hear it." The term is still known and used today in circuses, but usually as an allusion to the "glory days" when circuses were rowdy affairs, rather than in actual fights. Other uses Hey, Rube! was the title of a 1921 American silent comedy short film starring Bobby Vernon and Helen Darling. During World War II, "Hey Rube!" was the open-microphone radio call issued by Combat Air Directors on American aircraft carriers to alert USN fighters to prepare to defend a task force from enemy air-attack. American author Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) wrote a web sports column called "Hey, Rube", for ESPN "Page 2," which was later compiled into a book called Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness Modern History from the Sports Desk (2005). The phrase (or a shortened version, "Rube!") is regularly used in the Family D'Alembert novels by Stephen Goldin: typically as a code word to alert of imminent danger. The use of the phrase comes from the titular family's cover work as a circus family. During the 1980s the United States Navy conducted a periodic electronic warfare exercise code-named Hey Rube. An organization in the 1970s and 1980s that advocated for street performers' rights. In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing adventure module The Keep on the Borderlands (1979), the goblin enemies shout the phrase "Bree-Yark" when they attack. The author, Gary Gygax indicated that this translated as "Hey Rube!" See also Dog whistle (politics) References Circus slang