26 April 2023
D’oh! and duh! are two interjections that have been popularized by cartoons. The first is a famous tagline of Homer Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons, and the second first appears in a Bugs Bunny cartoon short.
Homer Simpson first utters d’oh! in The Simpsons short “Punching Bag,” which aired as part of The Tracy Ullman Show on 27 November 1988. At the very end of the short, Homer grunts “d’oh!” as he gets hit in the face with the recoil of a punching bag. The scripts for the Simpsons do not specify the exclamation, calling it only an “annoyed grunt.” Throughout the shorts and the subsequent series, Homer utters d’oh! when he does or says something foolish. Actor Dan Castellaneta, who voices the character, told Daily Variety on 28 April 1998 that his choice of the exclamation was an homage to comic actor James Finlayson, who played a straight man to comedians Laurel and Hardy in many of their films. Castellaneta said:
The D'oh came from character actor James Finlayson's “Do-o-o-o” in Laurel & Hardy pictures. You can tell it was intended as a euphemism for “Damn.” I just speeded it up.
An example of Finlayson’s use of the exclamation can be seen in the 1931 film Pardon Us, where he plays a schoolteacher attempting to educate convicts, Laurel and Hardy among them. Note, however, that Finlayson’s use is different than Homer Simpson’s in that it is an expression of frustration at someone else having done or said something foolish:
Schoolteacher (Finlayson): How many times does three go into nine?
Laurel: Three times.
Schoolteacher: Correct.
Laurel: And two left over.
Schoolteacher (to Hardy): What are you laughing at?
Hardy (snickering): There's only one left over.
Schoolteacher: Do-o-o-o!
[…]
Schoolteacher: Now, what is a comet? You. (Pointing at a prisoner)
Prisoner: A comet…a comet is a star with a tail on it.
Schoolteacher: Right! (To Laurel) Name one.
Laurel: Rin-tin-tin.
Schoolteacher: Do-o-o-o!
The exclamation duh! is similar, but not quite the same. It has two primary uses. In one, it is less an exclamation than it is a grunt of hesitation, and it’s used to express or feign inarticulacy or stupidity. We see this use in the 1943 Bugs Bunny cartoon short Jack Wabbit and the Beanstalk. In the short, Bugs has climbed the beanstalk to steal the giant’s carrots, and the dim-witted giant is voiced by Mel Blanc:
Hey, duh, wait a minute, duh, tryin’ to pull a fast one on me, hey. Duh, well, he can't outsmart me, because I'm a moron.
But the more common use of duh! is as a retort when someone else has said something banal or extremely obvious. It is recorded as being part of children’s slang in a New York Times Magazine piece of 24 November 1963:
A favorite expression is “duh” (spelled phonetically). This is a standard retort used when someone makes a conversational contribution bordering on the banal. For example, the first child says, “The Russians were first in space.” Unimpressed, the second child replies (or rather grunts), “Duh.”
Sources:
Freleng, Friz, dir. “Jack Wabbit and the Beanstalk” (cartoon). Mel Blanc, voice. Merrie Melodies, Warner Brothers, 1943. Dailymotion.com.
Groening, Matt. “Punching Bag” (cartoon short). The Tracy Ullman Show, 27 November 1988. YouTube.
Guitar, Mary Anne. “Not for Finks: If You Don’t Understand Sub-Teen Lingo, It’s Because You’re Not Supposed To.” New York Times Magazine, 24 November 1963, 54. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2001, s.v. doh, int., duh, int.
Shapiro, Fred. “Earliest Usage of ‘Doh.’” ADS-L, 24 March 2002.
Walker H.M. and Stan Laurel. Pardon Us (film). James Parrott, dir. MGM, 1931. YouTube, at 22:00.