I’m referring to Dilbert Groundloop, a WW2 character who was the epitome of everything a pilot shouldn’t do. Here’s a training film based on the character:
Great find! I really enjoy old training videos like this.
Probably connected to the “Dilbert dunker,” a pilot escape trainer, which I found referenced in a 1960s novel about the aircraft industry.
When Scott Adams first drew the character on his poster board at work, he held a “Name The Nerd” contest. Several co-workers wrote suggestions, but Adams didn’t think they seemed right. Then someone wrote “Dilbert,” and Adams declared :It wasn’t like Dilbert was getting a name, it’s like we were finding out what his name was.
Later, it turned out the co-worker’s father had been in the Navy during WW2 and probably had heard of Dilbert Groundloop.
Along the same lines, I saw theseWWII era posters at the Warhawk Air Museum* in Nampa, ID. They put a different spin on it…if you don’t pay attention, the enemy will cheer at the resulting accidents.
*a great museum–not a lot of aircraft, but a huge collection of ephemera donated by local servicemen and their families.
I’ve been watching YouTube videos of old Private Snafu army films. Yesterday I ran across “Booby Traps”, and was surprised to hear a familiar piano tune:
The RAF had a similar way of teaching important flight safety lessons, Pilot Officer Prune:
While this obviously post-dates the WWII films, there was a scene in Bloom County in which a cockroach insults Opus with the term “Dilbert”, and it definitely pre-dates the debut of Scott Adams’s character. The name was clearly in circulation.
“Don’t do what Donny Don’t does”
At a pizza place I worked in college (mid-80s) a bunch of us dressed up for Halloween. One guy came dressed as a nerd and he had a name tag that said “Dilbert”. This was a few years before the comic strip.
Replacement for extinct link:
Now this is a safety video.
