Posted by ESC on November 15, 2000
In Reply to: Cat's meow posted by Margaret Tuttle on November 14, 2000
: What does it mean and where did it come from
It's 1920s slang similar to the following.
From "Listening to America: An Illustrated History of Words and Phrases from Our Lively and Splendid Past" by Stuart Berg Flexner:
"For 'great' (in the 20s) we have: the cat's pajamas, remarkable, first used around 1920, when pajamas were still somewhat shockingly new...similar expressions...the duck's quack, 1920; the bee's knees, the clam's garters, the elephant's wrist, the eel's ankles, the gnat's elbow, all 1923 the elephant's arches and the sardine's whiskers, both 1924; the bullfrog's beard, the cuckoo's chin, the leopard's stripes, the pig's wings, the snake's hips, and the tiger's spots, all 1925."