Origin of "my dog ate my homework"?
The phrase was actually built up through a series of sentences like, ' My dog chewed it up ' and ' My cat chewed it up and I had no time to do it over. '
These sentences were first used in the 1965 comic novel, Up the Down Staircase.
But it mainly became popular in 1974 when a book was written with the title, ' The Cat Ate My Gym. ' Many works had the same reference and only then did it become a classic punch.
It's funny, anyway.