This reminds me of Smokey The bear, a sort of meme within a meme. In the lyrics of a 1952 popular song, the article was added to fit the melody, and was further used in some children’s books, in addition to the World Book encyclopedia. A whole generation of kids grew up to believe that Smokey The Bear was the correct style.
Not to mention Allan Sherman’s:
LSD tattoos (aka Blue Star Acid)
I’m sure they did all the E-ticket rides!
Who’s Yehudi?
What a shocking bad hat!
(Explanations on demand.)
The scottish play… Not naming it… thats a bit of a meme. There’s a concept that is carried along with the words.
Mountain Dew (specifically Yellow Dye # 5) makes you sterile. I heard that one at sleepaway nerd camp in 4th grade. I didn’t even know what sterile was. Nobody else either. Something to do with your penis not working properly and that you’ll never have kids. My interpretation was that it’ll shrivel. Didn’t stop us from drinking all the Mountain Dew and Surge our little bodies could handle though.
I read one of Dundes and Pagter’s other books, Work Hard and You Shall Be Rewarded, and I recall that they called it “Xerox lore.” That phrase seems appropriate, given that whenever you saw one of these things, they were always grotty looking from being photocopied over and over and over.
The ones I remember seeing most are the “You Want It When?” sign (with the laughing blobs) and the Red Velvet Cake recipe.
Kilroy was here
Keep on Truckin’
Collect pop tabs for kidney dialysis
Saying “Hello” when you answer the telephone
Regional:
Here in Western Pennsylvania since the '70s it is a common practice to politely alert someone that their fly is open by telling them “Kennywood’s open!”
Can’t believe someone has not mentioned
Bob Dobbs (Church of the Sub-Genius)
Posted frequently every available pole or wall on collage campuses.
I know this particular image has a web address, but these were without the address in the pre-internet days.
Excellent one! Reminds me in a small way of “The Church of What’s Happnin’ Now.”
From the 80s: white t-shirts with large black text that read: FRANKIE SAYS RELAX.
This was a campaign for Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax” single. There were other variants, like “FRANKIE SAYS WAR,” and pretty much anything you could imagine. I remember going to our local flea market and seeing about 40 variants, including “I DON’T CARE WHAT FRANKIE SAYS.”
I remember people in the 90s wearing Tommy Hilfiger apparel and in response they came out with a Tommy Pullmyfinger T-shirt featuring Beavis and Butt-head.
Tain’t funny, McGee!
“<fill in the blank> Rules OK” was a popular wall-scrawl in the UK, with any number of fillers. Probably the wittiest variation on this I ever heard was “French dockers rule au quai”.
Suprised that no one has mentioned this:
Back in the mid-80’s it was trendy to have one of these signs in the back window of your car, and after a short while it got way stupider with Grandma On Board, Chihuahua On Board, Surfer On Board, etc joke signs…
Perfect example of a pre-internet “meme” - short text that comes out of nowhere and exploded into self parody before disappearing almost as fast.
Does the Peace sign count?
“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”
Did anyone ever figure out where that blocky “S” originated?
Also on a side note. I one saw a Jesus Fish medallion on a car with “& Chips” in the middle, instead of Darwin.