Arthropods donning chapeaus

In a meeting today, my boss recommended an article in the latest New York Review of Books about ants. (Specifically, Tim Flannery's piece on Bert Hölldobler and E.O. Wilson's book The Superorganism.) I'm not going to distill a distillation of a 500-page book, so you'll have to take my word that this thing has to be read to be believed. Apparently, there are a lot of parallels that can be drawn between human society and the way ant colonies become superorganisms. There are a number of money quotes to choose from. Here's one, about leaf cutter ants, who amazing-but-true have actually developed agriculture:

When growing fungus on such a large scale, waste management becomes a crucial issue, and the attines have developed a finely tuned solution. Their sanitation teams comprise one group of workers that gathers the refuse from inside the colony and dumps it at depots outside. From there dump managers that work exclusively outside the nest carry the waste to great disposal sites far from the colony. The dump managers that work outside are mostly older ants that have only a short time to live in any case, which is a good thing, for the great refuse dumps they toil at teem with pathogens and toxins. This system effectively quarantines the colony from a dangerous threat and at the same time minimizes worker loss of life. Curiously, humans have found a use for the ant refuse. So strong is the ants' aversion to it that South American farmers gather it and sprinkle it around young plants they wish to protect from attacks by leafcutters.

Incredible.

I'll go ahead and utilize this serendipitous bit of topicality to ask you, my dearest readers, for some help. As anyone that has actually spoken with me is undoubtedly aware, I have a term that I use a lot. Whenever someone posits a scenario or question that is irrelevant, inconsequential, or generally a nonstarter, my response invariably begins "What if ants wore hats?" It's most synonymous with "What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?"

The provenance of my term came up this weekend when a buddy of mine considered using it in correspondence, but then thought better of it when he realized it's a term that only I use, and he'd look like quite the fool if he used it in mixed company. Which leads me to ask you, my precious readers: did I actually invent this term? I'm almost positively certain that I got it from a dumb TV show or cartoon or movie, but I can't pin it down. Teh Google is no help. So if anyone has any idea where this phrase came from, whether it was my own genius or some dumb show, let me know! And let's pretend this is a real blog, and instead of just talking to me personally, put your responses in comments. Thanks!