Going Gangbusters

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Megan Bourgeois calling from Plano, Texas.

Hi, Megan. Welcome to the show.

Hey, Megan.

Thanks.

What is up?

Hi, I’m a teacher. I teach 11th grade English. And recently I signed a project to my students. And later on, my colleagues and I were talking about how industriously the kids had gotten started working on this project. And they seemed excited about it. And I said, yeah, they were just going gangbusters on it. And my friends looked at me and said, what? And another one said, yeah, Megan, I’ve heard you use that before, but what does gangbusters mean? And I was floored. I thought everybody used that term. And I said, you know, they were working really differently on their project. They were going gangbusters. So I was curious to see what you guys knew about it.

I’m surprised they hadn’t heard the term.

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s still pretty common.

I thought so, too.

Maybe it’s just certain circles.

Yeah, we can tell you a little bit about it.

The term gangbuster itself has been around since at least the early 20th century, and it referred to the kind of person you might imagine, like a police officer who is known for breaking up gangs or aggressively fighting organized crime, that kind of thing.

So they’re actually busting up gangs.

They’re actually literally busting up gangs.

Busting gangs of criminals.

Yeah, yeah.

But the term got popularized by a radio drama in the 1930s that went on for, I think, 21 years or so.

That’s right.

And it was called?

Gangbusters.

And Grant says it exactly the way the show opens.

I listened to that show when I was a boy. I would lie in my bed at night when I was supposed to be sleeping listening to old-time radios on repeat from stations around the country.

Oh, that’s funny.

Yeah.

And it’s sort of like, I mean, the thing that I compare it to is Dragnet, you know, where they talked about police cases and how they got solved and all that.

But Grant’s right.

They started the show with a whole lot of noise, like wailing sirens.

Machine guns.

Yeah, the rat-tat-tat.

Yeah.

And there was often a really exciting moment in the show, like the chase and the capture, like the collision of the cars or like the bank vault busting open or something like that.

Yeah.

And the funny thing, too, a little tidbit here is that the guy who said gangbusters was the former head of the New Jersey State Police, whose name was Norman Schwarzkopf, whose son became the famous general.

Whoa!

How about that?

Yeah, you can kind of picture Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. saying gangbusters.

That’s pretty cool.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much.

I had no idea that it had that background and that history.

How about that?

We’ll share that with your friends.

So, yeah, the radio show did the work of people who are working diligently and actively and very aggressively.

Cool.

Well, then I’m glad to know that I used it appropriately.

Absolutely.

You absolutely did.

Thanks, Megan.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

I just want to tell everybody, if you want to hear that old radio show, you can go to archive.org, the Internet Archive. In the upper right-hand corner, use the search field, just type in gangbusters, and you will find a ton of gangbusters, old-time radio shows. And they hold up surprisingly well for stuff that’s older than your grandparents. And they really do come on like gangbusters. I mean, the beginning is cacophonous. It’s not radio you can sleep to.

Yeah, exactly.

But what a thrill that must have been.

Oh, yeah.

In the radio days before TV.

Yeah, all those sound effects.

Sure.

The Foldy Man was busy on that show.

Yes.

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