Thursday, July 31, 2008

Origins: That's Some Coooooool Shit!

I actually had a request yesterday for my blog. This is a first for Chris Johnson Discusses Stuff. My friend Shanks wanted to me to tell the origin of a catch-phrase that some of you may not be familiar with. The phrase in question is "That's some cooooooooool shit!" If you're wondering how exaclt it's said, ask me in person sometime and I'll be happy to demonstrate.

Well, it's kind of a simple story but it is a fine example of how a meme evolves in a small community. Back in college, Shanks and I used to rent a lot of movies. The main place we went was called Wherehouse Video and was on Glebe Road. That had one of the best selection of horror and genre movies you could find at the time. Remember folks, in the days before the internet it was difficult to track down specific movies that were not readily available at your local Blockbuster.

Well, one of the movies we watched a lot was Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. In the movie, a guy tells Bruce Lee "have you ever seen any of those chop-socky flicks?" makes a series of hand gestures and sound effects and says "that's some cool shit!" Well, shortly after hearing it for the first time both Shanks and I began quoting it. We would use it to desribe anything that we found cool. Eventually it grew into drawing out the word "cool" as long as possible. It started catching on with Polak, Dante, and Marsh. Sadly, neither Ralph or Abramos: King of the Hill People picked up on it. When I found Shanks online recently the first thing I emailed him was, of course, "that's some cooooooooool shit!"

If there is any part of the story I forgot, Shanks, please fill in the gaps. Next time I'll have to tell the origins of "Rooftop . . . Let's Go!" which is VERY funny.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The first picture comment I got from Polak was "that's some cooooooooooooooooool sh*t!" upon him finding out that I got the Blade Runner special edition with the extras. Some phrases never die, much like I'M COMING FOR YOU, CHARLES XAIVER!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I also recall Hawkins with his parrot that could record about 3 seconds of speech and would repeat it back in chipmunk form.

The hilarity was exponentially increased during drunken Annex forays with the parrot screeching "that'ssomecoolshit,that'ssomecoolshit!"

Chris Johnson said...

I had completely forgotten about the talking parrot! I can hear that thing right now. hahahaha I can also remember Ralph shaking his head repeatedly in disgust over us saying it all the time.