"I say, I say--
That's a joke, son!"
In 1945, Americans added this catch phrase as well as "...that is," to their vocabulary, using a Southern drawl to capture the bombastic unrepentant personality of Senator Beauregard Claghorn. Claghorn was one of the regional stereotypes appearing weekly on Allen's Alley, on Sunday night's Fred Allen Show.
Announcer Kenny Delmar created the outrageous fast-talking Southerner, who refused to drive through the Lincoln tunnel and would only drink out of a Dixie cup. The character was so popular, he got his own movie out of it, It's a Joke, Son (1947), a Broadway musical, Texas, Li'l Darlin' (1949), and countless imitators (most famously, Warner Brothers' animated rooster, Foghorn Leghorn).