The Veeblefetzer Page

This page exists to set the set the record straight about veeblefetzers. There are various pages out there on the web making various claims about veeblefetzers, but this page is here to tell the real story. You might ask, "On what authority?" The answer is simple: just look up there at the furshlugginer title. This is The Veeblefetzer Page.

A definition in the Free On-Line-Dictionary Of Computing (FOLDOC), of which there are many copies of on the web, includes this theory about the word's origin:

The more distant source was probably a 19th century yiddish word, possibly with limited usage. In German, "Fetzer" is any contraption, while "Veeble" is a likely corruption of "Webel" -- meaning weaving. Textile mills of this period were crammed with very complicated, wildly active and very loud pieces of machinery.

This definition mentions early issues of MAD magazine, but veeblefetzers had already been mentioned in the September 1954 issue of its predecessor, the MAD comic book. This featured "Gasoline Valley" -- a parody of the Gasoline Alley comic strip -- written by Harvey Kurtzman and drawn by Bill Elder, in which Skizziks Willit & Wilber Booble meet up and start a business partnership to fix cracked veeblefetzers: Willit & Booble.

FOLDOC mentions a later "North American Veeblefetzer" in MAD. A variant of the word wandered into the comic strips when The Born Loser started in the 1960s, featuring a boss (and business) with the name "Veeblefester."

Where did these veeblefetzers come from in the first place? Well, the first CB radio license was issued in 1947 to Phineas Thaddeus Veeblefetzer (a.k.a. Al Gross), the inventor of the walkie-talkie and other gadgets. In addition to gadgets, he also invented widgets, whatsits, doohickeys, thingamajigs, and his namesake.

"Note to readers: Naturally, there is no such thing as a veeblefetzer! This grotesque designation is used merely to disguise our real operation which is such a good idea that we want to protect the idea from being stolen by any unscrupulous operators ... mainly you readers!"
-- Wilber Booble (Harvey Kurtzman)