# Origins of comic portrayal: suddenly poor = wearing a barrel **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 16, 2007, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296 "2007-04-16T03:52:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/1 "2007-04-16T03:52:21Z")
It used to be a common visual clue – a guy wearing a barrel held up with shoulder straps was poor, usually suddenly and unexpectedly, and often previously rich. (Click [here](http://www.dreamstime.com/manwearingabarrel-image580115) for a clip art pic). (One of my favorite examples was in _Spy_ magazine in the early 1990s when Donald Trump was undergoing financial problems: he wore a barrel, and Marla Maples wore a two-piece bikini barrel). My question: was this purely a comic invention (and if so, whose?), or was a barrel ever used by people who couldn’t afford clothes? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/2 "2007-04-16T05:07:59Z")
[QUOTE=F. U. Shakespeare] My question: was this purely a comic invention (and if so, whose?), or was a barrel ever used by people who couldn’t afford clothes? [/QUOTE] I’m not sure as to the specific answer, but I would bet that the barrel didn’t originally indicate being unable to afford clothes, but rather having lost money in a bet. I.e. you walk into a poker game and by the end of the night you’re kicked out, rolling in a barrel. Most probably the barrel was chosen so as to aid the mental image of someone being kicked out and rolling away on the ground, disgracefully. I’ve seen similar imagery in Japan, using a carpet to roll the person up rather than a barrel. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/3 "2007-04-16T05:32:55Z")
Here are a couple links to the same question at a column named ‘Stupid Questions’. The [first](http://archives.stupidquestion.net/sq102298.html) link asks the question Straight-Dope-style and doesn’t offer much of an answer. The [second](http://obscurearchives.stupidquestion.net/barrelwearing.html) link has the author revisiting the question and attributing it to newspaper cartoonist Will B. Johnstone from [here](http://archives.stupidquestion.net/sq102298.html). Oddly enough, the author then goes on to pontificate on the value his column in the internet age, extends that to all similar columns – including The Straight Dope in particular – and manages to squeeze out this line: > [@](#): > > And that’s about all “The Straight Dope” is now, an irrelevant, “Ask Jeeves”-type portal. ---
**Author:** ![Puzzler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d07c76/32.png) [@Puzzler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Puzzler)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/4 "2007-04-16T07:24:27Z")
WAG: it may be connected to [diogenes](http://www.in2greece.com/english/historymyth/history/ancient/diogenes.htm) who believed in the virtues of poverty, and who was [living in a barrel](http://www.kzu.ch/fach/as/material/Texte_philo/Diogenes/images_diog_01/diogenes.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/5 "2007-04-16T08:01:29Z")
[QUOTE=CaveMike] Oddly enough, the author then goes on to pontificate on the value his column in the internet age, extends that to all similar columns – including The Straight Dope in particular – and manages to squeeze out this line: > [@](#): > > And that’s about all “The Straight Dope” is now, an irrelevant, “Ask Jeeves”-type portal. [/QUOTE] Worse, he says that Cecil Adams is just a pseudonym, and not a real person. :mad: Nyah nyah nyah! I can’t hear you! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/6 "2007-04-16T09:57:34Z")
[QUOTE=CaveMike] Oddly enough, the author then goes on to pontificate on the value his column in the internet age, extends that to all similar columns – including The Straight Dope in particular [/QUOTE] Can’t help feeling there’s a touch of sour grapes in his comment there. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/7 "2007-04-16T11:53:24Z")
From the Edison catalog description of the short comic film [_The Interrupted Bathers_](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0379830/) (1902): > [@](#): > > Three girls are taking a bath in a quiet, shady spot along a beautiful stream. Another young lady in bathing attire reclines on the bank. The latter suddenly discovers two hoboes coming toward the bathers and immediately gives the alarm. They throw water over the hoboes, who gather up the clothes of the fair bathers and make off, compelling the bathers to walk home in barrels. In order to conceal themselves as much as possible they hold the barrels rather high. ---
**Author:** ![Puzzler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d07c76/32.png) [@Puzzler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Puzzler)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2007, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/8 "2007-04-16T12:14:06Z")
[QUOTE=CaveMike] Here are a couple links to the same question at a column named ‘Stupid Questions’. The [first](http://archives.stupidquestion.net/sq102298.html) link asks the question Straight-Dope-style and doesn’t offer much of an answer. The [second](http://obscurearchives.stupidquestion.net/barrelwearing.html) link has the author revisiting the question and attributing it to newspaper cartoonist Will B. Johnstone from [here](http://archives.stupidquestion.net/sq102298.html). Oddly enough, the author then goes on to pontificate on the value his column in the internet age, extends that to all similar columns – including The Straight Dope in particular – and manages to squeeze out this line: [/QUOTE] He also had the nerve to write: > [@](#): > > Cecil began barfing up this material like a search engine gone bonkers. And this comes from the same guy who produced the pseudo-answer in the first link you provided. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/9 "2007-04-17T14:20:43Z")
[QUOTE=F. U. Shakespeare] My question: was this purely a comic invention (and if so, whose?), or was a barrel ever used by people who couldn’t afford clothes? [/QUOTE] That’s the part that always puzzled me–you’d think a barrel would be more expensive than cheap clothes. Especially with those nifty shoulder straps. ---
**Author:** ![lizardling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@lizardling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizardling)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/10 "2007-04-18T01:01:53Z")
[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig] That’s the part that always puzzled me–you’d think a barrel would be more expensive than cheap clothes. Especially with those nifty shoulder straps. [/QUOTE] WAG: Rain barrels were commoner in ye olde days, so it might not have been that hard to knock the head off and slink off wearing the barrel in lieu of any handy laundry lines to rob. And… I’ve always understood it as being a) either too poor or b) unfortunately robbed. Both of which leave the unfortunate without a stitch to stand up in. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/11 "2007-04-18T02:39:10Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] Can’t help feeling there’s a touch of sour grapes in his comment there. [/QUOTE] Yeah, me too. The main page has more to support that [here](http://archives.stupidquestion.net/sqhistory.html). > [@](#): > > I began writing Stupid Question ™ in 1998 while on the staff of an alternative newspaper in Ohio. I, among other staffers, had suggested that we purchase the syndicated answer-man column “The Straight Dope.” When that turned out to be outrageously expensive, I suggested that I could write one instead. “Smart Answer” was my among my title suggestions; “Stupid Question” was my editor’s superior response. > > The column turned out to be not only cheaper than “Dope,” but had the extra benefits of actually being correct and not written by a staff of Google-powered interns. It was extremely popular. I was quickly deluged with hundreds of questions. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/12 "2007-04-18T03:01:03Z")
Heheheh, so I suppose if we wrote and asked him about the origin of the phrase “blowing one’s own trumpet”, he would know all about then then? 😃 He sounds like a real barrel of laughs. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/13 "2007-04-18T03:08:07Z")
Add in that during the Great Depresion they took everything in the foreclosure sale. I think that period added much to the image of wearing a barrel, because they were said to have even taken the clothes off your back. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2016, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/14 "2016-12-25T17:03:18Z")
I know we’ve done this several times, but this thread is the one that comes up in our wonderful search engine. > [@CaveMike](#): > > The [second](http://obscurearchives.stupidquestion.net/barrelwearing.html) link has the author revisiting the question and attributing it to newspaper cartoonist Will B. Johnstone from [here](http://archives.stupidquestion.net/sq102298.html). Will B. Johnstone was indeed a famed newspaper cartoonist but he wrote a million plays for Broadway and thereby got to write for the Marx Brothers, which makes him immortal. A new book, _Gimme a Thrill: The Story of I’ll Say She Is, the Lost Marx Brothers Musical and How It Was Found_, by Noah Diamond, naturally has a chapter on _I’ll Say She Is_, written by Johnstone. Diamond calls “the naked taxpayer in a barrel” his “signature creation.” If so, most of them are lost in old newspapers. I found a couple of crude examples online, [here](https://travsd.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/2.jpg)and [here](http://www.julienslive.com/images/lot/1849/184938_0.jpg). The Edison film, [The Interrupted Bathers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lsSLWZE6yQ), that Walloon cited is available on youtube. It packs a lot into its 46 seconds. Yes, the girls are swimming in a stream in their copious underclothing when the hoboes steal their outerwear. One walks off in a barrel. Where the barrel comes from is left to the viewer’s imagination. So Johnstone would be a popularizer and not a creator of the image, although applying it to the skint taxpayer couldn’t happen until after the income tax. He may have invented that iconic image. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2016, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/15 "2016-12-26T00:15:26Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I’m not sure as to the specific answer, but I would bet that the barrel didn’t originally indicate being unable to afford clothes, but rather having lost money in a bet. I.e. you walk into a poker game and by the end of the night you’re kicked out, rolling in a barrel. Most probably the barrel was chosen so as to aid the mental image of someone being kicked out and rolling away on the ground, disgracefully. > > I’ve seen similar imagery in Japan, using a carpet to roll the person up rather than a barrel. I don’t know about the rolling. But I could see an illicit poker game happening in a bar. And said bar having empty beer barrels sitting about since that’s how all beer was delivered in Ye Olden Dayes. So if somebody “lost his shirt” (and pants) in a poker game at the bar a barrel would be readily available as emergency backup clothing. Ditto if he got mugged; the other common thing that happens to _ingénues_ in and around such dens of iniquity. This is all conjecture on my part. But it seems a plausible idea that some cartoonist might come up with that the contemporary audience would immediately understand. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2016, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/16 "2016-12-26T03:54:56Z")
Coopers used to exist in large numbers, just about everywhere - oak was cheap and the corrugated cardboard box had yet to be invented. IOW: Barrels were used for packing just about everything. Within recent memory: Pickles Nails (actually, these were “Kegs” - small barrels) and yes, crackers (as in “Cracker Barrel”) So, just as you used to go to the back of the grocery store for boxes (before recycling) when you moved, anybody could find junk barrels. To update the image, use either a box or a plastic tub of some sort - things as common now as junked barrels were 100+ years ago. (how many had to look up “cooper”?) ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2016, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/17 "2016-12-26T05:02:59Z")
How much would a clothing-sized barrel weigh? ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2016, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/18 "2016-12-26T23:03:40Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > To update the image, use either a box or a plastic tub of some sort - things as common now as junked barrels were 100+ years ago. One of my favourite visual jokes- Wallace and Gromit [![](https://64.media.tumblr.com/98292b470081c81d533cdcabb8b8b8e9/tumblr_o7j6riMPvG1reys0to1_1280.jpg) ](https://64.media.tumblr.com/98292b470081c81d533cdcabb8b8b8e9/tumblr_o7j6riMPvG1reys0to1_1280.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2016, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/19 "2016-12-27T06:44:10Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > One of my favourite visual jokes- Wallace and Gromit > [Katie Sandow's tumblr: Image](http://67.media.tumblr.com/98292b470081c81d533cdcabb8b8b8e9/tumblr_o7j6riMPvG1reys0to1_1280.jpg) Wensleydale? The “Bathers” reference reminds me of the joke about the Oxford students skinny-dipping in the river when a boatload of young ladies comes around the bend. Several of the men of course, cover their lower parts with their hands. one simply covers his face with his hands, and hangs out _au naturel._ Once the ladies are gone, they ask him why he did that. He responds “I don’t know about how you fellows are identified, but around here, I’m known by my face.” I assume the barrel thing simply refers to the fact there was always a barrel lying around at the turn of the century. It would be the most convenient cover until cardboard boxes came along. ---
**Author:** ![SpeedwayRyan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@SpeedwayRyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpeedwayRyan)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2016, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296/20 "2016-12-27T14:32:56Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > (how many had to look up “cooper”?) Not giving the average Doper very much credit at all, are we? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origins-of-comic-portrayal-suddenly-poor-wearing-a-barrel/400296.md?page=2)