Gary Dell'abate, the producer of Howard Stern's radio show, was affectionately nicknamed Baba Booey during one of Howard's shows. In a conversation on that show, Gary had stated that one of his hobbies was collecting cartoon cells and that he had just aquired a cell of the cartoon character Baba Louie. Gary's habit of speaking quickly, and his tendancy to mumble his words (much to Howard's annoyance) led him to mispronounce the name as "Baba Booey".
Always quick to ridicule, Howard and his on-air crew would tease Gary unmercifully about his distinctively mush-mouthed speech patterns and would play a taped clip of someone saying "Baba Booey" in the background whenever Gary tried to speak on-air. Eventually, the term "Baba Booey" became synonymous with Gary, and a nickname was born.
On occasion, the nickname gets modified for comic effect. Some variations are:
- FaFa Fohai - Used these days when ridiculing Gary, since the original has lost its edge.
- MaMa Monkey - Commentary on Gary's supposed apelike appearance.
- TaTa Toothy - Commentary on Gary's prodigious choppers. Coined by Sal the stock broker, one of Howard's hangers-on (and member of the wack pack) who often refers to Gary as a "horse-toothed jackass" and has made a career of ridiculing Gary on his website after losing his brokerage job to the collapse of the dot com bubble.
- RaRa Retard - Used whenever Gary is reported to have done something particularly dumb (a recurrent theme on Howard's show).