The line comes from Spitting Image, the British satirical puppet show that ran from 1984 to 1996, where a caricatured John McEnroe was a recurring target for his famous on-court temper. McEnroe had built his reputation in the late 1970s and 1980s for arguing calls and delivering cutting put-downs, and the show exaggerated that persona into short, repeatable insults. Clips like this later circulated on soundboards and in meme edits, where the dated phrase now works as a deliberately old-fashioned way to judge something awful.