My goodness

[undyingking]

Does anyone know (or care to speculate), what's the origin of the phrase template "full of [noun]-y goodness"?

It sounds like it ought to have come from an advert or something. But it's been used for so long with the speaker's choice of interpolated noun, I have no idea at all what the original might have been.

Comments

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Cheesy peas! Full o' cheesy goodness!

I think it comes from a Harry Enfield and/or Paul Whitehouse character. I have vague recollections of something before the Fast Show cheesy peas, but I can't remember what exactly. Obviously it might have pre-dated that usage.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Hmm - could be Stavros that said 'Full o' meaty goodness' but my googlefu is failing today.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, I'm pretty sure it did predate that, ie. that was playing on something that was already in general awareness.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Chanel 9, perhaps?

Before clicking through to this comment page, I thought "meaty goodness" and non-specific dog food, but suddenly I'm curious to know whether Cadbury's Fudge has prior art or not.

Boutros Boutros Ghali.

[caffeine-fairy.livejournal.com]

It sounds like Buffyspeak to me.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

It does, but I think if so they were playing on something already familiar from our childhood sort of era.

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

I'd agree with both those comments. Problem is if it's Buffy it could well have been a childhood memory us Brits didn't get.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Pedigree Chum was IIRC alleged to be full of meaty goodness. Don't know if that was the first instance, but the number of Google hits for the "meaty goodness" version beats any other variant I have so far thought to check.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Further research suggests maybe Pal rather than Pedigree Chum, although the internet is failing to provide proper confirmation. Many, many links to this ad use the phrase "meaty goodness", but the ad itself does not.

(It does however achieve breathtaking levels of retro awfulness!)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, firm meaty nourishment!

Gosh, that seems dreadfully dated for something from only 20-odd years ago. "When your husband's away..."!

[caffeine-fairy.livejournal.com]

Of course, there's always the Finger of Fudge's Cadbury Goodness.

[chilledchimp.livejournal.com]

I agree - first time I heard it was in a Pal ad.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Frustratingly, extensive research online has turned up Pal as associated only with "meaty nourishment", not "meaty goodness". If they really were ahead of Cadbury's to the latter formulation, they seem to have removed evidence of it with a positively Orwellian rigour.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Ooh - that rings more bells for me than Stavros!

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I recall a finger of Fudge being full of "Cadbury['s?] goodness" in my youth...

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Win!

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

I remember the phrase as "Chocolatey goodness"

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

That would be shamefully untrue, unless "chocolatey" can be taken to mean "vaguely resembling chocolate, but not actually tasting of it (or containing more than a bare minimum)". Mind you, that was a more innocent age: advertisers could be a lot freer in their claims.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad I'm not quite alone with this view.

all too true

[jackfirecat.livejournal.com]

reparsing the same thing you'd just said but I'd go with shamefully true: it does indeed mean not chocolate per se, but, we claim, chocolatey

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

It having been set to music, I'm fairly convinced I'm remembering it correctly (my memory is odd like that) ;)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Aha, yes, full of Cadury goodness. That's interesting, then: it's not even a [noun]-y adjective. People must have started subverting it on that basis almost straight away.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

I thought a "a finger of fudge was just enough..", which always struck me as a stingy way to advertise a treat.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, it carries the subtext ("... if you don't like them very much") I think.

[chilledchimp.livejournal.com]

It's full of Cadbury goodness and very small and neat... I recall a robust parody in the playground, but I can't remember the words. Topic ads, however - What has a hazelnut in every bite? Squirrel sh*t!

[chrisvenus]

I was going to say that. I jsut happened to read the post a day and a half late. ;-)

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

I vote for full of meaty goodness from Pal. You will note it says meaty with the -y on the end due to it mainly being TVP.

[jackfirecat.livejournal.com]

as per chocolatey above

[jackfirecat.livejournal.com]

I would have said Buffy before I read the comments.

I still would, because Americans didn't see these adverts, and therefore through Buffy into the mainstream, or the mill-stream of the mainstream that we inhabit.

There's a book about Buffyspeak... by OUP.

[mrsdanvers63.livejournal.com]

Definitely fingers of fudge,full of Cadbury Goodness.

The ad seemed to work on reverse psychology; if the product was "small and neat" and "just enough to give your kids a treat" then it was something they could eat between meals. Also tried with Milky Way: "The sweet you can eat between meals without losing your appetite"

Not to be confused with the American Milky Way, which we know as a Mars bar.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

the American Milky Way, which we know as a Mars bar

Ooh, I didn't know that. Interesting, I wonder why. Mind you I suppose a Mars bar is basically a squashed Milky Way with caramel shoved on top.