# Nuts and bananas = crazy **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [May 18, 2018, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-and-bananas-crazy/814419 "2018-05-18T19:06:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-and-bananas-crazy/814419/1 "2018-05-18T19:06:49Z")
Cecil traces the use of “bananas” to mean crazy to 1968, but ignores the 45 rpm release of the novelty song “Loving You Has Made Me Bananas” by Guy Marks, which failed to crack the Top 40 but did receive some AM radio airplay. I certainly remember hearing it. According to [45cat.com](http://45cat.com) ([http://www.45cat.com/record/4511055](http://www.45cat.com/record/4511055)), this single was released in March of 1968, which means it would have been recorded at least a month or two earlier. So it seems likely this would predate the University of South Dakota publication Cecil references as a first citation. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-and-bananas-crazy/814419/2 "2018-05-18T19:08:21Z")
[Link to the column.](https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/9919/how-did-nuts-and-bananas-come-to-mean-crazy/) ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-and-bananas-crazy/814419/3 "2018-05-18T19:19:51Z")
My theory: Squirrels eat nuts and squirrels act crazy, therefore eating nuts makes you crazy. Monkeys eat bananas and monkeys act crazy, therefore eating bananas makes you crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Brother\_1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_brother_1/32/3513_2.png) [@Little\_Brother\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Brother_1)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-and-bananas-crazy/814419/4 "2018-05-18T20:04:30Z")
> [@](#): > > To students of historical slang, or many others of a certain age, the use of _bananas_ as a homophobic slur may recall a similar but broader 20th-century term that’s now vanished: _fruit_. * * * Just to add a twist: I still see “fruit” and “fruity” used in the sense of “weird” or “bogus”, e.g., “The claim that the Mafia murdered JFK seems fruity to me.” I find myself cringing because of the obsolete, or at least obsolescent, use of the term as a homophobic slur. I can’t develop a consistent “ethos” for this phenomenon: I still find “fruity” repugnant enough to wish users would find a different term. OTOH, I’ll keep using “tar baby” until I find an acceptable idiomatic substitute. ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-and-bananas-crazy/814419/5 "2018-05-18T23:25:35Z")
I found a couple more early examples of “going bananas”: 1. From “Woman is Held in Drugs Counts” (page 14 of the October 30, 1954 _Providence Journal_): “Mrs. Poitras testified that when she introduced [Mr. Arsene] Dextraze to Mrs. Fitzgerald, the musician described his supposed need for narcotics by saying he was ‘going bananas’ and that ‘the walls are closing in on me’.” 2. From a column by Art Grace, “Mounts Scarce, But Barry Hasn’t Lost Confidence” (page 15A of the December 7, 1965 _Miami News_), horse jockey Barry Pearl was quoted that he also participated in drag racing, because “You do the same thing every day and you start going bananas.” ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2018, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-and-bananas-crazy/814419/6 "2018-05-19T00:42:58Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > Cecil traces the use of “bananas” to mean crazy to 1968, but ignores the 45 rpm release of the novelty song “Loving You Has Made Me Bananas” by Guy Marks, which failed to crack the Top 40 but did receive some AM radio airplay. I certainly remember hearing it. Yes, that usage requires it to be significantly older, though fifty years later I cannot suss the meaning of, “Father has the ship-fitter blues,” without wondering how it got airplay. Unless the same program managers who let, “Good golly, Miss Molly, you know you sure like to ball,” on the air were still as stupid/assuming listening parents were stupid as to not complain. Yeah, FTR some did, but still. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2018, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-and-bananas-crazy/814419/7 "2018-05-19T00:49:28Z")
BTW, “I asked the waiter for iodine, but I dined all alone,” is a brilliant line. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2018, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-and-bananas-crazy/814419/8 "2018-05-19T04:11:23Z")
I was born in 1948, and cannot remember any time when I perceived “bananas” for “crazy” as an innovation. The OED has an example from the 50s. About a hundred years ago, in Britain, “filbert” was used for “crazy person”, though perhaps only in relation to comedians (“Charlie Chaplin, Dan Leno, and other filberts”). ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2018, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-and-bananas-crazy/814419/9 "2018-05-20T13:09:47Z")
Stand-up philosophers in ancient Rome used the term “nuts” … “N - V - T - S” … nuts … {[Cite](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlsiiWlt35s)} ---
**Author:** ![farstar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@farstar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/farstar)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2018, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-and-bananas-crazy/814419/10 "2018-05-20T19:19:28Z")
On the subject of the slang phrase, “bananas”, what about Al Capp who was said to have coined the phrase “going bananas” in his newspaper comic strip LI’L ABNER? –Francis A. Rodriguez ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-and-bananas-crazy/814419/11 "2018-05-21T04:32:32Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Yes, that usage requires it to be significantly older, though fifty years later I cannot suss the meaning of, “Father has the ship-fitter blues,” without wondering how it got airplay. Unless the same program managers who let, “Good golly, Miss Molly, you know you sure like to ball,” on the air were still as stupid/assuming listening parents were stupid as to not complain. Yeah, FTR some did, but still. The cover for allowing that was that “ball” also had the sense of “to dance” (cf. “Ballin’ the Jack”). And the context of the surrounding lyrics in “Good Golly Miss Molly” reinforced this (“From the early, early morning to the early, early early night, when you see Miss Molly rockin’ at the House of Blue Lights”). That’s not to say the naughtier meaning wasn’t also implied, but double-entendres had by then had a well-established legacy in blues and R&B for many decades.