When I eat fruit, it is usually a banana. I am not sure why. They are easy and convenient, and they are apparently good for you, too.
Bananas are rich in nutrients with a fair amount of fiber and several antioxidants including flavonoids and amines and other things I can’t spell. They are also a great source of potassium, a mineral that’s vital for heart health, blood pressure management and healthy kidney function. And with only 100 or so calories, they are also quite filling.
But what does it mean to “go bananas,” and where did that phrase come from? When we use the phrase, we typically mean someone has lost his or her mind, or, in a kinder sense, has become excited or angry. I prefer “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,” but that’s just me.
Some of you may recall the 1987 movie, “Going Bananas,” starring David Mendenhall, Dom DeLuise and Jimmie Walker. The plot involved these three trying to save a talking chimp called Bonzo from the bad guys. If you missed it, don’t worry; you didn’t miss much.
I subscribed to a magazine as a kid in the 1970s called Bananas, which was published by Scholastic, Inc. as an attempt to cash in on the teen magazine craze of the time and featured stars from “Three’s Company,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “Welcome Back, Kotter” “Starsky & Hutch” and more. I loved it.
The “going bananas” phrase and modern meaning likely stem from 1960s American college campuses. The phase is believed to have evolved from the then-popular phrase “going ape,” which also meant “to go crazy, to explode with anger or to erupt with enthusiasm.”
Dan Koeppel, author of the book “Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World,” wrote that “going bananas” might have arisen from the collegiate myth that one could get high by smoking banana peels.
No bananas, and certainly not exploding with anger, but Neil Sedaka even sang about “going ape” a few years earlier in his 1959 single, “I Go Ape.”
“Going bananas” was meant to be funny, but it also apparently had a dark and unflattering usage in the 1930s when the expression was used to refer to sexually perverted individuals.
Now you know. Go bananas. Or not.
Have a terrific Tuesday, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman
President and Publisher
Big Green Umbrella Media
shane@dmcityview.com | 
