Everything from "Debbie Downer" to "the friend zone" comes from our screens.
2. "Oh, you sweet summer child" came from Game of Thrones.
HBO
Though isolated examples of the phrase existed in the 1800s, the show made it a known phrase.
3. The term "friend zone" came from, well, Friends.
NBC
It was coined in season one episode, The Blackout.
5. "Nightmare fuel" comes from episode 521 of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Rifftracks
Crow T. Robot said "that's some good old-fashioned nightmare fuel" when looking at an animatronic Santa.
7. "Spam" — as in, junk emails and repeated unwanted content — comes from Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
BBC
The sketch the term is based on occurs in a cafe where the only thing a person can buy is Spam. Later, fans of the show would repeatedly send lyrics from the song in the sketch to message boards — this eventually became known as spamming.
8. "Gaslighting" comes from the 1938 play Gas Light, which was adapted into two movies in the 1940s.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Loews Cineplex Entertainment
The 1944 edition showed a woman who was made to feel insane by her husband, who tells her she's imagining things she's not — such as the gas lights in their home dimming.
11. "Wardrobe malfunction" was invented when Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson's breast during the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII.
Getty Images /Frank Micelotta
13. 1984's Ghostbusters was the first to use "they're toast" as a way to some someone is finished or in serious trouble.
Columbia Pictures / Fórum Home Entertainment Hungary
14. Daffy Duck invented the word "Nimrod" to mean an idiot or fool — though many think it was Bugs Bunny.
Waner Bros
Originally, Nimrod was the name of Noah’s great-grandson (“a mighty hunter before the Lord”). Not so when Daffy Duck first uttered it in 1947, when Daffy Duck dismissively refers to Elmer Fudd as "my little nimrod.”
15. Saturday Night Live invented the phrase "mom jeans" in 2003.
NBC
Tina Fey and co made the sketch, which became a pejorative term for the style — but joke's on us, I guess, because I own and love about three pairs now.
16. Using "ribbit" as a frog sound probably comes from an episode of Gilligan's Island, which is the first recorded use of the... word?
CBS
Because now I really think about it, is that even what a frog sounds like? At all?
17. "Staycation" was invented by the Mail Fraud episode of Corner Gas in 2005.
CTV
It wasn't added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary until 2009.
18. Richard Lewis invented "the __ from Hell" but struggled to get credit for it, which was the basis for a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode.
HBO
His frustration helped him to create the episode The Nanny From Hell.
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