Calling all Pogo fans, and others familiar with Fort Mudge

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Walt Kelly’s classic comic strip, Pogo© graced the pages of numerous daily papers from around 1949 until after his death in 1973. Rich with humor, Pogo© was a forerunner of strips such as Doonesbury© in that Kelly took on political figures of the time, including Senator Joseph McCarthy, Vice President Spiro Agnew, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, creating caricatures whose speech and mannerisms were dead ringers for the person being spoofed.

Many have heard the mangled Christmas carol, Deck us all with Boston Charlie, Walla Walla, Wash., an’ Kalamazoo sung by Albert, Pogo, Churchy, Howland, and Porkypine, yet might not know the origin (or all the verses) of this swamp inspired sonnet.

What other Dopers are also Pogo fans?

2

Arise, us wimmen are revolting!

We have met the enemy and they is us!

3

If I could only write, I’d send a letter to the mayor, if he could only read.

God is not dead. He is merely unemployed.

By George Y. Wells, Porky, you never forgets.

And of course:

Friday the thirteenth comes on a [Tuesday] this month.

Yes, I’m a big fan.

4

I Go Pogo. My mother still has the original early 1950s Pogo books she bought new–wonder if they’re worth anything?

5

Originals are likely collector’s items. All of my Pogo books are eBay purchases.

Mayhaps you has the makings of a champeen amateur.

6

“Those who cannot dismember the past are content to repeal it.”

7

“Don’t take life so serious, son–it ain’t nohow permanent.”

And that Ma’m’selle Hepzibah…what a hottie!

8

“We have met the Enemy, and He is Us.”

They reprinted the books in hardcover. I have a set, NYAH-HYAH! :stuck_out_tongue:

9

“What are you doing?” (asked to somebody marching down the street beating a drum)
“Weaving a raffia basket.”

10

Ah - my grandmother introduced me to Pogo and his swamp pals - we’d read them aloud & every character had a different voice. ::sniff::

I’ve got about a 1/2 dozen of the books - mostly reprints. I’ve even found a couple of plastic figurines & mugs…

I always kinda identified with Porky… SMEERP!

11

Part of what I love about Kelly was his sense of civic duty, as evidenced in this 1951 strip supporting the March of Dimes:

Rackety-Coon Chile: H’Lo Alabaster Alligator, Uncle Pogo guv me a whole penny to guv to the Polio-Margereen Drive.

Alabaster Alligator: Is a penny much?

Rackety: ‘Course it’s much! Uncle Pogo says if ev’y man, woman, an’ tad in the country guv out a penny, we’d have ‘bout a million and’ a half dollars.

Alabaster: My sakes, does growed folks git messed up with polio?

Rackety: One of Pogo’s best growed friends did…all us swamp critturs loved him somethin’ fierce!

Alabaster: Wisht I had a penny to help out. But all Uncle Albert had was a paper picture of George Washington.

Rackety: Don’t you care, Alabaster. You slip the paper into the box when nobody lookin’ an’ us will tell 'em the penny’s from both of us.

Alabaster: Thank you, Rackety Coon-Chile.

12

Ah certingly do miss Mr. Walt Kelly. Yes, sir. I do. There will never be another. Never. At least two board names on the SDMB come from Pogo (rowrbazzle and fitzrowrr) Perhaps three (is there a Miss Ma’mselle Hepsibah?) Actually, 'possum starts with an “o.”

13

i fondly remember the names on the side of the skiff they poled thru the swamp.
I’m sitting here with about 8 volumes of Pogo that I bought when I was a wee bit younger. Some at the time, some at the Intimate Bookshop in Chapel Hill in the 60’s. The most I have invested is about $1./volume. Envy me.
:smiley:

14

Oh, where is my darlin’, my Betty Blue Eye?
Always a-snarlin’ and fightin’ with pie.

Howland to Churchy: You should get your head examined.
Churchy: What for? They examined it and didn’t find a thing.

Pogo to Albert: You been in bed for three days. What’s the problem?
Albert: Well, the main thing is I can’t reach the cookie jar.

Octopots done got me!

Miz Beaver: I mind the time me and the mister got hitched. Land! Hootin’ and hollowin’ was a dime a dozen. They wasn’t a dry eye in the house, mostly because the sheriffs waded in with the tear gas.

Bird (trying unsuccessfully to migrate north) to Pogo and Albert: Which way is north, sirs?

Albert (pointing away): That way.

Pogo: What? Where’s south, then?

Albert (pointing at the ground): RIGHT HERE!!! RIGHT HERE!!!

15

“We will have peace at home and honor abroad.”

Mr. Miggle: Amen! Whose this we gonna’ honor?

16

Bumbazine should be checking in anytime now . . .

17

Close. Australian Opossums start with “o”.

N.America just has Possums.

Pogo collections were the books my Mother used when she was teaching me to read.

I was the only kid in the Logan Square neighborhood with a Georgia accent!

“New Clear fizzics ain’t so new, and they ain’t so clear.”:smiley:

18

Not to brag, but I have a cmplete set of Pogo books AND a set of 8 Pogo figures…they are in a rubbery material and about 4 - 6 inches tall and in living color.

I’ve never seen any others. We (my brother and I) got them as young teenagers and serious Pogo fans, but I can’t remember where we found them.

If you know anything about this sort of figure, please post.

19

Figures were given away as a sort of prize in boxes of laundry detergent. Also, a large number were given as sets to newspaper publishers, who inturn either gave them away , used them as contest prizes, or raffled them off for charity.

20

Bos was commenting on my statement that "Actually, 'possum starts with an ‘o’. " I should have used quote marks the first time, as I was quoting Pogo himself. All opossums are really spelled that way, regardless of passport ('cept for George Jones.) Some say :wink: that’s because they’re all Irish by ancestry.

I feel a little sheepish about this exchange. I don’t usually correct spelling. I was only quoting Pogo, and got misunderstood. Ree-dicklewockle.:o