Plastic Banana
American conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said in 1994, “phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock and roll pontificators - sweet justice!” Limbaugh used “plastic banana” many times, but never explained the term until his show on May 6, 2016:
“It just rolled out of my mouth back in 1985 sometime. I’ve been using that since I worked in Sacramento, and I don’t remember what it was that made me put ‘plastic’ and ‘banana’ together. Something had to spark it.”
Limbaugh said that it had something to do with the plastic fruit displays that are put on some tables. Someone who is a “plastic banana” is a fake, putting on a fake display.
Wikipedia: Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III (/ˈlɪmbɔː/, lim-baw; born January 12, 1951) is an American entertainer, radio talk show host, writer, and conservative political commentator. Since he was 16, Limbaugh has worked a series of disc jockey jobs. His talk show began in 1984 at Sacramento, California radio station KFBK, featuring his ongoing format of political commentary and listener calls. In 1988, Limbaugh began broadcasting his show nationally from radio station WABC in New York City, and now broadcasts from WOR. He currently lives in Palm Beach, Florida, where he broadcasts The Rush Limbaugh Show. According to December 2015 estimates by Talkers Magazine, Rush Limbaugh has a cume (cumulative weekly audience) of around 13.25 million unique listeners (listening for at least five minutes), making it the most listened-to talk-radio program in the USA.
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Summary Fri 11/25/94
John Switzer
11/25/94
Unofficial Summary of the Rush Limbaugh Show
(...)
Rush summed things up by saying “phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock and roll pontificators - sweet justice!”
Google Books
The Limbaugh Letter
1997
Pg. 52:
A virtuous citizenry. want people to recognize that when they’re being talked down to by people with a messianic complex, that it’s phony baloney, plastic banana, good time rock and roll.
12 September 1998, Philadelphia (PA) Inquirer, “On Radio, the Ire Comes Through Loud and Clear” by Michael I. Rozansky, pg. A7:
On Clinton’s teary prayer-breakfast apology: ``Contrition is now defined as a strategy,’’ Limbaugh snorted. He put on a blubbering-Bubba accent: ``I’m very sorry, I’m very sorry,’’ then later added: ``It’s all phony, ladies and gentleman, plastic banana, phony baloney, good-times-rock-and-roll.’‘
Google Groups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
What does Rush Mean?
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9/22/05
What does “plastic banana” refer to in the conservative line “long-haired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking, FM-type plastic banana good-time rock-and-roller?”
August-September 2010,
, “The Age of Limbaugh” by Jesse Walker, pg. 70, col. 2:
Rush Limbaugh got his start as a Top 40 DJ. Significantly, he got into broadcasting because he loved music, not because he loved politics. The most ideological element of his early radio work was that it wasn’t ideological: He played pop singles, read the news, and performed other tasks for tightly formatted AM stations at a time when more countercultural outlets were mixing their experimental, genre-bending freeform sets with left-leaning grumblings about The Man. Limbaugh would later deride those DJs and their listeners as “long-haired, dope-smoking, maggot-infested, good time rock ‘n’ roll plastic banana FM types.”
YouTube
Limbaugh: Dems A Bunch Of Phony Baloney Plastic Banana Good Time Rock n Rollers
Daily Rushbo
Uploaded on Nov 10, 2010
http://www.DailyRushbo.com Classic Rush
RushLimbaugh.com
What Does “Plastic Banana” Mean?
May 06, 2016
(...)
RUSH: (laughing) It just rolled out of my mouth back in 1985 sometime. I’ve been using that since I worked in Sacramento, and I don’t remember what it was that made me put “plastic” and “banana” together. Something had to spark it.
CALLER: So, 28 years of wondering and there’s no answer?
RUSH: Well, there’s an answer; I just can’t recall what it is.
CALLER: Okay. Banana.
RUSH: Do you remember, Snerdley? That may have been the germination for it. When I was growing up—
CALLER: Yeah?
RUSH: —we had all these plastic fruit displays. You know, the artificial fruit in a basket that you put on the table—
CALLER: Okay, yeah.
RUSH: —and it was designed to look like you had real fruit there, except that you didn’t?