Wayland wrote:

> ...what do you think?

In this thread there is very little history given re the OP, so to fill
in that part of the story:

A newspaper in 1950 claimed to identify the first loaf of sliced bread;
see

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi...L=ads-l&P=4237

"...The first sliced loaf of bread was produced in July of
1928...." (Chillicothe, Missouri)

Barry Popik searched for a long time to find the first printed usage of
"greatest thing since sliced bread" - he came up with Red Skelton
using it in a 1952 interview, in response to a question about how he
felt about TV; see:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi...L=ads-l&P=5215

I'd agree that the phrase is an idiom now. As to how much irony
Skelton intended, I'd say only that he was capable of slathering on
quite a bit of it.