Eat My Shorts!

Eat My Shorts! is Bart Simpson's trademark catchphrase. According to the episode, Lisa's Sax, Bart first said it to Principal Skinner when he was misbehaving. The real history behind the phrase is that Nancy Cartwright, Bart's voice actor, improvised the line during a table read. She first said it as a prank when she was in her high school marching band at Fairmont High School. The band was supposed to chant, "Fairmont West! Fairmont West!" but instead she and the entire band chanted "Eat my shorts! Eat my shorts!" And thus, a icon in popular culture was born.

The phrase was also taken quite literally on some occasions, such as the episode Bart-Mangled Banner, when a donkey literally eats his shorts. It's also been used outside of The Simpsons, like the Futurama episode, "A Big Piece of Garbage," when Fry sees a pile of talking Bart Simpson dolls, and Bender pulls the string on one that says this phrase, and Bender obliges, and then says, "Mmm... shorts."

In more recent history, the phrase has been seldom used as many of the crew feel as if the many catch phrases have worn out. (This fact was parodied in the episode "Bart Gets Famous".)