Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Did anyone else here first become familiar with this phrase through the immortal Frank Zappa classic “Don't Eat the Yellow Snow”?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws5Xeu3BEQk

In case you're wondering, I'm not actually old enough to remember when the song first came out. I encountered it when I discovered Frank Zappa while I was in High School around 1997 or so.

Are all the listeners here that young? The first thing I thought of when I heard this mini-cast was an old song my grandmother sang: "Barney Google with the Goo Goo Googly Eyes" from the l920's, about a comic strip character who was popular at the time. According to one source I checked (below, with a link to the song. 'google' was derived from the German word 'ogle', and means "to stare". I have no idea what this might have to do with Great Googly Moogly, I just wanted to point out a reference to googly predating the l950's, for the older among us.

http://patternsofink.blogspot.com/2008/04/with-goo-goo-googly-eyes.html

Stoppel said:

Yes I thought it was another Frank Zappa invention as well. Never heard it before only on the Apostrophe album and some of his live stuff..

Listening to the mini cast I wouldn't be surprised Frank took it from the Doo Wop band Martha was telling us about. Frank, as all the fans know, was a great Doo Wop bands fan.

And now I only hope that ‘FRUNOBULAX' is a Frank Zappa original and not a song by yet another Doo Wop band.

Ladies and gentlemen,
The monster,
Which the peasants in this area call FRUNOBULAX
(Apparently a very large poodle dog)
Has just been seen approaching The Power Plant
Bullets can't stop it
Rockets can't stop it
We may have to use NUCLEAR FORCE!

My husband and I were sitting in the living room earlier today. I was on FB and he was reading a book. Upstairs in the loft our grandsons were watching a show on the PBS network. One of the characters said "Great Googly Moogly" and it caught our attention and made us both smile. I said I could hear in my mind his father say that almost like an echo. We both wondered where it came from so I searched and found no real answer. We can tell you that his father siad it for as long as he can remember. He is 58 and his father passed in 1998 at age 87. We will ask around the family and see if anyone knows! It was pre-Zappa I'm sure!