We’ve all heard the sayiing, but where is or was Mergatroid?
Mergatroid was a small city in the south of France. Called by many “The Cadillac of small cities in the south of France”, Mergatroid was a popular tourist destination until it suddenly ceased to exist around 1917. An air of mystery still surrounds Mergatroid, as the people who visited it refuse to talk about it. This could be due to the fact that they are dead, but I suspect they’ve been paid off.
That would be Murgatroyd.
There seems to be no general consensus on the origin - see here, for example.
The origin of Murgatroyd can be found here.
Now all an alert member of the Teeming Millions has to do is link this John of Moor Gate Royde to the expression “heavens to Murgatroyd”. I’ve done most of the groundwork, who wants to pick up the ball?
P.S. Forgot to say that I think it was some feline friend of Yogi Bear (a cougar?) that used that expression frequently.
I think “Murgatroyd” in this expression is just an arbitrary euphemism, used instead of something stronger.
The expression was used by the Hanna-Barbera character Snagglepuss, and my WAG is that he was based on some obscure radio or early TV character.
Some more information is at http://www.phoenix.net/~ishmal/ntn/news.html.
There are more Murgatroyds in Ruddigore than you can count. So it goes back that far. That’s 1887.
The feline friend of Yogi Bear was “Snaggletooth” or “Snagglepus”, if I recall properly.
I think Murgatroid is near Carnuba (you know, where they make that wax?)
Great, we found Murgatroyd, but what about “Heavens to…”
and how does Betsy fit into all of this
Heavens to Betsy.
nudge nudge
Did this phrase even exist before “Snagglepuss?”
If Messrs. Hanna and Barbera created it (or DePatie and Freleng, or whoever) ex nihilo, then they would be the ones to ask.
I’ve never heard this phrase uttered by anyone other than the cat.
Well, there’s the motto of Paris:
fluc·tu·at nec mer·gi·tur
Close enough. Means “it is tossed by the waves but does not sink” – so if mergitur means sunken (mermaid, mermen, etc.) that makes mergatroid what, an underwater city. Heaven being in the sky, the heavens come to mergatroid would be an unlikely, or unwelcome, event. I’m not exactly remembering the context old Snagglepus would have used it.
Joel
(spreading ignorance since 1974, doing it well)
Maybe mergatroyd means an underwater asteroid crater and Heavens to mergatroyd would be like Henny Penny running in circles saying “The sky is falling!”
I had a teacher back in 1969 who had a ping pong paddle that she used for smacking kids that were “out of line”. She called her paddle Murgatroid. I imagine that was supposed to induce fear.
exit…stage left.