# Hopped up on goofballs. Where'd that come from?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hopped-up-on-goofballs-whered-that-come-from/508430>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 1, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hopped-up-on-goofballs-whered-that-come-from/508430 "2009-09-01T01:20:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 5

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**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hopped-up-on-goofballs-whered-that-come-from/508430/81 "2021-09-24T04:23:05Z")

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> [@Ike\_Witt](#):
>
> Awesome find ttenchantr!

Dorothy: if I ever go looking for my Perry Mason clip again, I won’t look any further than post #61. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with!

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**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hopped-up-on-goofballs-whered-that-come-from/508430/82 "2021-09-24T06:27:03Z")

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> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> Google Books must have added a lot of new sources since this thread started. Perry Mason is out.

A slightly earlier example of the complete phrase ([Newsweek, 1953, Volume 42](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Newsweek/NNjjAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=goof%20balls)):  
[![](https://books.google.com/books/content?id=NNjjAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA5-PA22&img=1&pgis=1&dq=goof+balls&bul=1&sig=ACfU3U10vYG_6mtLqT2eb_BsemKc-bbnkQ&edge=0) ](https://books.google.com/books/content?id=NNjjAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA5-PA22&img=1&pgis=1&dq=goof+balls&bul=1&sig=ACfU3U10vYG_6mtLqT2eb_BsemKc-bbnkQ&edge=0)

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**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2021, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hopped-up-on-goofballs-whered-that-come-from/508430/83 "2021-09-24T22:49:47Z")

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In seriousness, although it didn’t originate with the Perry Mason episode, at least at that time it was seen as normal, if slang, vernacular. It was stated several times in the episode and it wasn’t played for laughs. IOW, everyone took the phrase seriously and understood that it meant to be intoxicated on a controlled substance.

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**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2021, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hopped-up-on-goofballs-whered-that-come-from/508430/84 "2021-09-28T04:04:10Z")

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As a fun sighting, I watched an Adam-12 today. David Cassidy (!) was a teenager who took too many seconals. Or as Malloy said, “Red Devils, we used to call them ‘goofballs’.”

However, he was not described as hopped up. Bummer, man.

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