# Racist names, memes, and depictions in 1960s-70s comics **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 3, 2021, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201 "2021-03-03T14:12:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/1 "2021-03-03T14:12:41Z")
This is inspired by the recent thread I started on the decision to withdraw six Dr. Seuss books from publication. The gist of that was that the books in question – published from 1937 to the 1960s – had depictions of Chinese, Middle Eastern, African, and other people that are, to modern eyes, grossly unacceptable stereotypes. They have been all along, of course, but they weren’t seen that way when originally published. There has been a lot of “consciousness-raising” since then, with more cionsideration given to the attitudes of others and the way these things look to those who were not the intended audience. That these caricatures weren’t intended to be insulting is true, but the point is that they are, of course. What surprises me is how similarly racist cartoons and comic books in the 1960s were, when I was growing up. And were just as blithely accepted, at least at first. not always, though. The Pillsbury Funny Face Drink characters Chinese Cherry and Injun Orange were almost immediately protested, and soon changed to Choo Choo Cherry and Jolly Olly Orange. > **[Funny Face and Crazy Horse beverages](http://newspaperrock.bluecorncomics.com/2012/04/funny-face-and-crazy-horse-beverages.html)** > > From Slavery to Raspberry-Flavored Indians: America’s Obsession With Stereotypes By Julianne Jennings By the ‘60s racist products began to... > **[Funny Face (drink mix)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funny_Face_(drink_mix))** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Funny Face was a brand of powdered drink mix originally made and publicly sold by the Pillsbury Company\[A\] from 1964 to 1994, and in limited productions (mainly in the Midwestern and New England regions of the U.S.A.) from 1994 to 2001. The brand was introduced as competition to the similar (and more familiar and better-selling) Kool-Aid made by Kraft Foods. The product came in assorted flavors sweetened with artificial sweetener,\[B\] and was mixed... Similarly, the Frito Bandito was replaced by W.C. Fritos, but not until he’d been around for a few years. > **[Frito Bandito](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frito_Bandito)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > The Frito Bandito was the cartoon mascot for Fritos corn chips from 1967 to 1971. The Bandito was created by the Foote, Cone & Belding Agency and animated by Tex Avery. The character was voiced by Mel Blanc, who used an exaggerated Mexican accent not unlike another character of his, Speedy Gonzales. The Frito Bandito spoke broken English and robbed people of their Fritos corn chips, a reference to the "Mexican bandit" stereotype in Western movi... What I’m thinking about were mainstream comics, which got away with surprisingly racist images. Consider Detective Comics 383 from 1969: > **[Detective Comics Vol 1 383](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Detective_Comics_Vol_1_383)** > > "Batman: "The Fortune-Cookie Caper!"": A message in a fortune cookie leads Batman and Robin to a pearl-smuggling racket in a Chinese bakery. Detective Comics #383 is an issue of the series Detective Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of January,... The interior art is similar. There’s an Adventures of Jerry Lewis 103 from 1967 in which Jerry Lewis meets Genghis Khan (Really. Well, it turns out he just _thinks_ he’s Genghis Khan…) that is similarly embarassing today. The cover doesn’t show this, but the interior art is pretty damning. The punch line at the end is “You round-eyed guys all look alike to me!” Jerry Lewis himself doesn’t deserve any flak for this – he simply licensed his name and image to DC, and the comic book had been coming out since the early 1950s. > **[Adventures of Jerry Lewis Vol 1 103](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Adventures_of_Jerry_Lewis_Vol_1_103)** > > "Somebody Stole Our School!": The synopsis for this issue has not yet been written. Adventures of Jerry Lewis #103 is an issue of the series Adventures of Jerry Lewis (Volume 1) with a cover date of November, 1967. It was published on September 14,... Green Lantern had a character named “Pieface”, who was Hal Jordan’s confidante and knew his secret identity. He was an Inuit (they called him “Eskimo”, of course), but he was colored school bus yellow, and I didn’t know “pieface” was a racial slur against mainly Asian people. I’d never heard it used before, but I knew it didn’t sound like a good thing. [http://www.thegeektwins.com/2011/05/controversy-over-hal-jordans-buddy.html](http://www.thegeektwins.com/2011/05/controversy-over-hal-jordans-buddy.html) > **[Thomas Kalmaku](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kalmaku)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Thomas "Pieface" Kalmaku is a fictional character, a supporting character associated with Green Lantern in comic books published by DC Comics. He was created by writer John Broome and penciler Gil Kane. > Thomas Kalmaku was introduced in Green Lantern vol. 2, #2 (Oct. 1960) as a young Inuk mechanic at Ferris Aircraft, also the employer of test pilot Hal Jordan. In the Silver Age he was referred to as Pieface; however, this has not been used for som... Another DC character was Chop-Chop, the Chinese member of the Blackhawk team. It bothered me that he was a.) much shorter and b.) dressed in a completely different costume than the rest of the Blackhawks. And he didn’t seem to have his own plane. Apparently his real name was Wu Cheng, but I don’t recall reading that in the omics > **[Wu Cheng (Earth-One)](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Wu_Cheng_(Earth-One))** > > Wu Cheng was a young Chinese pilot and member of the Blackhawk Squadron. For some time, Wu Cheng served in his civilian clothes as part of this unit such as in undercover missions. However, after some time, he grew dissatisfied with his implicitly... It’s a good thing I didn’t know how he was drawn in the earlier days – he was an outright ridiculous comic sidekick [![](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackhawk_(DC_Comics)#/media/File:Chopchop-crandall.jpg) ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackhawk_(DC_Comics)#/media/File:Chopchop-crandall.jpg) > **[Blackhawk (DC Comics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackhawk_(DC_Comics))** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Blackhawk is the eponymous fictional character of the long-running comic book series Blackhawk first published by Quality Comics and later by DC Comics. Primarily created by Chuck Cuidera with input from both Bob Powell and Will Eisner, the Blackhawk characters first appeared in Military Comics #1 (August 1941). > Led by a mysterious man known as Blackhawk, the Blackhawks (or more formally, the Blackhawk Squadron) are a small team of World War II-e... Then there was “Cholly” (obviously “Charlie” with the stereotypical “Chinese accent”, Mr. Magoo’s “houseboy” in some cartoons and in the syndicated comic strip: > A “Houseboy” of Asian ancestry must have been a West Coast thing, because Mr. Gregg (John Forsythe) had one on the TV show _Bachelor Father_ > **[Sammee Tong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammee_Tong)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > Sammee Tong (April 21, 1901 – October 27, 1964) was an American film and television character actor. One of Tong's more notable roles was that of Peter Tong on the sitcom Bachelor Father, which aired on all three national networks from 1957 to 1962. > Born in San Francisco, Tong lived in Palo Alto before moving with his family to Honolulu. He graduated from Stanford University. It always seemed weird to me as a kid. I didn’t know anyone who had a “houseboy”, and all of these “boys” seemed to be grown men. The term apparently originated in the British Empire for a native servant, not necessarily a boy > **[Houseboy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houseboy)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > A houseboy (alternatively spelled as houseboi) was a term which referred to a typically male domestic worker or personal assistant who performed cleaning and other forms of personal chores. The term has a record of being used in the British Empire, military slang, and the male LGBT community. > Historically, houseboy was a term used in the British Empire for a male domestic servant. He was usually, but not always, a native person who worked for a ... You can say that one of the main issues with such stereotypes is that they normalize such depictions and make them acceptable to the audiences. But what strikes me is that at least two of these cases – Chop Chop the odd Blackhawk and “houseboys” – struck me as particularly odd and definitely not normal. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/2 "2021-03-03T14:27:28Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > {…} Jerry Lewis himself doesn’t deserve any flak for this {…} But for this on the other hand… [![](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8k7m4e2TYeU/ScMEQjrvrTI/AAAAAAAACjY/-ZCDE52f7g0/s280/Benihana.bmp) ](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8k7m4e2TYeU/ScMEQjrvrTI/AAAAAAAACjY/-ZCDE52f7g0/s280/Benihana.bmp) From the 1981 ‘comedy’ _Hardly Working,_ starring Mr. Lewis. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/3 "2021-03-03T14:36:40Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > But for this on the other hand… Oh, great. I’d never seen that one. I have vague memories of his film **The Geisha Boy** , about which I couldn’t recall anything objectionable. But that may be my memory papering over bad recollections. > **[The Geisha Boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geisha_Boy)** > > The Geisha Boy is a 1958 American comedy film starring Jerry Lewis, distributed by Paramount Pictures. Filmed from June 16 to August 7, 1958, it had its first screening in New York City on December 19, 1958. This motion picture featured the film debut of Suzanne Pleshette. > Gilbert "The Great" Wooley is a down-on-his-luck magician who has been invited to entertain GIs on a USO tour in Japan. However, even before his flight from Los Angeles has taken off the ground, he unwittingly – and with so... ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/4 "2021-03-03T14:39:59Z")
To be fair, no one had really heard of racist stereotypes in the 80s. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/5 "2021-03-03T14:42:01Z")
Interesting comment on _The Geisha Boy_, although I guess this guy never saw _Hardly Working_, either > [@](#): > > Not only does Jerry find his footing with a finely-tuned balance between drama and comedy – something he was striving for in his last three solo pictures – he also stops being racist! (Since his second film in 1950, Jerry has regularly done a “Japanese guy” impersonation with buck teeth, squinty eyes and gibberish Japanese. That character reached an apex of hilarity in [LIVING IT UP](https://www.poffysmoviemania.com/living-it-up) (yet we modernaires can sense its inherent racism). Matter of fact, Jerry breaks out Japanese Guy in his film prior to this one, [ROCK-A-BYE BABY](https://www.poffysmoviemania.com/rock-a-bye-baby). With GEISHA BOY set in Japan, Jerry experiences firsthand what a noble, respectable, honorable people the Japanese are, and – in a movie where he might have ample opportunity – never breaks out Japanese Guy. And he never would again! [https://www.poffysmoviemania.com/geisha-boy/](https://www.poffysmoviemania.com/geisha-boy/) So there’s plenty of racist Japanese depictions in Jerry Lewis movies. Just not this one. Good to know. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/6 "2021-03-03T14:43:39Z")
> What surprises me is how similarly racist cartoons and comic books in the 1960s were, when I was growing up. And were just as blithely accepted, at least at first. The Spirit was my first introduction to an artist intentionally designing a page, but even as a kid I cringed a bit at his [cab driver](https://pencilpanelpage.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/ebonywhite.jpeg) sidekick, [Ebony White](https://comicvine1.cbsistatic.com/uploads/original/0/9541/1498077-113_1.jpg). [Here’s](https://waitwhatpod.tumblr.com/post/95132482664/will-eisner-addresses-accusations-that-ebony-white/amp) a later justification of Ebony by Will Eisner. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/7 "2021-03-03T15:26:42Z")
“The Dick Tracy Show”, a cartoon show that barely even featured Dick Tracy, was apparently chock full of racist stereotypes. I remembered Joe Jitsu but had forgotten many of the other characters listed. > **[The Dick Tracy Show](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dick_Tracy_Show)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > The Dick Tracy Show is an American animated television series based on Chester Gould's comic strip crime fighter. The series was produced from 1961 to 1962 by UPA. > In the show, policeman Dick Tracy employed a series of cartoony subordinate flatfoots to fight crime each week, contacting them on his two-way wristwatch radio. Tracy himself hardly appeared on the show at all. The opening was designed so that local TV hosts dressed as policemen could ... ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/8 "2021-03-03T15:38:53Z")
Ebony is definitely a problem. The problem was that cartoonists used a standard image for a black person, even if they didn’t intend to demean them. Eisner (who knew something about being an outsider in America) gave him a personality and the Spirit treated him as an equal, but the image overwhelms the characterization. That infamous _Dennis the Menace_ comic that introduced his Black friend also used the same style in 1970, by which time the offensiveness of it should have been well-known to Ketcham. _Have Gun Will Travel_ had a Chinese bellboy named “Hey Boy.”\*\* The name came from the radio show before the TV series. He was given the name Kim Chan partway through the first season. \*Probably because that was how any guest would address a bellboy. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/9 "2021-03-03T17:15:52Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > “The Dick Tracy Show”, a cartoon show that barely even featured Dick Tracy, was apparently chock full of racist stereotypes. I remembered Joe Jitsu but had forgotten many of the other characters listed. Yep. I remember those. Joe Jitsu and Go-Go-Gomez were the relevant parties (I don’t think any UK people ever complained about being represented by Hemlock Holmes, a literal British Bulldog. But that’s a completely different situation). On the plus side, they were positive role models (they were policemen! They successfully caught crooks!) On the other, they were outrageously racist in appearance. “go Go Gomez” was, like Speedy Gonzales, a sort of anti-stereotype, since he was quick, but that ironically reinforces the actual stereotype of the slow-moving, procrastinating _latinx._. When they tried to run these cartoons around the time the Disney **Dick Tracy** movie came out, there was an immediate uproar and they had to take them off the air. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/10 "2021-03-03T18:09:23Z")
Some of these fit your time range. > **[The 16 Most Politically Incorrect Comic Book Characters Ever](https://www.ranker.com/list/politically-incorrect-comic-book-characters/erik-barnes)** > > Like all media, comic books aren't free of prejudice and discrimination. While there has been social progress in comic books, you can't ignore its history. Over the years there have been offensive comics and racist comic book characters that... ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/11 "2021-03-03T18:38:41Z")
Those characters span the range of comic books, but, yeah, some of them are from the 60s (or nearby). **Egg Fu** is not just racist – it’s also one of the most stupid villains ever introduced. I was embarrassed for Wonder Woman when the character first appeared, thinking “This is just too dumb to be believed” . Having him (it?) talk in that l-in-place-of-r racist dialect just put it over the top. **The Mandarin** was Iron Man’s chief Bad Guy for a long time. He’s sort of Fu Manchu as a more hands-on supervillain, but I submit that his chief offenses (as a stereotype, not as a supervillain) were being Chinese and using the name “Mandarin” . He wasn’t originally a martial artist, and his ten power rings came from a crashed alien space ship\* I don’t recall them using any other stereotypes in his background. If he’d been a guy named Fred who found the rings aboard a space ship that crashed in Schenectady he wouldn’t even be listed here. **The Ancient One** – well, yeah, he’s a walking (or levitating) stereotype. “Eastern Mystic Master” as a spiritual guru from whom you could learn esoteric knowledge not available elsewhere was a trope long before comic books. look at Helena Blavatsky and the Theosophists. L. ron Hubbard claimed to have learned from Tibetan mystics. Dr. Doom retreated to the Himalayas and forged his Darth Vader-inspiring armor among a bunch of monks there. At least it’s not a negative stereotype. Which I admit, doesn’t excuse it. **Luke Cage** ( and **Black Mariah** ) – Yeah, he came around as a result of blaxploitation movies like _Shaft_. No argument there. The problem was that you had a bunch of white comic book creators trying to figure out what to do with the character and have him still be credible 9at least as credible as comic book characters are). If you want another example of this, have a look at the issues of **Black Panther** that Jack Kirby wrote and drew in the 1970s. It’s a good thing that te-Nehisi Coates later wrote the character. \*Where would super-heroes and -villains be without fortuitous alien spaceships? That’s where Hal Jordan got his power ring, the Mandarin got his TEN power rings, and a lot of villains in the MCU – like the Vulture – get theirs. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/12 "2021-03-03T18:54:46Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > \*Where would super-heroes and -villains be without fortuitous alien spaceships? That’s where Hal Jordan got his power ring, the Mandarin got his TEN power rings, and a lot of villains in the MCU – like the Vulture – get theirs. It is where Power Pack got their powers from [Albino Bojack Borseman](https://www.google.com/search?q=Power+pack+whitey&client=firefox-b-1-m&channel=ts&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNsIvf5ZTvAhVsQt8KHSlOCTgQ_AUIBigB&biw=432&bih=782). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/13 "2021-03-03T18:59:02Z")
Oh, yeah – what’s the **Hate Monger** doing in with that group? He was deliberately created as a villain who stirred up hate, especially against different ethnic or cultural groups. He had a hate gun that helped, but we’ve had plenty of examples of this in real life. of _course_ he’s a villain, and an undoubted and indefensible one. His entire existence is politically incorrect, but, for cryin’ out loud, that’s the _point!_ And what’s this “clone of Adolph Hitler” nonsense. That must be a recent retcon. In his original appearance (where he gets killed), he IS Adolph Hitler. Or possibly one of his doubles (in which case it was a double whose body was in that Berlin bunker). It’s not like this idea sprang out of thin air – it was used in one of the original _Twilight Zone_ episodes (“He’s Alive”, broadcast January 24, 1963 [He's Alive - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He%27s_Alive) ). That’s almost a year before Fantastic Four # 21, so if one of them copied from the other, it’s the comic book. All they did was put a KKK-esque pointy hood on his head. [Hate-Monger - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate-Monger) ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/14 "2021-03-03T19:36:35Z")
Yellow Claw dates from the 1950s, but he was certainly around to offend racial and other sensibilities in the Marvel Universe in the '60s and '70s: > **[Strange Tales Vol 1 161](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Strange_Tales_Vol_1_161)** > > Featured Characters: Nick Fury Supporting Characters: 🢐 Captain America 🢒 Thing Mister Fantastic 🢐 Jimmy Woo 🢒 Antagonists: Yellow Claw 🢒 (robot) Henchmen Other Characters S.H.I.E.L.D. Suwan 🢒 (robot) (First appearance)... > **[Captain America Vol 1 165](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Captain_America_Vol_1_165)** > > Featured Characters: Falcon (Sam Wilson) 🢐 Captain America (Steve Rogers) 🢒 Supporting Characters: S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury (Apparent death) Sharon Carter Numerous unnamed Agents Peggy Carter Leila Taylor Antagonists: Yellow Claw Yellow... Still, pretty hard to top Chop-Chop in this regard. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/15 "2021-03-03T20:05:03Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > **The Mandarin** was Iron Man’s chief Bad Guy for a long time. He’s sort of Fu Manchu as a more hands-on supervillain, but I submit that his chief offenses (as a stereotype, not as a supervillain) were being Chinese and using the name “Mandarin” . He wasn’t originally a martial artist, and his ten power rings came from a crashed alien space ship\* I don’t recall them using any other stereotypes in his background. If he’d been a guy named Fred who found the rings aboard a space ship that crashed in Schenectady he wouldn’t even be listed here. He was a bit incoherent; he was a literal mandarin who was also somehow an agent or at least ally of Communist China (I believe that got dropped later, but somewhere I’ve got an old issue of _Iron Man_ where the Mandarin’s flunkies are PLA soldiers). But that’s because, like Fu Manchu and the Yellow Claw, he was an embodiment of the [Yellow Peril](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril) trope. I think since the 90s if not earlier he’s been portrayed as a _criminal_ mastermind who just happens to be Chinese, but his earlier appearances I think he was often portrayed as scheming to undermine “the West”, and not in a “he’s kind of got a point” way, but in a “Asians are scheming bastards who pose an existential threat to us” way. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/16 "2021-03-04T03:23:29Z")
I came in here to mention this one. I watched it as a kid. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/17 "2021-03-04T22:53:45Z")
I’ve had a lot of discussions of this subject, starting in fifth grade (“Ebony? Pieface? Are you SERIOUS?”) while we drank our Chinese Cherry, Injun Orange… _and_ Goofy Grape who, with his Napoleon hat, made fun of the mentally ill. And by seventh grade, we’d figured out the over-arching problem: **comics were written by old white guys** (“old” being over twenty-five to us). That’s why so many characters looked and clearly spoke “off”. Any attempt at minorities would use cliché speech… and _“teens”,_ especially “delinquents” or “groovy cats” would use embarrassingly stilted “teen slang”. I still remember Mary Jane Watson saying “Way OUT!” and "This outfit is the _ginchiest!"_ I couldn’t wait til after school to show that to my friends and mock the old guy writers. We decided they’d just made up that word. We decided that if Marvel decided they wanted to write teen characters for teen readers, they should hire (or actually talk to) actual teenagers. And if Marvel decided they wanted a Big Black Hero, they should just give the job to a large, African-American writer. Seemed obvious to us… _fifty years ago! Geez…_ (the Luke Cage and Black Lightning in Marvel’s TV Universe are three-dimensional and much less offensive. Do they have Writers of Color working on those?) ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/18 "2021-03-05T06:24:32Z")
I have a tube of shoe paste in the curious shade of ‘testa di moro’. Similarly named figures also occur on coats of arms, Sicilian vases, etc. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/19 "2021-03-05T07:03:19Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > And what’s this “clone of Adolph Hitler” nonsense. That must be a recent retcon. In his original appearance (where he gets killed), he IS Adolph Hitler. Or possibly one of his doubles (in which case it was a double whose body was in that Berlin bunker). Could his double(s) have actually been clone(s)? ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racist-names-memes-and-depictions-in-1960s-70s-comics/934201/20 "2021-03-05T08:05:24Z")
Here’s one I recall reading when I was younger. It’s _Swing with Scooter_, from 1967. The premise is that Scooter has left his British Invasion rock band while in America, and assembled his “groupy,” consisting of a group of friends in their early twenties. The group includes a fat kid who never misses the chance to eat (and the rest of the gang never misses a chance to make fun of him for that), a girl who calls everybody “luv,” and a guy who speaks in rhyme. Basically, the group solves mysteries, helps those less fortunate, and so on; but always with a comedic twist. One issue stuck with me, because it was just so cruel. It didn’t mean to be, but the caricatures and stereotypes were just so over-the-top that I never forgot it. We’ve got bucktoothed Chinese waiters in a Chinese restaurant offering our friends dishes like “chow ching fong wong,” and “flied rice”; and giving three “Chinese cheers” when the gang decides to rescue the prisoner in the fortune cookie factory (“Foo! Foo! Foo!”). Later in the story, we meet an overweight girl. She’s not terribly attractive, and she’s overweight, so her name is “Ugliella.” The story’s comedy could not outweigh the cruel caricatures, even to single-digit age me. I knew Chinese people, I went to school with their kids, and the ones I knew in real life were nothing like what was in that comic. Further, I had plenty of overweight relatives who would never win any beauty contests. But I found them not to be ugly at all–they were fun and interesting and the nicest people you could ever meet, and I enjoyed visiting with them. I was able to find the whole thing online, and you can read it for yourself. Here it is: > **[Swing With Scooter #9 - Read Swing With Scooter Issue #9 Online](https://comiconlinefree.net/swing-with-scooter/issue-9)** > > Read Swing With Scooter Issue #9 Online No preview, but the link works if you right-click and “Open in new tab.” Bonus: it’s every page of the issue, including ads for X-Ray Specs, 100 Revolutionary War Soldiers, and the “Direct Currents” column, explaining what other great comics that DC has coming out this month.