Legendary words

"Beam me up, Scotty" was never said: Revisiting classic TV catchphrases

Some lines are so famous that our brains can complete them after hearing the first two words. Writers and stars of some of the most successful TV shows in history made sure of that. An estimated 93 million Americans watched the finale of Cheers, and tens of millions more grew up with Star Trek and I Love Lucy. How could we not remember the words most often associated with them? There may have been a time when expressions like "Ayyyy," "D’oh!", or "Yabba dabba doo!" made no sense. But these 10 catchphrases have become cultural icons in their own right.

True Star Trek fans know that Captain Kirk never said "Beam me up, Scotty" in any television episode or film. Not once, across three seasons, six movies, and hundreds of hours of footage.

Kirk came close several times. For example, in a 1967 episode, he said "beam me up," in a 1969 episode, he said "Scotty, beam us up, fast!" and in the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, he said, "Scotty, beam me up". But the exact, iconic phrase, as it is so often repeated, was never spoken.

The misquote took on a life of its own through parody, merchandise, and decades of retelling. The misquotation's influence even led James Doohan, who played Scotty, to use the phrase as the title of his 1996 autobiography.

The second great misquote in television history, and arguably the most astonishing one. I Love Lucy ran for 180 episodes across six seasons and is one of the most-watched shows in American TV history. But Ricky Ricardo never said the line that the whole world attributes to him.

He did say variations like "Lucy, 'splain" or "All right, start 'splaining," but never the famous combined phrase. The line grew in the cultural imagination through decades of impersonation, parody, and retelling. But it’s close enough to be recognizable.

Fred Flintstone's thunderous victory cry stems from a hair product jingle. When he was recording lines for an episode of The Flintstones, Alan Reed stepped up to the microphone. The script indicated only one word: "Yahoo!" But Reed had heard his mother repeatedly use the phrase "A little dab'll do ya", an advertising jingle for Brylcreem hair cream, and from that memory, he ad-libbed "Yabba dabba doo!" on the spot.

The producers loved it immediately and kept it in. The Flintstones, which premiered on ABC in 1960, became the first animated series to air in primetime, running for six seasons and 166 episodes. Fred's cry became so embedded in American culture that it outlasted the show by decades; it was used in advertising, politics, sports arenas, and everyday life.

Screenwriter Ben Starr said that young star Gary Coleman was "a born showman who read lines like an old pro." That was because, while Starr had originally written the more mundane "What are you talking about, Willis?", the 8-year-old actor gave the line the twist that made it a phenomenon.

His portrayal of Arnold Jackson, small, sharp, and endlessly suspicious of his older brother's schemes, made him one of the most recognizable child stars in America. Coleman spent much of his adult life being asked to repeat it, and reportedly came to resent it.

Every episode, the same ritual: the bar door swings open, a large man in a rumpled suit shuffles in, and the entire room erupts in a single, joyful shout: "Norm!" It happened 270 times over eleven seasons.

Actor George Wendt, who played Norm Peterson, later said the live audience’s response to his entrance was so overwhelming that the cast would sometimes have to pause several seconds before continuing. Cheers premiered on NBC in 1982, ran for 275 episodes, and won 28 Emmy Awards, which was a record at the time. Its finale in 1993 drew 80.4 million viewers, making it one of the most-watched television episodes in American history.

Unexpectedly, the most famous grunt in television history traces back to a mustachioed Scottish character actor from the 1930s. Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson, explained that his choice of the exclamation was an homage to comic Scottish actor James Finlayson, who used a drawn-out "Do-o-o-o!" as a stand-in for a stronger word.

First heard in a Tracey Ullman Show short in 1988, it became Homer's defining sound when the series premiered in 1989. The screenwriters for The Simpsons never wrote the word "D'oh"; it appears only as "annoyed grunt." Despite this, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2001, the only TV catchphrase to earn that distinction.

The sound is difficult to spell and instantly recognizable to anyone who watched American television in the 1970s. Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli's leather-jacketed, thumbs-up greeting merited a bronze statue on the Milwaukee Riverwalk in Wisconsin, the city where the show was set. And yet, did you know that the creators never planned for this signature gesture?

Actor Henry Winkler developed it organically as the character took shape. Happy Days, created by Garry Marshall, premiered on ABC in 1974 and ran for eleven seasons. Winkler's Fonz was supposed to be a supporting character; instead, he became the most famous person on the show.

The cultural footprint was massive. In 1980, Winkler donated one of Fonzie's leather jackets to the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where it has been exhibited since.

Walter Cronkite's CBS Evening News became the first half-hour network weeknight news broadcast in 1963. In an effort to punctuate the longer format and personalize it, Cronkite conceived and delivered for the first time his iconic sign-off: "And that's the way it is."

He used it for the next eighteen years, through the Kennedy assassination, the Moon landing, Vietnam, and Watergate. Every event that defined a generation concluded with the same seven quiet, certain words. Of course, keeping to the standards of objective journalism, he deliberately omitted the phrase on nights when he ended the broadcast with his own opinion rather than reported facts.

The discipline of knowing when the phrase applied may have contributed to making him the most trusted man in America, as a poll in 1972 indicated.

No catchphrase on this list required more work to maintain. In 120 episodes across three seasons, Burt Ward's Robin delivered the phrase to Adam West’s Batman with a different word every single time. It meant the writers needed to take meticulous records to ensure they never repeated themselves.

The collection became known among fans as "the Holyism." The results ranged from the logical "Holy smoke!" to the creative "Holy bijou!", and the gloriously absurd "Holy uncanny photographic mental processes!".

The show premiered on ABC in 1966 and ran twice a week in its first season, with a scheduling innovation that left audiences on a cliffhanger every Wednesday and resolved it every Thursday.

On CBS, Edward R. Murrow chose these five words to close every broadcast of "See It Now," the newsmagazine and documentary series. The most noted episode of the program came in March 1954, when Murrow used the broadcast to take on Senator Joseph McCarthy directly, letting the senator condemn himself through his own recorded words.

Murrow's closing that night was precise: "Cassius was right: 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.' Good night, and good luck." The broadcast is credited with significantly contributing to McCarthy's political downfall.

UNDER THE RADAR

9 Words That Are Way More Interesting Than They Seem

Image: Mick Haupt

Most words we use in everyday life have interesting stories to tell. Behind the facade of triviality, the history of whole languages (and the people who spoke those languages) unfolds like a rich tapestry of meaning and social threads. English is a language with a long history, and over the years, some words have changed in unexpected ways, sometimes even completely reversing their original meaning!

Don’t let the ubiquity of these words deceive you. Here’s a list of our favorite origin stories!

Image: Jeff Dunham

According to etymologists, nice wasn’t always a good thing to say. The word comes from the Latin nescius, meaning ignorant or foolish. When the word was eventually assimilated into English, it still carried its original meaning, but that didn’t last long. Around the 14th century, its common usage changed completely, as it started to signify something agreeable or pleasant. And by the 18th century, it already carried the more polite meaning we know today.

Image: Mick Haupt

Ironically, the etymology of this word is in actual shambles. The leading theory is that the term derives from the Latin word scamillus, meaning a small stool. Then, it began to be used to mean a stool where something is sold. And since more often than not that something turned out to be meat, the word became associated with meat markets and, eventually, with slaughterhouses!

Image: Tara Evans

This one makes a lot more sense than the previous two. Its modern use is tied to the Greek legend of the Minotaur, or more specifically, to the little trick Theseus used to escape the fabled labyrinth: a ball of yarn. Clew, a word of probable Germanic origin, was used to refer to the aforementioned element, but it ultimately lent its meaning to the broader sense of having something to guide your path, a hint, or a little help to avoid getting lost.

Image: Ali Kazal

A very popular word today, awkward experienced an interesting shift in meaning, from spatial or physical unease to social discomfort. The term finds its origins in the Old Norse afugr, meaning "turned the wrong way" or "crooked," blending with the suffix -weard in the mid-14th century. Originally signaling an orientational blunder, the word later shifted to describe physical clumsiness and, by the 18th century, extended to convey social discomfort or embarrassment.

Image: VD Photography

The term checkmate has roots in the Persian phrase shāh māt, meaning "the king is helpless." As chess migrated to Europe through the Arabic world, an alternative interpretation emerged - "the king is dead." However, in the context of chess, the king is never actually killed but rather strategically cornered, defeated by being put into an inescapable position.

Image: Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu

Quiz is a quirky word that has confused etymologists for many years. Some maintain that it originates from the Irish cuisle, meaning "a pulse" or "vein," cleverly alluding to a quick test as if it were checking your pulse. Others think that it might have evolved from the Latin qui es ("who are you?"), the first question asked in oral exams in ancient grammar schools. In any case, by the late 18th century it acquired the meaning we are more familiar with: a form of light entertainment that involves impromptu questions to test general knowledge.

Image: Jason Leung

The almost universal term for self-operating machines was originally coined by a Czech science fiction writer called Karel Čapek in the 1920s. Derived from the Czech word robota, meaning "forced labor" or "drudgery," the term originally described artificial beings tasked with performing menial duties for their human masters.

Image: Bernard Hermant

Surprisingly, the word hazard is believed to originate from 13th-century Arabic, where al-zahr referred to dice used in gambling games. As with any gamble, these games always posed certain risks, and this connotation was brought back to Europe by the Crusaders who learned it during their military campaigns in the Middle East.

Image: Lindsay Cash

This very mundane word finds its roots in the Hindi word champna, which, in turn, derives from the Sanskrit capayati. Translating to "pounds" or "kneads," the Sanskrit term suggests a massaging motion. Through the British colonies, the word eventually integrated into the English language, referring to the act of cleansing and massaging the scalp, and later acquiring its modern meaning as a liquid preparation used for washing hair.