"Baba Booey! Baba Booey!"

I'll admit to being a fan of Howard Stern's radio show.  I love noises that make me laugh, and for many years I have enjoyed being tuned in to sports broadcasts, election returns on CNN, and ABC's live coverage of O.J. Simpson's slow-speed chase and hearing someone shout out "Baba Booey!"

"Baba Booey" is, as Al Michaels told Peter Jennings, a code for mentioning the Stern show. If you wonder where this silly phrase originated, read up here and smile along with the rest of us.  I have been known to use the name "Bob O'Booey" when asked for my name to secure a restaurant table.  What's more fun than hearing the host say, over a tinny microphone in the lobby of Primo Italiano, "Bob O'Booey, party of four..."?

Now there is a new catchphrase associated with the Stern show, and it got widespread hearing the other night at the end of the Emmy Awards show.  Host Jimmy Kimmel, who is not only a fan of the Stern radio show but also a close friend of Howard, said, "Wait don't leave - there's more!  We did it - we hit 'em with the Hein!" as the crowd sat and wondered what he meant.

Just so you will know, Jon Hein is the name of the guy who does the Stern wrap up show every day on satellite radio, examining in minute detail every minute of the broadcast that just ended.  He also is credited with the expression "Jump the shark" to indicate the exact moment when something becomes passé or irrelevant - a mention of the time on "Happy Days" when the writers of that 70s'-80s sitcom ran out of worthwhile stories, and wrote an episode in which Fonzie jumped his motorcyle over a shark in some water.  Dumb.

Another Stern worker came up with hollering "Hit 'em with the Hein," an apparent reworked reference to Missy Elliott's 1997 song "Hit 'Em Wit Da Hee," a song I have never heard.

I can't say that "HEWTH" will replace "Baba Booey" in popularity, but I do enjoy hearing people holler during silly dull moments.  It's really all that makes golf on television bearable.  Or FOX news almost bearable.