Originally published at: This set of TV catchphrases is pure Gen X nostalgia | Boing Boing
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That post is “old millennial” nostalgia too.
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I’m sure there’s a set of these which Brits would get, too (obviously we recognise some of them) but I confess I don’t know if I can be bothered to go looking.
There’d probably be an awful lot of Two Ronnies or Doctor Who, or the like.
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Yeah, ok, I remember most of those from my teen years. (With Nano nano starting around my preteen years.)
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What’s your damage, Heather?
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I don’t mess around, boy. 
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I think these British classics would have to be on the Gen X nostalgia list:
- Cilla singing ‘Surprise, surprise’
- John Anderson’s ‘Contenders ready! Gladiators, ready!’ - Gladiators
- ‘What’s a hot-spot not?’ - Michael Barrymore
- ‘You’ll like it, not a lot, but you’ll like it’ - Paul Daniels
- ‘Blankety blank chequebook and pen’ - Les Dawson
- ‘Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once’ - Allo Allo
- ‘Say what you see’ - Roy Walker, Catchphrase
- ‘Sticky backed plastic’ - Blue Peter
- ‘It’s Blind Date, and here’s your host, Miss Cilla Black’ - Blind Date
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Missed it by thiisssssss much! My 80s tweenhood was 5-7 years prior to these clips, and I was a poor working shlub by the time these rolled out.
Mine would be Cagney and Lacey, Magnum PI, Simon & Simon, Trapper John, Jeffersons… notice a trend? They’re all CBS because that’s the only channel that we could receive. 
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Somebody needs to compile all the catchphrases that Gen X media tried to make happen, but failed.
ETA: The op forgot all about, “Aaaaaayyyyy!”
The leading edge of Gen X, but it still counts.
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I still feel guilty for laughing but one night a local DJ played “Catch Me Now I’m Falling” by The Kinks and kept inserting “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”
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Ooh! Also:
- Robert Llewellyn: ‘Smeeeeeeg heeeeeeead!’
…Maybe that’s a bit too late.
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That one’s international, or at least it’s known in the USA too. It’s often that we’ll comment on one of our cats rubbing up against things with:
“And this is mine, that’s mine, all this is mine. Except that. I don’t want that.”
Admittedly I didn’t grow up watching Red Dwarf, but we did get The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy around 1982 or so.
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Bruce Forsyth would have every other catchphrase.
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What? No Jimmy Walker?
… or LaWanda Page?
(watch to the end to see her call Fred “Old Heathen!”
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That reminds me…
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I didn’t get where I am today wearing underpants decorated with Beethoven.
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Also old milliennial: My husband and I (both 40) can talk to each other in a language of old South Park quotes, with a little bit of Stargate SG1 thrown in since we’re nerds. My daughter likes my “funny voice”
when I read her books and I don’t have the heart to tell her it’s just a bad Eric Cartman.
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This whole thread is “demented and sad, but social”.
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Don’t forget about
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