Mondo Cool

[TheGmGoken]

Krillin: So this will get Goku back to health in no time? Mondo cool!

Vegeta (thinking): Yes, Mondo Cool.

Besides the fact it's funny for bad reasons. Is that an actual saying? I know this isn't really "DB" related but I'm just curious. I saw on Youtube that's it's an American Slang from the 90's. I'm guessing he means before DBZ English dub said it. I would't know since I didn't come to America to I was 7 in which it was 2003. So my question is

Is this an acutal slang?

[Gaffer Tape]

I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure it was actual slang. More like the '80s, though, rather than the '90s. As in, it was already severely outdated when they had Kuririn utter it in '99.

[Kakarot88]

Yep, Mondo was like the Kool Aid squeeze drinks:

And some ads went "Mondo Cool!"...which is kinda smart if you're ripping of Kool Aid lol

here's an ad that doesn't have the "Mondo Cool"

It was a great reference back in the day...oh nostalgia...bring on the hate!

[Valerius Dover]

I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure it was actual slang. More like the '80s, though, rather than the '90s. As in, it was already severely outdated when they had Kuririn utter it in '99.

And then they had him say it AGAIN in 07.

[ABED]

If you look for it I'm sure you can find a video of Sonny Strait at a convention saying how ridiculous he thought the line was. It might have been cool at one time, probably 10 years prior. It just went to show that the people in charge had no idea what they were doing. They had this ridiculous idea to try and contemporize the show and make it appeal to young kids, but why would you use a term that had been out of fashion for nearly a decade?

[theoriginalbilis]

Lines like "Mondo Cool" are what you get when middle-aged dudes from Texas presume they know how to sell foreign cartoons to children.

[Akumaito Beam]

I adore this thread and this subject.

Yeah Mondo Cool was weird 80'sish slang. I love how the writers tried giving Krillin a catchphrase and they picked just the stupidest one. I have such a love for failed or shitty catphrases and that's both. It's writing decisions like those that make the dub a super good time for me.

The 90's dub of Sailor Moon made the Scouts spout 90's American slang a metric fuck ton during S and SuperS too. Old dubs are fun.

[Kakarot88]

I seriously think the line was cuz of a 90s sugary drink which aired during the episodes. All this catch phrase discussion is interesting though.

[Akumaito Beam]

I seriously think the line was cuz of a 90s sugary drink which aired during the episodes. All this catch phrase discussion is interesting though.

Mondo is just a turn of phrase though. It means 'a lot' or 'very'. Mikey used to use it from time to time in the old 1987 TMNT cartoon. I'm pretty sure it's just a coincidence.

Edit: Come to think of it there was a villain in TMNT called "Mondo Gecko" too.

[Kakarot88]

I seriously think the line was cuz of a 90s sugary drink which aired during the episodes. All this catch phrase discussion is interesting though.

Mondo is just a turn of phrase though. It means 'a lot' or 'very'. Mikey used to use it from time to time in the old 1987 TMNT cartoon. I'm pretty sure it's just a coincidence.

Edit: Come to think of it there was a villain in TMNT called "Mondo Gecko" too.

Oh I know what mondo means, I too grew up with Raph, Donny, Leo and Mikey too the line to this day seems like a reference to the then current ads airing at the time: Mondo drink.

As a kid watching it, I didn't even notice cuz it wasn't out of place. It's what people in ads were saying.

[Attitudefan]

Krillin should have said "totally rad!" Since that would be more contemporary to 1999.

[ABED]

Mondo drinks weren't popular at the time. I know what you're referring to, but there weren't commercials airing for that drink in 99.

[Blade]

It just smacks as being one of those out-of-touch marketing decisions made by middle aged man who have assimilated a phrase from popular culture at some point following the end of their youth and retained it as a permanent caricature of 'what the kids are saying'.

To be honest, the dialogue may as well have been 'That's wizard!' or some other form of archaic slang, as for any kid hearing it whilst watching the show, it's likely to be the first time they've ever heard it - as opposed to it being something for them to identify and latch onto. It's just another example of 'the World according to Barry Watson'.

[Karrit]

Krillin should have said "totally rad!" Since that would be more contemporary to 1999.

'Totally rad' is both 90s and 80s slang. Mondo might have been a reference to the Kool-aid drink, but I thinks it originated as surfer slang. That would make sense for Michaelangelo to say it since they basically turned him into a stereotypical surfer dude in the 80s cartoon.

[WittyUsername]

Here's what I don't get, in the remastered dub for the Freeza saga, both Sonny Strait and Chris Sabat were re dubbing all of their lines as Kuririn and Vegeta respectively, so why did the writers keep "mondo cool" intact? They got rid of a several other silly lines, but they decided to let that one slide?

[Tatakae!!Ramenman]

Lines like "Mondo Cool" are what you get when middle-aged dudes from Texas presume they know how to sell foreign cartoons to children.

The stupidest/funniest line I ever saw in the dub, was in the last episode of the ocean dub, where goku defeats recoome and jeice and burter are gawking at him. Burters looking at him and says "He's a pretty boy, isn't he jeice? A real ladys man like you. If it weren't for you being short and orange, I'd say he was the better looking guy." lines like this and "mondo cool" made the dub for me. Here's a link to the line. It's the first 15 seconds of the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzX-4ZgaF9I

[SaiyaJedi]

"Mondo" (as an intensifier that could be applied to various adjectives) I remember from when I was really young, probably right around 1990-'91 or so. "Rad" was "in" at that time too, but looking back, I'm not really sure if that was ever an actual thing, or if it was invented by corporate executives to try and appeal to children (since all the "cool kids" back then tried to imitate vaguely Californian speech patterns).

[dbboxkaifan]

Mondo is just a turn of phrase though. It means 'a lot' or 'very'. Mikey used to use it from time to time in the old 1987 TMNT cartoon. I'm pretty sure it's just a coincidence.

Edit: Come to think of it there was a villain in TMNT called "Mondo Gecko" too.

That's what "mondo" means? I thought it meant "World" which would make it "Cool World".

[ABED]

or if it was invented by corporate executives to try and appeal to children

Is that really any worse than the crap that comes from "cool kids"?

[Hellspawn28]

90's anime dubs market to kids seem to make real life references. I remember Pokemon and Digimon did the same too. I hate how dubs like this would have DBZ make references to real life stuff when they live in a totally different world from us. Imagine watching a English dub of a movie like The Seven Samurai and they have make a reference to a cool song on a radio. It would make no sense even if they are trying to funny.