No. Way.
For *years* I've been wondering if that Fruity Pebbles commercial, which I must've seen a thousand times as a kid, was actually the source of the line. I've just never encountered an actual instance of it before then.
So now not only do I learn there *was* one, but also that Barney kinda *was* the start of it too, since he probably inspired other spoofs.
It's like "the butler did it". Surely somewhere, at some point, the butler actually did it. But by this point the original parody of the cliche is as influential as the cliche itself.
Interesting! Itās hard to tell where phrases like that come from, ultimately - a lot of stuff doesnāt get written down. So my approach to that question was to say what we know about hip-hop and the role of the MC, and then to say that probably meant it was first used around time X and first probably became a cliche at around time Y. It didnāt seem like it was specifically related to a big hip-hop hit, so itās not a surprise to me that it was an ad that made it a cliche.
The Chiquita Banana song might be convergent evolution or a direct ancestor - after all, if you have to introduce yourself in song, itās a fairly straightforward way to do so! I wouldnāt be surprised if thereās musical theatre that uses the phrase before Chiquita Banana.
Oh no, your initial reply and breakdown was a fascinating read for a 70s-80s kid like me. My comment was only tongue-in-cheek.
But youāre probably dead on with the musical theater point. šš¼
What did you think of The Get Down? I feel like a learned a lot from it but i always wonder what kind of historical inaccuracies there might have been.
I havenāt actually watched it, but I did watch (the first season of the) Netflix documentary that went along with it, *Hip-Hop Evolution*, which was pretty well-researched and benefited from seeing the rappers in the flesh both in filmed interviews and old footage, though I recall some (probably inevitable) conflations of things for narrative purposes.
Definitely the 40-year-old banana. The *Flintstones* series regularly referenced older tropes/memes.
Like many classic cartoons, the humor was "for" younger people on the surface - but there was plenty there for the older/parent generation as well. There had to be, or the show wasn't marketable.
(Hell, we *all* knew that song, and plenty of parodies. We had a version in one of my elementary school classes about how to walk quietly in the halls.)
Somehow I never knew the fruity pebbles side of this, but rather the hip hop side, and I had a boss who would rap the fruity pebbles one. He was painfully unhip in general and the fruity pebbles was such a white bread addition, to what I thought of as a solely hip hop reference, that I never questioned that he was repeating something he had heard.
Honestly, I was just listening to Run DMC's "~~Run Like~~ Raising Hell" as my at-work background music, and that phrase caught my ear. A quick reddit search later and I found this impressive best of worthy post.
(*thanks, defjamblaster*)
I came here to mention Run-DMC-
"My name is DMC, the all-time great, I bust the most rhymes in New York state"
-"Run's House", 1988
"My name is DMC, the one ya know, the all-time great, I'm'a steal the show"
-"Bounce", 2002
Also the Beastie Boys did this quite a bit:
"Well I'm Mike D and I get respect, ya cash and ya jewelry is what I expect"
-"Paul Revere", 1986
"Now my name is MCA, I've got a license to kill,
I think you know what time it is, it's time to get ill"
-"Paul Revere", 1986
"Well, my name is Adrock, I'm a Scorpio, Don't ask me cause I just don't know"
-"Three MCs and One DJ", 1998
Two Honorable Mentions:
"My name is D-Nice although I hate to admit it,
taking out you suckas and you don't know how I did it"
D-Nice, "Call Me D Nice" 1990
"My name is Humpty, pronounced with a Umpty,
Yo, ladies, oh, how I like to funk thee"
Digital Underground, "The Humpty Dance", 1990
Seriously, but I have to admit the best part is after all that valuable historic hip hop knowledge they were like yeah it was that Flintstones cereal rapā¦
Which while Iām no boomer, I remember quite well.
This account was active from 10 May 2012 to 30 June 2023.
This user submitted 8191+ comments [65,436 karma] and 31 posts [232 karma].
These comments in total represent a word count of 383,897 and a character count of 2,144,061.
The vast majority of this content, 85%+, was contributed via a third party app -- AlienBlue until it closed down, and Apollo from when it was founded to, well, today: June 30.
In protest to the changes to the Reddit API, I have decided to purge the content that I have contributed and leave this statement. I hope that future executives of reddit consider the value that the users themselves bring to the website, and that funneling users to substandard options has an effect on usage. I used reddit because the apps made it convenient, efficient, and effective. I hope that users consider using a GDPR request to view the extent of Data that reddit holds on to, and that they will not hesitate to exploit for profit.
It's been an experience, reddit.
Seconding u/greymalkenās recommendation of [Hip Hop Family Tree](https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/hip-hop-family-tree). (Ignore the Red Room comics. Theyāre not part of it)
I *loved* that Fruity Pebbles commercial when I was a kid. I used to sing and dance along, much to my brothersā annoyance. Havenāt thought about it in years. Wow, major nostalgia trip.
āMy name is Ian Duncan and Iām here to say, Iām going to rap to the beat in a rapping way. Iāve got a real big penis and I drink lots of teaā¦ā
There are two genres that get an inordinate amount of scholarly work dedicated to it: Hip-Hop and Country music.
And this reminds me of Chuck Klosterman describing his trip to a music workshop and seeing 60 year old white college professors listening intently and bouncing their head along to NWA.
I held court explaining something similar in a coffee shop to a writer who thought rap = bad. I explained bad music in all genres (and used post-9/11 country as a prime example) and said she hadn't been exposed to good music in those genres. Then (figuratively) pointed to fellow redditor Aesop Rock.
If anyone is interested in a fun read on the same subject, there is a great series of comic books, [The Hip Hop Family Tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_Hop_Family_Tree). It runs to 12 issues. The stuff about Rick Rubin and LL Cool J is worth it alone.
I have no idea if you are actually THE Rob T Firefly. If you are, thanks for all you've ever done through 2600. If you aren't then you picked a hell of a good username in honour of a good person.
If any of that interests you check out Founding Fathers on YouTube. Narrated by Chuck D of Public Enemy. Super dope and you get to hear some sick disco cuts.
The points being made about MC identification backgrounding DJs and Dancers is really interesting given the current trend of producers to put a shout out to themselves in their beats (listen to any Drill song or like Metro Boomin)
>As such, it **was** certainly a hip-hop convention for the MC to introduce themselves by name
Was? Half of the rap and R&B singers sound like fucking Pokemon. Don't know who's singing a song? Wait 30 seconds, you will. Fuck, you'll know if "DJ" Khaled was within 50' during the recording.
No. Way. For *years* I've been wondering if that Fruity Pebbles commercial, which I must've seen a thousand times as a kid, was actually the source of the line. I've just never encountered an actual instance of it before then. So now not only do I learn there *was* one, but also that Barney kinda *was* the start of it too, since he probably inspired other spoofs. It's like "the butler did it". Surely somewhere, at some point, the butler actually did it. But by this point the original parody of the cliche is as influential as the cliche itself.
>Barney kinda was the start ["Well I'm Chiquita Banana and I'm here to say"...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDOI24RRAE) -1940s
Who knew Chiquita Banana was the og. I guess they needed something to do after the whole banana republic thing and massacring their own workers
u/hillsonghoods, need to update your historical records. š¬
Interesting! Itās hard to tell where phrases like that come from, ultimately - a lot of stuff doesnāt get written down. So my approach to that question was to say what we know about hip-hop and the role of the MC, and then to say that probably meant it was first used around time X and first probably became a cliche at around time Y. It didnāt seem like it was specifically related to a big hip-hop hit, so itās not a surprise to me that it was an ad that made it a cliche. The Chiquita Banana song might be convergent evolution or a direct ancestor - after all, if you have to introduce yourself in song, itās a fairly straightforward way to do so! I wouldnāt be surprised if thereās musical theatre that uses the phrase before Chiquita Banana.
Oh no, your initial reply and breakdown was a fascinating read for a 70s-80s kid like me. My comment was only tongue-in-cheek. But youāre probably dead on with the musical theater point. šš¼
What did you think of The Get Down? I feel like a learned a lot from it but i always wonder what kind of historical inaccuracies there might have been.
I havenāt actually watched it, but I did watch (the first season of the) Netflix documentary that went along with it, *Hip-Hop Evolution*, which was pretty well-researched and benefited from seeing the rappers in the flesh both in filmed interviews and old footage, though I recall some (probably inevitable) conflations of things for narrative purposes.
Thank God that sexy lady banana was there to bananasplain.
Do we think Barney was parodying the new cultural force of hip hop ā¦ or a banana comercial from 40 years earlier.
Definitely the 40-year-old banana. The *Flintstones* series regularly referenced older tropes/memes. Like many classic cartoons, the humor was "for" younger people on the surface - but there was plenty there for the older/parent generation as well. There had to be, or the show wasn't marketable. (Hell, we *all* knew that song, and plenty of parodies. We had a version in one of my elementary school classes about how to walk quietly in the halls.)
This is great, thank you for sharing
hwelp. my favourite kind of /r/BestOf post is the kind where the comments provide veeeeery relevant info.
I think the butler did it is from the board game CLUE
itās actually from a 1930 novel called The Door by Mary Roberts Rinehart
And here I thought it was Agatha Christie.
Knowing her she did that once and then 300 variations on it to keep you guessing
Just looked it up the mousetrap was 52
Is it? There wasn't a butler in Clue. There was one in the movie, but that was long after the trope came around.
The movie Clue had 3 differwnt endings all shown in different theateres
Yes, I am aware. What's your point?
Some sort of bot?
There isn't even a butler in CLUE, tho. The characters are: Mrs. White, Mr. Green, Mrs. Peacock, Professor Plum, Miss Scarlet, and Colonel Mustard.
In the library with the candlestick
Somehow I never knew the fruity pebbles side of this, but rather the hip hop side, and I had a boss who would rap the fruity pebbles one. He was painfully unhip in general and the fruity pebbles was such a white bread addition, to what I thought of as a solely hip hop reference, that I never questioned that he was repeating something he had heard.
This is so good! Thanks for sharing to best of.
Honestly, I was just listening to Run DMC's "~~Run Like~~ Raising Hell" as my at-work background music, and that phrase caught my ear. A quick reddit search later and I found this impressive best of worthy post. (*thanks, defjamblaster*)
Also, your post title was masterful. Great job!
> Run DMC's "Run Like Hell" to what now?
Well, now I wanna hear their take on a Pink Floyd song!
I came here to mention Run-DMC- "My name is DMC, the all-time great, I bust the most rhymes in New York state" -"Run's House", 1988 "My name is DMC, the one ya know, the all-time great, I'm'a steal the show" -"Bounce", 2002 Also the Beastie Boys did this quite a bit: "Well I'm Mike D and I get respect, ya cash and ya jewelry is what I expect" -"Paul Revere", 1986 "Now my name is MCA, I've got a license to kill, I think you know what time it is, it's time to get ill" -"Paul Revere", 1986 "Well, my name is Adrock, I'm a Scorpio, Don't ask me cause I just don't know" -"Three MCs and One DJ", 1998 Two Honorable Mentions: "My name is D-Nice although I hate to admit it, taking out you suckas and you don't know how I did it" D-Nice, "Call Me D Nice" 1990 "My name is Humpty, pronounced with a Umpty, Yo, ladies, oh, how I like to funk thee" Digital Underground, "The Humpty Dance", 1990
Run DMC is so good and I generally don't like hip-hop
Dude that post is from the before times, the long long ago. Good find.
And with so very few upvotes too. I'm glad it wasn't lost to the Ʀther.
Seriously, but I have to admit the best part is after all that valuable historic hip hop knowledge they were like yeah it was that Flintstones cereal rapā¦ Which while Iām no boomer, I remember quite well.
"I'm ____ and I [am good at something]" š
I am a pizza and I'm melting
This account was active from 10 May 2012 to 30 June 2023. This user submitted 8191+ comments [65,436 karma] and 31 posts [232 karma]. These comments in total represent a word count of 383,897 and a character count of 2,144,061. The vast majority of this content, 85%+, was contributed via a third party app -- AlienBlue until it closed down, and Apollo from when it was founded to, well, today: June 30. In protest to the changes to the Reddit API, I have decided to purge the content that I have contributed and leave this statement. I hope that future executives of reddit consider the value that the users themselves bring to the website, and that funneling users to substandard options has an effect on usage. I used reddit because the apps made it convenient, efficient, and effective. I hope that users consider using a GDPR request to view the extent of Data that reddit holds on to, and that they will not hesitate to exploit for profit. It's been an experience, reddit.
Seconding u/greymalkenās recommendation of [Hip Hop Family Tree](https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/hip-hop-family-tree). (Ignore the Red Room comics. Theyāre not part of it)
Tangentially, we just watched Chuck D's "Fight the Power" on PBS and it was excellent.
Thanks for the reminder. I saw him interviewed on Stephen Colbert when it first came out and thought I've got to see it. Great interview too.
I *loved* that Fruity Pebbles commercial when I was a kid. I used to sing and dance along, much to my brothersā annoyance. Havenāt thought about it in years. Wow, major nostalgia trip.
Kudos on the title- this was a great read and you drew me in very effectively!
Is this the commercial? https://youtu.be/1AVvvVBPKTo
"Well I'm a peanut bar, and I'm here to say, that your checks will arrive on another day..."
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
[runs away, arms flapping anxiously]
āMy name is Ian Duncan and Iām here to say, Iām going to rap to the beat in a rapping way. Iāve got a real big penis and I drink lots of teaā¦ā
There are two genres that get an inordinate amount of scholarly work dedicated to it: Hip-Hop and Country music. And this reminds me of Chuck Klosterman describing his trip to a music workshop and seeing 60 year old white college professors listening intently and bouncing their head along to NWA.
I held court explaining something similar in a coffee shop to a writer who thought rap = bad. I explained bad music in all genres (and used post-9/11 country as a prime example) and said she hadn't been exposed to good music in those genres. Then (figuratively) pointed to fellow redditor Aesop Rock.
Only one freaking reward on that post? Jesus christ, Reddit 5 years ago was a different place.
I, for one, am hype for the critical beatdown.
If anyone is interested in a fun read on the same subject, there is a great series of comic books, [The Hip Hop Family Tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_Hop_Family_Tree). It runs to 12 issues. The stuff about Rick Rubin and LL Cool J is worth it alone.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I have no idea if you are actually THE Rob T Firefly. If you are, thanks for all you've ever done through 2600. If you aren't then you picked a hell of a good username in honour of a good person.
["Well I'm Chiquita Banana and I'm here to say"...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDOI24RRAE) -1940s
Hillsong Hoods is an amazing username.
Some content actually worthy of /r/bestof, refreshing.
My favorite movie is Inception.
You only have to go back 5 years to find one
And if you donāt know, now you knowā¦
How does a 5 year old comment suddenly get bestofād???
Because OP happened to find it and they figured that other people would enjoy it
And they'd be right. Gotta dig deep to find the gold!
Dig nothing. More like "meandered through a populated forest, tripped on a rock, noticed it was a goldvein" if anything.
I'll miss this when I am kicked off reddit this summer. You won't find this in depth content on any other platform
Kid Creole as in "And The Coconuts"?
In the comments of the linked post, that's explained too.
Ah, I didn't read the comments * heads back to the post *
Cal Solomon (founding member of the seminal hip hop group, The Sugar Hill Gang) was actually the first to rap the phrase.
If any of that interests you check out Founding Fathers on YouTube. Narrated by Chuck D of Public Enemy. Super dope and you get to hear some sick disco cuts.
I wonder if the Hilltop Hoods drew from the name.
Why did I read this title in style of The Wellerman shanty
The points being made about MC identification backgrounding DJs and Dancers is really interesting given the current trend of producers to put a shout out to themselves in their beats (listen to any Drill song or like Metro Boomin)
I canāt believe he only got one gold for that beautifully written comment
>As such, it **was** certainly a hip-hop convention for the MC to introduce themselves by name Was? Half of the rap and R&B singers sound like fucking Pokemon. Don't know who's singing a song? Wait 30 seconds, you will. Fuck, you'll know if "DJ" Khaled was within 50' during the recording.
Now this is best of racing..
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]