A phrase associated with journalist Linda Ellerbee, but I think its origins go back to Lloyd Dobyns. Dobyns was the host of an irreverent NBC late-night newsmagazine called Weekend in the early 70s.

It was broadcast on Saturday nights, alternating with reruns of Johnny Carson, and its theme song was the opening riff to the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" - pieces of the "Weekend" logo would dance onto the TV screen and assemble as the riff faded. You knew you weren't in for the sober, serious newsing of (tick tick tick tick...) 60 Minutes. The show's title deliberately evoked Jean-Luc Godard's "interesting" late-60s film of the same name.

Dobyns needed an ending. Walter Cronkite had "And that's the way it is...", speaking from the authority of his chair as America's Favorite Newscaster; Chet Huntley and David Brinkley had the simple, humble "Good Night, Chet.", "Good night, David." - they had been #2 in the race, after all. Dobyns came up with:

"And so it goes..."

That was as groovy as you could get in those days, man.

The show became a cult favorite, and made a Stateside cult celeb of the spacy, loquacious Dr. Magnus Pike (long before he reached MTV fame, sampled, in Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me with Science"), and a cult villain of tenth-rate despot Jean-Bedel Bokassa, whose elaborate coronation was just too sick to ignore.

When Saturday Night Live took the time slot, Weekend was shunted further into obscurity (appearing once a month... maybe), but eventually it received a prime-time slot (not on a weekend, IIRC) and an equally-irreverent co-host - Linda Ellerbee. The show was cancelled - irreverence, like satire, never seems to wow the Nielsen Families - and Ellerbee would take the phrase with her, first to NBC News Overnight (the predecessor to Later with Bob Costas), then to an autobiography, a newspaper column, and beyond. Dobyns surely smiles approvingly.

And so it goes...
