My sister is 43 and when I commented to her yesterday about the ads a local candidate (Mary Jo Kilroy) is running on TV, I mentioned that Kilroy is using the little Kilroy picture. My sister says she has never encountered either “Kilroy was here” or the graffito. My 45-year-old husband and my 35-year-old self both boggle at that, but perhaps we are the unusual ones.
So, are you familiar with “Kilroy was here” and the accompanying cartoon/graffito?
If so, where did/do you encounter it? (I first remember it from Bugs Bunny.)
I am 40, I cannot remember not knowing about Kilroy. I remember seeing it in movies and Looney Tunes likes you mentioned. I still remember seeing it on walls in school.
Kilroy was a WWI /Korean war icon. It’s supposed to have originated w/ a shipyard inspecter and was soon adopted by G.I.'s and then made it’s way into the American culture. In the 40’s and 50’s you might see the little drawing almost anywhere. My dad and a service buddy started a business after the war. My dad’s partner visited our hose one day when no one was home, he was a practical joker and thought it would be funny to leave Kilroy messages around the house. They were in kit. cabinets, the bathroom medicine cabinet and even in my mother’s dresser drawers. My mom was furious. I think dad found it funny, until he went to smoke his pipe. The guy had cut rubber bands into tiny pieces and put them into my dad’s tobacco tin.I’m just shy of 68 and I remember it well.
My father said that he saw the Kilroy picture in South America during World War II.
He was a radioman onboard a sub-chaser that was in port in Chile for a few days. On shore leave he went sight-seeing to the “Christ of the Andes” on the border of Chile and Argentina.
He says that on the base of the statue, someone had drawn the Kilroy picture, and underneath had written “Kilroy pasa por aqui” which I don’t think is quite the normal “Kilroy was here”, but that’s what he said he saw.
This would have been in about 1944 or so. It was very well known then.
I am 23 and I’ve known about it since I was a teenager at the very least. I don’t remember where I saw it first and can’t say that I recall seeing it lately, though, so I can easily imagine someone might not be familiar with it.
Ok, I will be the doofus. I am 33 and I know about the story basically from Cecil but I am not sure what the drawings are and I don’t remember them from TV cartoons either. I just know it in an academic way and have never noticed anything about Kilroy in real life.
I’m a 44-year-old Englishman, and I’ve known of “Kilroy was here” and the Chad character since I was a small child. It wasn’t until some time later, in my late teens probably, that I first saw them together – and then from an American source (it may well have been Bugs Bunny, or something similar).
I think that in the UK, Chad (if remembered at all) is still mostly associated with “Wot? No …?”
It’s interesting – I only became aware of Kilroy a few days ago, and already there’s a discussion about it. But if I hadn’t learned about it, I probably would have overlooked this thread and continued on with my life blissfully unaware of that piece of graffito.
Oh, God, Neil, you’re such a killjoy, aren’t you? Hey, everyone, I’ll bet I know what Neil writes in public lavatories. [scribbles in the air] Look out, Killjoy was here! - Ric, The Young Ones, ‘Summer Holiday’
I became aware of it in 1983 with the release of the Styx album “Kilroy was Here”. That is also where I became aware of the phrase “Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto”.
In what will probably be a futile attempt to dispel ignorance, in WWII (in which I served toward the end), “Kilroy Was Here” was just about everywhere there was a flat surface on which to write.
However, only those words appeared. It was an entirely different thing where the little guy looking over the fence was drawn. He was not Kilroy, but SMOE. Usually he appeared alone, but sometimes “SMOE” was written underneath. I don’t know what the hell that stood for.
It’s probably far too late to separate the two now, alas. Anyhoo, I’m 79.
