Cowabunga is a popular slang exclamative expression. It originated in the 1950s as the favored faux-Native American expletive by Chief Thunderthud on the children's show Howdy Doody (spelled "Kowabonga" in scripts),^[2] and later developed different uses (usually more positive, to express excitement) among various US subcultures in the 1960s, including surfers.

It became a catchphrase used by Cookie Monster on Sesame Street beginning in the 1970s, often before enthusiastically devouring a cookie or other item. Sesame Street scripts alternate between the "c" and "k" spellings.

Later uses, such as by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles character Michaelangelo, were callbacks to the surfer culture.

Uses by Cookie Monster

The following is merely a representative, rather than exhaustive, list of uses by Cookie Monster. The phrase is too prevalent for every individual usage to be noteworthy. Rather, this attempts to note earliest usages and provide some context or contrasts.

Earliest uses

The 1970s established Cookie's use of the word, and it continued into the early 1980s, but on a fairly sporadic basis.

• The earliest known use was a 1973 Cookie Monster sketch. Once Cookie Monster realizes the prize for a rigged carnival game is a cookie, he tries again, uttering a boisterous "Cowabunga!" and demolishing the game with his strength.

• While Cookie Monster uttered it when eating a repaired cookie in the street plot of Episode 1229 (1979), the expression was not exclusive to cookie consumption. This is appropriate given his omnivorous status. He used it when eating a typewriter (Christmas Eve on Sesame Street), a cookbook in a sketch with Kermit the Frog (First: Episode 1352), and several years later, the cake in the 1991 special Big Bird's Birthday or Let Me Eat Cake.

• Cookie Monster even uses it poetically, in his recitative lyrics for "Me Going to Munch You, Munch You, Munch You" (First: Episode 1703). "And do me dig Fig Newton? Cowabunga! Sure as shootin'."

Later instances

Use of the term increased gradually by the late 1980s (including multiple "Monsterpiece Theater" installments). It became more routine when Cookie Monster began appearing more frequently in new sketches in the 2000s.

• Season 20 saw the start of the resurgence. A 1988 film insert song "Sometimes a Cookie" (First: Episode 2543) features a cameo, in the form of loosely animated photo stills, by Cookie Monster. At the song's end, as his only line, he exclaims, "Cookie! Cowabunga!" From this point, the word is used at least once nearly every season through Season 27.

• Season 33, with an increased use of Cookie Monster in general, saw a corresponding increase in the word, particularly in Letter of the Day sketches. Notable instances include when he and the Amazing Mumford swap catchphrases (First: Episode 4004) and saying it simultaneously with his mommy (First: Episode 4025). One segment even focuses on K for "Kowabunga" (a rare return to the original 1950s spelling). (First: Episode 4067).

• By season 42, the word was featured prominently in "(A Monster Went and) Ate My Red Two," with Elvis Costello using it in lyrics to explain the word is a harbinger of Cookie's consumption ("when I heard him shout 'Cowabunga'...") and inevitably, Cookie himself utters the phrase later in the song. (First: Episode 4267)

• At least one "Cowabunga" is spoken in nearly every one of Cookie Monster's appearances in Season 44 and would continue to surface in multiple segments of "Cookie's Crumby Pictures" and elsewhere. He even appears in the form of "the Cowabunga Cookie Shark" in Episode 4632 from Season 46.

• Sketch with Prairie Dawn: "Nature Walk" (First: Episode 2955)
• Insert with Annette Bening: "Here and There" (First: Episode 3080)
• Cookie Monster: Important (First: Episode 3235)
• "Take a Turn" (First: Episode 3888)
• Episode 3981 ― at the end of his game
• Episode 4033 ― said while trying to eat Maria's cookies
• Episode 4045 ― before getting buried in an avalanche of cookies
• Episode 4075 ― when tasting a cookie for the first time in his story

Surfing reference or pop culture usage

• Bad Polly cries, "Cowabunga!," as he vine swings during the climactic fight in Muppet Treasure Island.

• Prairie Dawn says the word in a sketch with Maria in Episode 3783, using it in the surfing sense as she dives into a pile of leaves.

• Big Bird performed a variation of "Sing After Me" at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con with lyrics altered to appeal to the typical Comic-Con audience, including "Cowabunga" as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reference.

Sources

External links

• Fan-made Twitter video compilation