[QUOTE=Skammer]
Fer sherr, fer sherr.
[/QUOTE]
The truckers in Convoy were really Valley Girls? 
[QUOTE=Jinx]
Yes, and what exactly did “totally tubular” mean? Does LA have a love for cylinders? Thank goodness for the East Coast! Those earthquakes have scrambled your brains out there! I seem to recall some '80s TV show where they talked like that. But, that show conflicted with the timeslot I reserved for cleaning my toilets…
[/QUOTE]
Surfer slang.
[QUOTE=zeldarae]
There may not have been a name for it before 1980, but that vocal style did exist before then. Laraine was in a skit which centered around a group therapy session and nailed the vocalization and mannerisms such has the hair-twisting and gum-chewing. I really wish I could remember which episode it’s in. Anyway, before '80s that accent was just what people condidered flakey Californiaspeak.
[/QUOTE]
Was that the skit with John Belushi as Vito Corleone in group therapy?
There are elements of “Valley Girl” talk that may have been around since World War II. In particular, uptalk may have originated in Australia or New Zealand:
In fact, uptalk seems to have appeared everywhere at once. Besides the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, there are also indications of it appearing spontaneously in the U.K., Ireland, Canada, and South Africa.
[QUOTE=Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor]
Surfer slang.
[/QUOTE]
To elaborate slightly: when the wave crests and begins to roll over above you, I am told that you are “in the tube” as the shape of the wave around you is, literally, tubular. Successfully riding a wave in this manner is, I am told, both a sign of advanced surfing skills and extremely thrilling in and of itself. Hence, by extension, really good things are said to be “tubular.”
Disclaimer: Knead, like Charlie, don’t surf.
Frank Zappa’s “Valley Girl” (1982, on the album "Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch) featured his daughter, Moon Unit. That was the first I heard Valley-Girl-Speak, and it was then that it became part of the larger culture, I think. The next year was the 1983 Nicholas Cage movie, Valley Girl.
[QUOTE=mikews99]
It existed waaay before 1980 and in a different valley too: the San Gabriel Valley. I heard it spoken by my latina classmates all throughout grade school in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
“Ay, Silvia, why do you go OWW-oot with him? Oh my GAW-awd! He’s totally gross!!”
[/QUOTE]
mikews99, did you just impersonate one of my sisters? 
Seriously, though, my best friend in 6th grade talked exactly like that. I picked up some of it, to the point that I almost typed “totally talked like that” in the previous sentence. You can take the girl out of the Valley, but you can’t take the Valley out of the girl.
[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner]
There are elements of “Valley Girl” talk that may have been around since World War II. In particular, uptalk may have originated in Australia or New Zealand:
In fact, uptalk seems to have appeared everywhere at once. Besides the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, there are also indications of it appearing spontaneously in the U.K., Ireland, Canada, and South Africa.
[/QUOTE]
People from Newcastle in England start low and then get progressively more high pitched.
The only trouble is that non “Geordies” cant understand a fucking word of what they’re on about.
I notice bits of Valley girl/surfer talk popping up in my vocabulary every once in awhile, and I swear, it’s like totally unconscious.
Come to think of it, I grew up in Southern California during the '80, so I probably absorbed some of that dialect by accident.
I was walking around LA (no, really, they have sidewalks) in 1987 when I overheard this snippet of conversation: “I think he’s really into me? Because the other day? He like gave me hecka flowers and shit?”
I’m from New Jersey, it took a while to process that those weren’t questions and that “hecka” was an intensifier. The “and shit” I got.
Every season on DVD so far of House contains a scene between Cuddy and Cameron talking to each other like Valley girls. FYI, just for fun.
[QUOTE=Shoeless]
Was that the skit with John Belushi as Vito Corleone in group therapy?
[/QUOTE]
Yes. Thank you. I could not for the life of me remember the main character in the skit.