Lenny Bruce

One resource says that "it seems certain that yadda-yadda-yadda is a variation of a phrase used in pre-1940 vaudeville".


Neither Seinfeld nor his writers invented the term. It can be traced back with certainty to the controversial comedian Lenny Bruce in the early 1960s. Bruce grew up in the 1940s world of Jewish club comics, who often used routines and expressions dating back to the vaudeville era. But since the term was transmitted orally, it's hard to find early printed examples.


Incidentally, the similar expression yackety-yack, which was popularized in the 1950s, can probably be related back to the term yack, used before 1900 to mean talk. Blah-blah-blah shows up in the 1910s.


The updated and very spiffy Random House Webster's College Dictionary offers some surprises to students of the English language. Among the new entries, for example, browsers will find yada-yada-yada, defined on page 1489 as "blah-blah-blah."



Lenny Bruce was heard to say,

“The "what should be" never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no "what should be," there is only what is.”

“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.”

“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”

“A lot of people say to me, `Why did you kill Christ?' I dunno, it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know.”

“A lot of people say to me, ''Why did you kill Christ?'' ''I dunno... it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know.'' ''We killed him because he didn't want to become a doctor, that's why we killed him.''”

“The whole motivation for any performer is "Look at me, Ma”

“In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls”

“Never tell. Not if you love your wife... In fact, if your old lady walks in on you, deny it. Yeah. Just flat out and she'll believe it: "I'm tellin' ya. This chick came downstairs with a sign around her neck 'Lay on Top of Me Or I'll Die.' I didn't know what I was gonna do...."

“The role of a comedian is to make the audience laugh, at a minimum of once every fifteen seconds.”

“The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour -- ha ha ha ha ha -- they'll take you away, man. You can't.”

“All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.”

“Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.”

“The thing with Catholicism, the same as all religions, is that it teaches what should be, which seems rather incorrect. This is ''what should be.'' Now, if you're taught to live up to a ''what should be'' that never existed -- only an occult superstition, no proof of this ''should be'' -- then you can sit on a jury and indict easily, you can cast the first stone, you can burn Adolf Eichmann, like that!”

“The only truly anonymous donor is the guy who knocks up your daughter”

“I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park there's nothing else to do.”

“Today's comedian has a cross to bear that he built himself. A comedian of the older generation did an ''act'' and he told the audience, ''This is my act.'' Today's comic is not doing an act. The audience assumes he's telling the truth. What is truth today may be a damn lie next week.”

“Communism is like one big phone company."

“Take away the right to say 'fuck' and you take away the right to say 'fuck the government.'

“Now a Jew, in the dictionary, is one who is descended from the ancient tribes of Judea, or one who is regarded as descended from that tribe. That's what it says in the dictionary; but you and I know what a Jew is -- One Who Killed Our Lord. And although there should be a statute of limitations for that crime, it seems that those who neither have the actions nor the gait of Christians, pagan or not, will bust us out, unrelenting dues, for another deuce.”

~Lenny Bruce