So we have identified point of origin, but when did it jump into popular culture?
I’ll go with Friends, but that isn’t where I first heard it. I first heard it on the webseries Red vs Blue, where Tucker uses it.
The series started in 2003, but it was a season or two in before Tucker first says that I think.
So I had made it to 2004 or 2005 without encountering that, at least not in a way that would stick in my head.
PS: I was born before 1970, I have watched plenty of 1970s porno, and I think the porno music referenced by “Bow chicka bow-wow” is more early 80s. Heavy bass, lotsa wawa pedal, derivative while being different enough to avoid copyright lawsuits. And it fits the meme because, as described above, the start of the music was the signal that you’d gotten to the part with sex in it.
I will admit that, once upon a time, I used to VCRs to copy rented porno, and to save tape I copied only the sex scenes. But I see some merit to the “porn was better in the old days” position. Movies with plot and also sex were pretty good, and even a lame plot makes the sex scenes better.
OTOH, in the 70s (and into the 80s) they were still learning about camera angles and lighting and stuff.
I have heard an excerpt from a (male) porn star’s book where he says that making porn isn’t about either you or your partner enjoying themselves, it is about making it look good on camera. Frequently that involves uncomfortable poses and multiple takes and, like a regular film, an hour of filming for a few usable minutes.
By that standard, I don’t think there were really any “porn actors” in the 1970s, there were actors who were also willing to have sex on camera, which isn’t the same thing.
And most of the attempts to re-create the 1970s “this is a film with plot that also happens to have sex in it” in the modern era seem to fall flat, delivering neither satisfying sex nor satisfying story.
And by porno with a plot, I don’t mean stuff like New Wave Hookers, “Lets write a story that ties a bunch of sex scenes together, then film them.” I mean stuff like The Opening Of Misty Beethoven, “Let’s make Pygmalion, only make it about sex.”
Porn has plots?