Strange words people say when leaving

Question

I've been at parties or other gatherings, and, when it was time to leave, native speakers would come up with odd ways of saying "It's time to go."

One way would be:

Let's make like a bakery truck and haul buns.

Another was:

Let's blow this clambake.

I'm wondering if someone could explain why these phrases get used, and if there are any underlying puns or jokes that I may not be catching.

In short, why do these mean, "It's time to leave?"

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Disclaimer: I already understand these expressions, but thought they would be interesting for the English language learner. (In fact, this question is based on an “actual problem I have faced”: in the past, some non-native friends have asked me to explain these phrases; I found them easy for me to understand, but hard to explain in a way that a non-native speaker could fully appreciate their whimsicality. Non-natives, feel free to give this one a try – it might be a fun “practice question.”

Answer 1

“Let’s make like a bakery truck and haul buns” is jokingly said when one wants to leave a party. Our buns (buttocks) are compared to a bakery truck, that is, they are as heavy and big as a bakery truck which hauls (drags) heavily.

On the other hand a bakery truck also sells buns (small, sometimes sweet breads) having a shape that resembles to a curvy contour of a girls gluteus maximus muscles as seen from behind: "Margie's buns look nice and tight now that she's working out.”

In other words buns sold by the bakery truck are compared to the slang word of ass, cheeks, buttocks. There is a pun which mixes our buns with the buns sold by a bakery truck.

As a result we can understand the pun this way: “let’s move our asses out of here” or “let’s get out of here”.

“Let’s blow this clambake” it’s a very silly way to say “Let’s get a move on”, where blow is the slang word for “ to go, leave, exit” or “leave this less than an interesting place”.

Answer 2

I'm watching a movie from 1939 called They Made Me a Criminal, where one of the characters says, "Let's blow!" It's possible that this usage predated versions that specified from whence to blow, viz "Let's blow this [whatever]." So "blow" might have been slang that pre-dated such terms as "book," "jet," "boogie," or possibly even "scram." "Twenty-three skidoo", however, is almost certainly older. The import is not so much that it's time to leave but rather that those who are "blowing" are too cool for school.

Answer 3

The way I have come to understand these phrases:

Let's make like a bakery truck and haul buns.

Much in the way a bakery truck would "haul buns" (haul>pull>move) (buns>bread) from one location to another. A person would (haul>pull>move) their own (buns>butt(slang)) from one location to another.

Let's blow this clambake.

To blow when talking in the context of leaving is talking about how the wind will "Blow" and/or move.

While the term clambake can be replaced with any descriptive word meaning the current location:

Let's blow this clambake.

Let's blow this party.

Let's blow this pop stand (soda shop).

Let's blow this Popsicle stand.

Let's blow this joint (an establishment). <~~ this one can also be used as a drug reference

Let's blow this place.

Let's blow this bitch.

Let's blow this town.

in all instances it means to move (like the wind can blow) from your current location defined by the descriptive word you use.

the term clambake itself when used can mean different types of places also:

an outdoor social gathering at which clams and other seafood (and often chicken, potatoes, and sweet corn) are baked or steamed, traditionally in a pit, over heated stones and under a bed of seaweed.

or (informally)

a place where the crowd is mostly female (where a clam is referencing the female genitalia)

and lastly (again informally and mostly used in the north east america)

a small area where drugs are emitting a large amount of smoke causing the air to be mostly polluted with said smoke. Such as a group of people smoking in a car or a larger group of people smoking at a festival. (this term comes from the resemblance marijuana smoke has to the smoke emitted during the cooking process at the outdoor social gathering at which clams and other seafood steamed)