I’ve found a little more, after getting some sleep. It does indeed go back farther, I just didn’t think to use “army shoes” instead of boots.
1950–"You can squelch your friends Baltimore Style with such remarks
as “Turn blue, please,” slightly milder than “drop daid,” or “aaah, your mother wears army shoes.”
So it’s certainly possible Buggs could have said some version of it in a cartoon from the late 1940’s-early 1950’s
I’ve heard better trash talk on 7th Heaven. 
I always took it to mean “Your family’s so poor, even your mother wears Army surplus clothing.” (Army surplus stores were a cheap source of clothing and especially footwear back in the day.)
There was a lot of Army surplus after WWII.
My search wasn’t just over Warner Brothers cartoons. I can’t find any cartoon at all in which Daffy Duck was the Pied Piper or in which Porky Pig was the Mayor. I can’t find any Pied Piper cartoons that are anywhere close to the one described. Does anyone know for sure of such a cartoon? samclem’s latest reference was to a 1950 written reference in which the “army shoes” version was used. So, does anyone have a specific citation for a cartoon appearance of any version of this sentence? Yes, I know you think you remember it. So do a lot of us. We need a citation.
Didn’t Granny Clampett wear army boots? I’m still voting for army boots as an emblem of poverty.
I always perceived it as referring to a lack of class and femininity. No need to bring in prostitution, sluttiness, lesbianism, poverty, etc. A mother who exhibited such frumpiness and inelegance as to wear combat/army boots would be an embarassment to her children on that point alone.
<Nitpick>The Beverly Hillbillies matriarch was named Daisy Moses. Her daughter, Rose Ellen, married Jed Clampett and gave birth to Elly May. </nitpick>
There’s an ancient game called “The Dozens,” where two young men trade insults about the other’s mama. Some say it dates back to slavery. When one guy finally gets mad, the other one wins. “Your mudda weahs Ahmmy boods” is certainly a part of this tradition.
A more recent variation on the army boots jape is, “Your mama’s boots have instructions written on the heels.” It derives from the joke about being, “too stupid to pour piss out of a boot, with instructions written on the heel.” :rolleyes:
In the TV show MASH*, Hawkeye and BJ try to rile the newly-arrived Charles Emerson Winchester by saying that “Your mother wears very expensive Army Boots.” This would’ve been circa 1978, referring to a situation more than 25 years earlier. But that doesn’t prove its existence then.
I heard the expression as a kid growing up in the 1960s, which doesn’t predate your cites, but it was a commonplace among my parents, which indicates to me that it’s at least a decade older, and I would expect it to date to the forties. No proof, though. I can’t even recall a warner Borthers cartoon using it.
But I truly suspect the association with lesbians many people cite above is a fairly recent thing. Most people wouldn’t think that upon hearing the phrase from the 40s to the 60s.
Maybe in one of the “Private Snafu” WWII cartoons? They were racier than the usual Warner Brothers fare, they were made for soldiers.
I’m kicking this upstairs to see if it gets any interest . . . and now I want to know exactly where this came from. I’m pretty sure I heard Bugs Bunny say this, just not sure where.
Got this in an e-mail from cartoon historian Jerry Beck:
I’ll see about following up the on goldenage forum.
So there are three Pied Piper cartoons made by Warner Brothers: “Pied Piper Porky” (1939), “Paying the Piper” (1949), and “The Pied Piper of Guadalupe” (1961), and none of them is remotely close to this description that A. R. Cane quotes from somebody:
> . . . Daffy was supposed to have said it to Porky Pig in a skit where Daffy was
> playing the Pied Piper to Porky’s Mayor of Hamelin . . .
Furthermore, we have a cartoon historian saying that he doesn’t remember the line being used in a Warner Brothers cartoon. I’m beginning to wonder if we’ve imagined it ever being said in any cartoon.
Hey, I just ran across the comment on a msg. board. The person sounded like they knew what they were talking about, w/ the specificity, so I threw it into the conversation. I also pointed out that there was no cite.
It does sound like something Bugs, or Daffy, might say, especially in earlier times when we didn’t tend to be so anal about political correctness.
If you Google MM & LT censorship you’ll get several cites. Here’s one, but it’s long and seems to be mostly about potential racial slurs: http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/ltcuts/
What are we supposed to be looking at in that link you give? There’s no mention of “Your mother wears army boots” on that page. In fact, there’s no mention of racial slurs on that page. Furthermore, we’re all in agreement that it sounds like something that Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck might say. The problem is that nobody has been able to find a cartoon where either of them said it.
I clicked on a couple of the links, but there were many cartoons listed along w/ the reasons for censorship. I didn’t feel like searching through them, but thought maybe someone else might. That’s why I cited it. In addition, there are other cartoon censorship sites. It’s a needle in a haystack, anyone that curious? Not me.
A.R. Cane writes:
> It’s a needle in a haystack, anyone that curious? Not me.
Yeah, that’s what this thread is about - people curious about the expression “Your mother wears army boots.”
Actually, that sounds like something that Buzz Buzzard might have said to Woody Woodpecker, but I don’t know that he ever did.
Is it possible that most of these posts are the result of mass hysteria?
I mean, it seems that many have heard the phrase, but none can recall where.
Implants?
I have this vague memory image of Bugs saying it to taunt Elmer (the hunter) to shoot at him again.
mangeorge
Well, I can definitely recall hearing it in some commercial back in the late 60s or early 70s, but what the commercial was for, I have no recollection.
I am not crazy. I know in my heart he said it. :mad:
Now pass me my tinfoil hat, please.