Where did the saying The **** Hit the Fan come from?

Question

Someone once told me it came from when hippos spin their tails wicked fast then monkeys throw their **** at it and it hits their tail and sprays everywhere. Is it true?

Answer 1

It appears to have originated in the 1930s. I can't say better than 'appears' as the earliest citation of it that I can find is in the 1967 edition of Eric Partridge's A dictionary of slang and unconventional English:

    "Wait till the major hears that! Then the ****'ll hit the fan!"

Partridge lists the phrase as Canadian, circa 1930, but as he gives no supporting evidence we have to go by the 1967 date, although it is undoubtedly earlier.

Other, more polite, forms of the phrase, involving eggs, pie, soup and 'stuff', can certainly be dated from the USA the 1940s. For example, Max Chennault's Up Sun, 1945:

    "Sounds like the stuff was about to hit the fan."

The Fresno Bee Republican, May 1948, reported on a psychiatrists' convention, under the heading See How Brain Boys Also Run Wild:

    "However, once that opening point was settled, the psychiatrists entered wholly in the business of the convention, which culminated, of course, in the selection of officers for the coming year. And that, as the saying goes, was when the soup hit the fan."

Answer 2

Good question.  I don't know, but the hippo/monkey hypothesis sounds unlikely.   More likely it is from some farm incident with fertilizer, or maybe monkeys at the zoo throwing their dung around and hitting a ventilation fan.

Answer 3

"just a guess"  but probably from the mess thrown out from farm muck ( k rap) spreaders.

Answer 4

lets just hope that some one hasnt literally tested it out,, YUCK!!