Anybody paying attention knows 2016 was a gigantic year for Howard Stern memes. In a surreal moment, Donald Trump mentioned Howard during the presidential debates, injecting Stern into the national political conversation. But Stern was already there — earlier in the year comedian Sarah Silverman shouted out “Baba Booey” during the Democratic National Convention — futhering the Stern meme mania. But no phrase has hit the zeitgeist like “hit ’em with the Hein” — a Stern Show meme that is everywhere now. Jimmy Kimmel, Stern friend and fan, even closed the Emmy broadcast saying “hit ’em with the Hein.”
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With the year of “hit ’em with the Hein” coming to a close, the Stern Show has compiled a dozen mentions that track the cultural penetration of the phrase. (And yes, there’s something pleasingly Howard-like about the phrase “cultural penetration.”) Not just Kimmel and the Emmys, but “hit ’em with the Hein” showed up everywhere in 2016 — from Major League Baseball to minor league hockey, from the Country Music Awards to QVC.
@HowardStern Hit em with the Hein!! @QVC Wednesday night…demonstrating a snow broom on a car!#HitEmWithTheHein @jonhein pic.twitter.com/WKMZ3g1Osx
— Tom Garofalo (@garf42cd) December 1, 2016
