Simpsons voice actor reveals surprising origin story of one of the show’s most iconic catchphrases

The simpsons steadfast Nancy Cartwright has revealed the surprising origin of one of her character’s iconic catchphrases.

Fans of the long-running animated series know Nancy best as the voice of Bart Simpson, a role she has played since the character first appeared on The Tracey Ullman Show in the late 1980s.

When The Simpsons got their own show in 1989, Bart became one of their breakout characters, synonymous with catchphrases like “Ay Caramba!”, “Don’t Have a Cow, Man” and, of course, “Eat My Shorts.”

And in a recent TikTok, Nancy revealed that she was actually responsible for the latter.

She told her fans that she first heard the phrase when she was a section leader in her high school’s marching band. Apparently, she and 200 of her classmates chanted “Eat my shorts” instead of the name of their high school.

Cut to “13, 16 years later,” and Nancy brought up the catchphrase again while improvising as Bart at a table read for The Simpsons.

“It was like it stuck. And that became Bart’s first catchphrase,” she explained.

Mental Floss pointed out that the phrase “Eat My Shorts” had been used before in films such as “Body Heat”, “Maximum Overdrive” and most notably “The Breakfast Club”, but it was not until “The Simpsons” that it gained real popularity.

Nancy not only lends her voice to Bart Simpson, but also plays some of his schoolmates, especially Ralph Wiggum and Nelson Muntz.

She was also part of Disney Projects such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the television series The Little Mermaid and the Lilo & Stitch spin-off Leroy & Stitch, as well as the role of Chuckie in the Rugrats series in 2002.

In addition to her work as a speaker, Nancy wrote the book “My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy,” which was later adapted as a one-woman play and was a prominent member of the Church of Scientology since the early 1990s.

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