It seems like just about every obituary of beloved gold-hocking, giant-check-delivering, former announcer of The Tonight Show Ed McMahon includes the phrase “second banana.” Some representative headlines:

-”McMahon reveled in role of second banana” – Christian Science Monitor

-”McMahon was a one-of-a-kind second banana” – MSNBC

-”As second banana, best of the bunch” – Washington Post

-”‘Hi-yo!’ TV’s McMahon was definitely first-rate as a second banana” – Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

-”Sidekick Ed McMahon, 86, was the top second banana” – Cleveland Plain Dealer

-”Ed McMahon, TV’s First Second Banana, Dies” – TIME

-”Here’s Ed: McMahon a second banana for the TV ages” – Associated Press

A few hours after Ed’s death was announced yesterday, I conducted a 24-hour search on the phrase “second banana” on Google News. More than 600 hits. A few hours later, that number was more than 900. At noon today, 1,595 and counting. This may be overdoing it.

And where the heck did the phrase second banana even come from anyway? I asked the Online Etymology Dictionary. Use of banana as slang for “nuts” — as in kooky — was first recorded in 1935. By the 1950s, banana was show biz slang for “comedian, especially in a burlesque show.” Second banana became shorthand for a comic’s sidekick or straight man.

But what about first bananas? My search of Google News and of all major world newspapers on Nexis turned up exactly zero stories in which the name Johnny Carson and the phrase “first banana” appeared. The near-pejorative “third banana” fared slightly better. It’s been used a couple hundred times, and seems to favor (or insult) actors — Jason Bateman and  Casey Affleck — and tennis players, like Mardy Fish and, inexplicably, Rafael Nadal.

Second banana is an appropriate enough label for Ed McMahon — though it’s also an antiquated phrase whose origin and rationale has been all but forgotten. Plus, its ubiquitous application over the last two days has quickly pushed describing Ed McMahon as a second banana from clever and apt to lazy and rote. There must be a better way to eulogize someone than us all using fruity, forgotten Vaudevillian phrases.

(Photo: jazza/stock.xchng)