Peanut gallery

A peanut gallery was, in the days of vaudeville, a nickname for the cheapest and ostensibly rowdiest seats in the theater, the occupants of which were often known to heckle the performers. The least expensive snack served at the theater would often be peanuts, which the patrons would sometimes throw at the performers on stage to convey their disapproval. Phrases such as "no comments from the peanut gallery", "quiet in the peanut gallery", or "throwing peanuts from the gallery" are derived from this term. According to Stuart Berg Flexner, the term owes its origin to the United States' segregated South as a synonym with the back seats or upper balcony where the black members of the audience sat. The racial element of the term's origin is disputed, however, and absent from the Oxford English Dictionary and others.