Origin
The phrase "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" first appeared in the American animated television series The Simpsons. In the plot of the 1995 episode "'Round Springfield", budget cuts at Springfield Elementary School force the janitor Groundskeeper Willie to become a French teacher. Expressing his disdain for the French people, he exclaims to his class in his Scottish accent: "Bonjour, you cheese-eating surrender monkeys." On the audio commentary for the episode, executive producer Al Jean said the line was "probably" written by The Simpsons staff writer Ken Keeler. Keeler confirmed this in an interview in 2012 and stated that he considers it to be his best contribution to the show. Jean commented that the staff did not expect the phrase to become widely used and never intended it as any kind of genuine political statement. When "'Round Springfield" was dubbed in French, the word "surrender" was omitted and the line became "singes mangeurs de fromage" ("cheese-eating monkeys").
Read more about this topic: Cheese-eating Surrender Monkeys
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a byroad
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed,—a, to me, equally mysterious origin for it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)