How do you like them apples

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"How do you like them apples?", also shortened to, "How do you like them?" or, "Them apples," is an American idiom used to gloat or to express bemusement.^[1] In both senses, the phrase probably acts as a rhetorical question. The origin of this idiom is uncertain.

[edit] Theories of origin

One theory as to its origin suggests that it originated in World War I with the "toffee apple," a kind of trench mortar bomb sometimes used to destroy tanks. The phrase would be said gloatingly (as the term is now used) after an "apple" took out an enemy.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] In popular culture

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The phrase "How do you like them apples?" has been used in film since at least 1956, getting wide exposure in the popular 1997 Hollywood film, Good Will Hunting. Will, the film's main character, gloats to a rival, Clark, about winning a young woman's affection:

Will: Do you like apples?
Clark: Yeah.
Will: Well, I got her number. How do you like them apples? ^[2]

In the 1956 television episode of I Love Lucy "Home from Europe," Lucille Ball uses the phrase.

The phrase also occurs in the 1959 Hollywood Western film Rio Bravo. After the character Chance sharp-shoots a stick of dynamite, the character Stumpy exclaims, "Dude, how do you like them apples?"^[3]

In the 1960 film From the Terrace, Paul Newman says, "How do you like them apples?" to Joanne Woodward at the end of the film as he thwarts her attempt to keep him from divorcing her.

Another example is Chinatown from 1974, where Jack Nicholson utters the phrase after a surprising telephone call.^[4]

The phrase also appears in the 1996 movie From Dusk Till Dawn, uttered by George Clooney's character after successful passage through the Mexican border.

In Edward Albee's play, The American Dream, this line is spoken by the "Grandma" character on two separate occasions.

In Apples Vaud (a municipality of Switzerland), it is common to hear the greeting "How do you like them apples?" The greeting salutes the Chilled Apple Soup festival which was first hosted by Apples in 1993.