Kaboom

A pop culture explosion!

Today’s New York Times Spelling Bee letters:

A, B, C, K, O, R, and center M (all words must include M)

Merriam-Webster says…

Silly little dictionary! Don’t you know that kaboom can’t possibly be a word if The New York Times says it ain’t?

For a complete list of rejected words, check out the Spelling Bee Master.

What’s your favorite dord* from today’s puzzle?

My Two Cents

There are certain words rejected by the Spelling Bee that really confound me. Kaboom happens to be one of them. (Tuatara, which appeared on yesterday’s list, is another one; but I haven’t written about it yet.) It’s not like the Times hasn’t written articles featuring the word. Here, take a look at some relatively recent ones:

The four articles even have the word in the title… and one of them has it twice!!

So what’s the deal? Who know! Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of Sam Eserzky.

Dynamic duo

The famous mid-1960s Batman television series was supposed to be a straightforward superhero show, akin to the Adventures of Superman that ran the previous decade and starred George Reeves. Legend has it that producer William Dozer, knowing nothing about the Caped Crusader comic books, read a few for research and promptly decided the only way the show could work was to create a campy pop-art version of the superhero.

Boy, did Dozer create a doozy! The series lasted only three seasons but became so popular and iconic that it helped revive DC and even Marvel comic book sales, particularly those of Batman. ABC broadcast an astounding 120 episodes between 1966 and 1968, half of which were aired in the second season between September of 1966 and March of 1967.

(As an aside, we could have had 1970s Wonder Woman Steve Trevor playing Bruce Wayne! Lyle Waggoner auditioned for the role with Peter Deyle as his Robin, but Adam West and Burt Ward ended up being picked.)

The 1960s Batman was known for being “square” in the context of the hippieness spreading across the United States around that time. Simple morality aimed at young viewers was a constant, as were the silly theme music and goofy plots. Perhaps one of its best known features was the use of colorful and wacky verbal sound effects during the fights, taken straight from the comic book pages:

Although Kapow! appeared on a regular basis (as in the 20-second mark in the above sampler), kaboom did not, likely as a result of the sound being an onomatopoeia of an explosion and not a punch.

The best opportunity for the 1960s Batman to have used a Kaboom! was in the 1966 film made between seasons 1 and 2. In what is now a cult sequence in a cult movie, Batman runs around a pier trying to safely dispose of a very comics-looking bomb that seemingly takes forever to explode.

And yet… no Kaboom! Very disappointing, I must say.

Going kaboom! all over the place

Our friends at Merriam-Webster explain that the kaboom comes from “ka-, unstressed syllable prefixed to onomatopoeic words + boom”. They provide two example sentences that show the word’s literal and metaphorical use:

• Have you ever watched metallic sodium hit water? Kaboom. Krakatau revisited … — Don Asher
• But it seems to me that the minute you build an emergency fund — kaboom! Along comes an “emergency.” — Jane Bryant Quinn

The term has taken a life of its own, being used commercially for a plethora of things. We have time to mention only a handful of them, though.

▹ In the arts and entertainment industry, Kaboom has been used as the title of a 2010 sex comedy-drama movie starring Thomas Dekker, Juno Temple (of Killer Joe and The Dark Knight Rises fame), Haley Bennett, and James Duval (1999’s Go); as the name of an episode on the second season of Parks and Recreation; as the hyphenated title of a 1980 off-Broadway musical about five survivors of a nuclear holocaust spared by God so that they could audition for his new show, Creation, Part Two; and as the name of a San Francisco concert sponsored by radio station KFOG that took place yearly between 1994 and 2010.

▹ Kaboom! was a video game created by Activision and released by Atari in 1981. In the game, a character known as the “Mad Bomber” scurries across the screen from left to right and back again, randomly dropping bombs. The Mad Bomber’s speed increases as the game progresses, as does the quantity of bombs, making each level more difficult. You can see an example of gameplay below. (At the 0:59 mark you can see what happens when the player misses catching the bombs and they explode.)

▹ Kaboom is also the name of a breakfast cereal made by General Mills and popular in the 1970s and 80s. It was actually sold as recently as 2010, after which it was discontinued.

Younger generations may be familiar with it as the box in which Vernita Green hides her gun when The Bride pays her a visit in Quentin Tarantino’s 2003 Kill Bill: Volume 1:

▹ Finally, KaBOOM! is an American non-profit organization that helps communities build playgrounds for children. You can find out more about their work (and donate, if you wish) here.

Now you know. Next time you’re watching some fireworks display with friends, choose your words carefully to describe the sounds you hear. After all, you won’t be able to use kaboom… because the editors of the Spelling Bee decided that it’s a dord*.

You can check out my previous entry on another dord* here:

*What the heck is a dord, you ask? Here’s the answer: