When the Borat movie was popular (and for a while after it wasn't), my roommate kept saying "That's nice!" after every second thing he (or I) said. Other people in my general circle of acquaintances did similarly. Evidently most of the country who had seen it were doing it as well. It was really, really freakin' annoying.
Let's see if I can dredge up a few more. People kept saying "Fo shizz" at the beginning of last decade and that got really old really quickly. When Anchorman was out a certain group of guys kept referring to Afternoon Delight, and the same guys tried to make everything into a "That's what she said" or Chuck Norris joke.
But somehow all these are missing the OP's original intent. It's odd to think that these sorts of catch phrases have largely been replaced by Internet or other cultural memes, which are different in that they aren't necessarily crafted to encourage repetition (as catch phrases are, hence the "catch" or "catchy" aspect). I like to think of bad old cartoons from the 80s with gems like, "Gotta speed, keed!" or "Captain Planet, he's our hero / Gonna take pollution down to zero!" (Phil Collins, how could you?!) that make me cringe. The Spider-Man line "With great power comes great responsibility" has worn everybody down to the nubbins by now. It's weird that this sort of stuff comes across as patronizing now when it obviously didn't faze anybody in its heyday.
Edited by Argyris - 4/12/11 at 5:04pm
