There is a line that seems to pop up in sitcoms and movies fairly
often.  It seems like it has to be a reference to something, but what,
I haven't been able to find.

The exact line is, "Good day, sir.  I said GOOD DAY, SIR!!"

I've heard this line in several episodes of NewsRadio, the Simpsons,
Seinfeld, King of the Hill, and That 70s Show.  It also appears in the
movies Tootsie and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  If you search
for it online, you find it in several angry newsgroup and forum posts.
 I would really like to know where it was originally used and what it
is a reference to.  TIA!!

Hi there

You need to remember your cartoons for this one. They're all aping
Foghorn Leghorn, a large, white talkative rooster seen in a number of
Warner Brother cartoons over the years. He's hard of hearing, and
repeats everthing loudly because he thinks everybody is that way.

He was supposedly inspired by Kenny Delmar's Senator Beauregard
Claghorn from Bighorn character, (a Deep South politician from THE
FRED ALLEN SHOW on radio) Foghorn himself premiered in the Warner's
animated feature Walky Talky Hawky (1946).

Foghorn's popular catchphrases are "I say, I say there!", "Pay
attention, boy!, I say, pay attention boy!" and "Now listen here! I
said, Now listen here!" and also, on occasion "Good Day Sir, I said
good day"

Note the repetition in each of the above. That's where the "Good Day
Sir, I said, good day sir" comes from in your examples. (Foghorn's
favorite song is "Camptown Races Doo Dah! Doo Dah" - more
repetition!).

You can hear him in action on the samples at the Looney Tunes site (
http://www.barbneal.com/foghorn.asp )

In his book That's Not all Folks (Warner Books, 1988) Mel Blanc, the
voice of the rooster, had this to say about the origin of Foghorn's
vocal style

"Delmar claimed he based the voice on that of a Texas rancher he'd
once hitched a ride from. Bob McKimson claimed Foghorn's voice was
derived not from Senator Claghorn's but from someone on another
old-time radio program, BLUE MONDAY JAMBOREE. And I claim I first
heard the accent at a 1928 vaudeville show at San Francisco's Pantages
Theater when I was twenty. As I recall it, in one of the skits an
actor played a clownish hard-of-hearing southern sheriff." 

Whatever the source, it's Foghorn's style that has lasted, and it's
still going on - over here in the UK we have a soap opera "Coronation
Street" which has a windbag butcher Fred Elliot who talks in exactly
the same way.


The "Toonopedia" is paradise for any toon fan
Foghorn Leghorn Toonopedia entry 
http://www.toonopedia.com/foghorn.htm


This fan club site has a lot of info although it hasn't been updated
for a while
The Foghorn Leghorn Fan Club
http://members.aol.com/howardsays/foghorn/foghorn.htm


Mel Blanc's book "That's not all folks"
Warner Books; ASIN: 0446390895; Reprint edition (December 1989) 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0446390895/qid%3D1033499143/104-8921708-8396760

Search Strategy
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22Foghorn+Leghorn%22

Thank you, very helpful, and definately cleared up something i have
been wondering about for years!

Excellent work! I say, excellent work! We look forward to meeting you
in the Researchers' Forum some day soon, Willie. :-)

Don't forget the classic:

"Nice kid, but about as sharp as a bowlin' ball..."