"''¡Ay, caramba!''" (), from the
Spanish interjections (denoting surprise or pain) and (a
minced oath for ), is an exclamation used in
Spanish to denote surprise (usually positive).
In popular culture and arts
The exclamation became associated with the
Madrid
Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
flamenco dancer and singer
La Caramba in the 1780s. Her headdress of brightly colored ribbons became known as a ''caramba''.
The knife-throwing villain in ''
The Broken Ear'' (1935), a comic book in the ''
Adventures of Tintin'' series, exclaims "''Caramba!'' Missed again!" so often it became a catchphrase in French ("''Caramba, encore raté!''")
In the 1944
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
movie ''
The Three Caballeros'',
Panchito Pistoles screams "Ay, caramba!" and
José Carioca
José "Zé" Carioca (; ) is a cartoon anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic parrot created by the Brazilian cartoonist J. Carlos, José Carlos de Brito (J. Carlos) and shown to Walt Disney on his trip to Rio de Janeiro in 1941. The Walt Disney Compa ...
asks what it means, but Panchito does not know.
''¡Caramba!'' (1983) is the title of a painting by
Herman Braun-Vega where the painter expresses surprise while seeing himself surrounded by so many of his masters in painting.
The fictional character
Bart Simpson (voiced by
Nancy Cartwright
Nancy Jean Cartwright (born October 25, 1957) is an American actress, best known as the long-time voice of Bart Simpson on ''The Simpsons'', for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance and an Annie Award f ...
) popularized the phrase "''¡Ay, caramba!''" in the animated sitcom ''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a Satire (film and television), satirical depiction of American life ...
''. He said it first in the 1988 short ''The Art Museum'', one of several one-minute
''Simpsons'' cartoons that ran as
interstitials on ''
The Tracey Ullman Show'' from April 14, 1987 to May 14, 1989 on
Fox, and he has used the catchphrase consistently throughout the series. ''The Simpsons'' even self-parodied Bart's use of the catchphrase, as well as the catchphrases of many of its other characters, in the 1994 episode "
Bart Gets Famous".
See also
*
D'oh!
*
Facepalm
* ''
Sacrebleu''
References
Comedy catchphrases
Spanish profanity
Spanish words and phrases
The Simpsons
Quotations from television
Quotations from animation
1988 quotations
{{Vocab-stub