The phrase “Heavens to Murgatroyd! ” predates this character and may have found its way to 1960s American television by way of Gilbert and Sullivan. Spend hours exploring the origins and meanings of other phrases, sayings, and idioms at the Phrase Finder . They even have an RSS feed, A Phrase A Week , that you can add to your aggregator.

Comments:

• Emily in Philadelphia, Fri 10/12/2007 12:06 PM:
  This is so great--I've often wondered where the phrase came from. A friend and I were arguing about it and I thought it came from a cartoon character, but we couldn't put our finger on which one....