1961 article on teen slang

[Wilson Gray]

On 9/14/07, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: 1961 article on teen slang
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 9/14/07, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >
> > On Sep 14, 2007, at 9:22 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> >
> > > "Grody" and "murgatroid" are interesting additions to the list of
> > > synonyms for "square, n." I've only seen "grody" as an adjective
> > > (OED/HDAS 1965), and then with more of a "gross" than "square" sense.
> > > "Murgatroid/Murgatroyd" I suppose is just a funny-sounding name like
> > > "Poindexter". Cassell's Dictionary of Catchphrases notes that Bing
> > > Crosby says "Very good, Murgatroyd" to Bob Hope in Road to Bali
> > > (1952), long predating Snagglepuss of "Heavens to Murgatroyd" fame.
> >
> > Snagglepuss first appeared in 1959; when was "Heavens to Murgatroyd/
> > Murgatroid!" first uttered?
>
> Don Markstein's Toonopedia says:
>
> -----
> http://www.toonopedia.com/snaggle.htm
> The character's best-remembered catch-phrase ("Heavens to Murgatroyd")
> was also from _[Bert] Lahr_, who used it in Meet the People (1944),
> where he played a supporting role under stars Dick Powell and Lucille
> Ball.

Right! I knew that Snagglepuss had stolen that phrase from somewhere!

-Wilson

> Ah, Fred Shapiro got there first, of course:
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0702c&L=ads-l&P=3326
>
>
> > i suppose the question is whether "Murgatroyd" had any currency as a
> > characteristically silly name before Snagglepuss made it famous.
>
> It certainly did. Perhaps most famously, vaudeville comedian Billy De
> Wolfe played a running character named Mrs. Murgatroyd, described in
> one article as "a middle-aged matron with tender feet and an armload
> of shopping bundles who drops into a cocktail bar to rest." It started
> as a pantomime character in 1939 in De Wolfe's nightclub act and
> became a national sensation when De Wolfe played the character in the
> 1947 film "Blue Skies".
>
> Here's an early example of Murgatroyd as a humorous vocative, perhaps
> influenced by Mrs. Murgatroyd in "Blue Skies":
>
> -----
> 1947 _Washington Post_ 2 Feb. S4/1 "Tricks for Teens" You're putting
> extra color into your lives -- and your wardrobes -- with packaged
> dyes. ... Quick, Murgatroyd, the sun glasses.
> -----
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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