole," and "Cowabunga!"
> -----
>
> "Cowabunga" is of course a Howdy Doody-derived surferism that Bart Simpson
> also helped to revive starting c1987 (Bart first said it back when "The
> Simpsons" was still a short feature on "The Tracey Ullman Show").

Snoopy kept "Cowabunga" alive until Bart came along.

If you go out on the Web, you can purchase boxer shorts showing Snoopy
surfing and shouting "Cowabunga!" The word was a (minor) part of teen
language in late '60s Bay Area California, perhaps because of the
surfing tie-in.