More cowbell? Yes, please, we've got a fever.

Pop quiz: John Kerry might have beaten George Bush in November if only he'd had:

(a) more time

(b) more family values

(c) more cowbell

If you answered (c), go to the head of the class -- and bang loudly on whatever's handy. Because although you'll never appear on ''Hardball," you're obviously hip to a phrase that's been ricocheting around pop-culture circles for half a decade now and shows no sign of fading away anytime soon.

It is a philosophical construct so profoundly silly that it has almost become profound.

''More cowbell" is the punch line to a ''Saturday Night Live" skit that originally aired five years ago this month. The guest host was Christopher Walken, and one of the skits spoofed VH1's ''Behind the Music" by imagining what happened when the 1970s band Blue Oyster Cult went into the studio to cut ''(Don't Fear) The Reaper," its best-known song.

Walken plays producer Bruce Dickinson, a preening rock ''legend" who turns hacks into hit-makers. Will Ferrell, who wrote the sketch, plays pseudo-Cult member Gene Frenkle, whose sole talent consists of beating on a cowbell with enough force to stun a bull elephant. Real-life BOC members are portrayed by SNL's Jimmy Fallon, Chris Parnell, Horatio Sanz, and Chris Kattan, none of whom can keep a straight face as Ferrell maniacally pounds away while prancing around with his belly hanging out of his shirt.

It's Walken, though, who steals the show by uttering the phrase that's achieved cult-worship status. ''I gotta have more cowbell!" he pleads when annoyed bandmates complain that enough is enough. In a bit of lunacy that would do ''This Is Spinal Tap" proud, a crazed Walken exclaims, ''Guess what? I've got a fever. And the only prescription is more cowbell."

How much more, you wonder?

Try T-shirts, hats, aprons, coffee mugs, posters, tote bags, and mousepads emblazoned with the slogan, plus innumerable ''Cowbell"-inspired websites and blogs. (A Google search of ''more cowbell" yields 338,000 entries, by last count.) There's a Rochester, N.Y., art-rock band named -- dudes, you rang? -- More Cowbell. There's a Boston University cyber-group known as the Committee for the Advancement of Cowbell, which claims more than 1,000 members. And there are individuals like Steve Scudder, a 44-year-old Kansas City resident, for whom more cowbell is never enough, clearly.

Scudder snuck up on his wife recently while she was working on the computer and let out a moan. Asked if he was feeling all right, he replied, ''No, hon. I've got a fever. And the only prescription is . . ."

All together now: MORE COWBELL!

''She collapsed in hysterics," Scudder says. Ah, those wild and crazy Midwesterners.

What makes the skit truly funny, according to Scudder, are three elements: the absurdity of the cowbell being so important to a cheesy rock song (it's heard on the real ''Reaper" track, by the way); Walken's deadpan delivery; and, the fact that the cast keeps cracking up, which viewers find hilarious, or so Scudder theorizes.

What exactly does ''more cowbell" mean? Nobody really knows. Or maybe they do. According to one posting on www.urbandictionary.com, the phrase signifies ''something everybody needs more of; a remedy." Another defines it as ''an element of music synonymous with more rocking." Whatever.

BU junior Cliff Whitehead, who's affiliated with the Cowbell Committee gang, says it's anyone's guess what it means.

''To me, it conjures more of an image than any specific meaning," Whitehead says, connecting the skit's popularity to Ferrell's growing movie stardom. A college-campus word-of-mouth (or file-sharing) phenomenon? ''Oh, definitely," he says.

Even cowbellers get the news. Walken himself has acknowledged the cultlike fame of his performance that night, telling the Orlando Sentinel last fall, ''It's been years, and all anybody brings up is 'cowbell.' "

BOC lead guitarist Donald Roeser (a.k.a. Buck Dharma), one of three original band members currently touring with the band, says bells are still ringing for him and his bandmates, too. Roeser did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment for this article. However, he recently told The Washington Post that he'd seen the SNL skit more than a dozen times and never tires of it. ''We're huge Christopher Walken fans," Roeser gushed.

Finally, there are the four University of Rochester students who needed a name for their band and impulsively chose More Cowbell. All four are SNL fans and Walken devotees, says bass player David Ladon. But the joke stops there.

''Ironically, we don't play any Blue Oyster Cult covers," says Ladon. ''Or use much cowbell, either."

Joseph P. Kahn can be reached at jkahn@globe.com.