Say Goodnight Gracie
Meaning
This was coined as the sign-off at the end of George Burns’ shows with his wife Gracie Allen in 1958.
Origin
Burns ended the shows with “”Say goodnight, Gracie’ and Allen replied ‘Goodnight’. The popular legend that she replied with ‘Goodnight, Gracie’ isn’t correct. This imagined reply may be influenced by the fact that it is a rather obvious comic reply which could well have been used and by the similar ending to Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, which ended with ‘Say goodnight, Dick’ followed by ‘Goodnight, Dick’.
The sign-off also may have motivated the writers of the British comedians Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett to end their The Two Ronnies shows with [Corbett] ‘its goodnight from me’ and [Barker] ‘And it’s goodnight from him’.
“Say goodnight, Gracie’ has later been used as a jokey remark, spoken as if by George Burns, after some utterance that might have been said by the scatterbrain character that Gracie Allen adopted for the Burns and Allen shows.
