Posted on 12/10/2002 6:32:55 AM PST by PJ-Comix
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Have you ever heard of the Shmoo? You can be forgiven your ignorance on this subject since the Shmoo made its brief appearance in the newspaper comics pages over fifty years ago.
The Shmoo was the creation of cartoonist Al Capp in his popular Li'l Abner strip. With much fanfare Capp introduced the Shmoo in August 1948 and for the rest of the year the world went Shmoo crazy.
This creature inspired hundreds of Shmoo clubs all over North America as well as the "Society for the Advancement of the Shmoo." There were dozens of Shmoo products including Shmoo greeting cards, balloons, dolls, toys, jai-alai paddles, belts, suspenders, dairy goods, fountain pens, earrings, neckties, ashtrays, plant holders, soap, and curtains to name just a few. A garment factory in Baltimore turned out a line of Shmoo clothes including Shmooveralls.
The people of 1948 danced to the Shmoo Rhumba and the Shmoo Polka. The Shmoo entered our everyday language through such phrases as "What's Shmoo?" and "Happy Shmoo Year!" The best selling book, "The Life and Times of the Shmoo," was devoured by the reading public. Al Capp was even invited to go on a radio show to debate socialist Norman Thomas on the effect of the Shmoo on modern capitalism. Meanwhile in Germany, the commanders of the Berlin Airlift cabled Capp requesting a dozen inflatible Shmoos to be dropped from transport planes into Berlin as part of "Operation Little Vittles."
By now you are probably wondering why all the fuss over the Shmoo. Well, let me describe the Shmoo. It was a lovable bowling pin-shaped whiskered creature. The Shmoo yielded milk, eggs, cheesecake, and just about anything else you might desire. Shmoo meat when roasted was pork, when broiled it was steak, and when fried it was chicken. The eyes of a Shmoo made good suspender buttons and its whiskers made fine toothpicks. The skin when cut thin served as high quality cloth, cut thick it was leather, and cut in strips it became boards for housing.
Since the Shmoo was fast breeding and lived on practically nothing, it provided for almost all of society's needs. It turned out to be too much of a good thing. The Shmoos gave people all that they desired so the characters of Capp's comic strip quit their jobs. As a result of their indolence, civilization declined. Capp, himself sick of the Shmoo, finally dropped it from his strip early in 1949.
Lot of good memories!
But, no Colonel Hoople? We used to kid my granddaddy because he looked exactly like the Colonel.
Colonel Hoople shoulda been Major.
Who could have know then that one of their evil twins would go on to serve 2 terms as POTUS ('92-'00)Nope. I thought it resembled a walking you-know-what too.Am I the only one to notice the resemblance?
-Eric
Your wish is my command.
BTW, I don't recall the strip, but I found out yesterday that there was a character in it by the name of "Martha Hoople." Now that explains the name of the minor early-'70s band, "Mott the Hoople." I had always thought it was just nonsense sounds, but apparently it's a play on "Martha Hoople." Anyone recall the name of Mott the Hoople's big hit? A: "All the Young Dudes." I really liked that song, back when I was a young dude myself.
Of course, there is Willard Manus' novel Mott The Hoople, which inspired the name, from 1966. . . .
So just what is a hoople? And what is a Mott the Hoople? Mott the Hoople is the character in a 1960s novel by Willard Manus. A "hoople" is a hobo or a buffoon. Guy Stevens, the band's producer and mentor during the Island years, was serving time in jail for a drug offense. While in jail, he met a young man serving time for a similar offense. That man was reading a novel called Mott the Hoople. Shortly thereafter, the man died, but the title Mott the Hoople stuck in Stevens' mind. . . .
So the band got the name from the title of the book. But I'm wondering if the book's author, Willard Manus, did not have name of the comic strip character at least in the back of his mind, subconsciously, when he came up with the title. Sounds too close to be coincidental. The common link, of course--which undoubtedly predates the comic strip, the book, and the band--is this word "hoople." Perhaps the originator of the strip used that word as a name for comic effect.
I found out that one of my college drawing instructors was published in some old underground rag. He was a friend of "Foolbert Sturgeon" ("Adventures of Jesus")- who I later met - AND the infamous (and RICH) Gilbert Sheldon ("Freak Brothers").
Anymore, these days, I'm learning a new appreciation for the early MAD artists (who probably started it all). And I'm also now inspired to look at some of the old Abner strips. Capp was a good artist too (and even had Frank Frazetta work w/ him).
I know The Shmoo from Lucky Number Sleven and Morgan Freeman’s line about The Shmoo ... which peaked my interest.
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