Black Bears upset Wildcats 23-18

[Remington555]

Watched a very entertaining FCS football game Friday night. Number 2 ranked Weber State Wildcats against the number 7 ranked Maine Black Bears.

I learned that the Black Bears mascot has a name: Bananas

According to a school historian, when the mascot made its first appearance way back in 19-whatever, the school newspaper reported that "the students went bananas over the new mascot". From that article, the new mascot got its name.

So now I'm wondering (and not for the first time) what exactly does it mean to "go bananas" about something? Why isn't it "go peaches" or "go oranges" or some other fruit? I've never found any reference to how the phrase came to be used.

I'd sure like to know the history of the phrase. Not knowing is driving me...

nuts!

Remmy

PS: Admit it, you thought I was going to say bananas, didn't you? 

[lookinginnd]

Was a good game last night. Going to the NDSU vs Colgate game today. I had Maine winning it in my picks so not too surprised by the outcome. Just goes to show you the FBS has it wrong with their 4 team play offs.

As to the phrase "Going Bannanas" as you siad no one has a definitive answer but I tend to agree with some that it was probably derived from the term "going ape" because of the association of chimps and bananas.   

[_priapism]

From the Oxford Words blog:

Go Bananas! The colloquial use of bananas for 'mad, crazy' is a surprisingly recent development. There is an isolated record of it from the US in the 1930s meaning 'sexually perverted, degenerate', but the current usage seems to have originated in US college slang of the mid to late 1960s. It is not clear how it arose.

I was a member of the official fan club:

The Banana Splits

[psiberzerker]

The colloquial use of bananas for 'mad, crazy' is a surprisingly recent development. There is an isolated record of it from the US in the 1930s meaning 'sexually perverted," or "degenerate'...

Hell, I'm still upset that there's no Black Bears in this thread. 


Here's one!