# What was the deal with "Mort" from Bazooka Joe?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 30, 2004, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072 "2004-10-30T21:25:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2004, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/1 "2004-10-30T21:25:47Z")
Maybe this belongs in _ **MPSIMS** _. But there may be a factual answer, and it’s bugged me forever:
What was the deal with the guy from [BAZOOKA JOE](http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.samstoybox.com/toypics/jokebooks/jbj34.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.samstoybox.com/toypics/jokebooks/jbj34.html&h=500&w=408&sz=29&tbnid=yW7s3Ni-rm0J:&tbnh=126&tbnw=103&start=17&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbazooka%2Bjoe%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff)?
Why did he always have his shirt pulled up over his mouth like that? Was the answer ever revealed?
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2004, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/2 "2004-10-30T21:49:08Z")
Yeah, & why does BZ lack an eye?
Is everyone in that neighborhood some kind of mutant, requiring a disguise? :eek:
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### Author:  [@citrus\_x\_paradisi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/citrus_x_paradisi)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2004, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/3 "2004-10-30T22:15:41Z")
Bazooka gum was the creation of Leonard Phelps. Upon its debut, it wasn’t a strong seller, despite its unique taste. After nearly bankrupting his parents with the overhead for the gum’s production, Leonard’s parents kicked him out and demanded to be repaid. Dismayed, Phelps found his old roommate from college- one Dmitri Zukakos, now a military man in Groom’s Point, NV.
After arriving at the remote military compound, Zukakos wrangled Phelps a low-paying job in maintainence. However, Zukakos had attained enough experience with mechanizing taffy pulls back at home, he soon found himself in an engineering job at the base.
Zukakos, on the other hand, had been a troublemaker in college but was now one of the ‘guinea pigs’ for the Armed Forces’ many experiments on the time. He was chosen for clinical studies of psychotropics like LSD -often without prior knowledge. Though Zukakos had been at Groom Point long enough, he’d been put through the Army’s various ‘loyalty programs.’ However, when under the influence of some of the hallucinogens he’d been given, he would create revealing, if primitive, renditions of some of his encounters.
Phelps found and began circulating these small doodles among the officers employed there. But when the higher-ups caught wind of this, they had Zukakos take a mandatory leave for what the other officers were told was a ‘more important assignment.’
After 7-12 business days, Zukakos returned. However, he was now extraordinarily muscle-bound, and oddly enough, his right hand was 2.3 cm larger than his left. He had no memory of the time spent away from base, but requested that he be called Joe, as that was ‘more American.’
At this point, the Gov’t ceased most of their psychotropics testing. However, while cleaning the bunks, Phelps found a small cache of recently-made doodles. In his new engineering position, he could use Army machinery late at night to pull his gum more than he could with the old machinery he’d had at home. Phelps didn’t have the resources for proper wrappers, though, so in a flash of inspiration, he began to wrap them in the small doodles.
MK-MORT was believed to have been discontinued in 1960, but some believe the government is still maintaining test subjects in bunkers scattered throughout the world.
But seriously? No idea.
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### Author:  [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2004, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/4 "2004-10-30T22:41:20Z")
Mort, of course, is Death. And Death only shows you his full face when he is visiting on Serious Business. Since you are presumably not dead, you can’t see all of Mort’s face.
Or something.
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### Author:  [@vl\_mungo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vl_mungo)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2004, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/5 "2004-10-30T23:48:52Z")
In the bilingual Canadian Bazooka Joes, Mort (French for dead) had a different name… can’t recall what it was, though. Probably the drugs they put in it.
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### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2004, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/6 "2004-10-31T00:21:09Z")
The heck with Mort–why is the kid asking him for a dollar wearing a kicky little Carole Lombard cocktail hat from the 1930s?
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2004, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/7 "2004-10-31T00:40:27Z")
[The Amazing Mort](http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~jimmyk/bazooka_html/mort.html)
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2004, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/8 "2004-10-31T00:54:24Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#):
>
> Yeah, & why does BZ lack an eye?
When I was very young I had to wear an eyepatch to correct my vision. I don’t remember it, but I have a family photo showing it.
Sally in the _Peanuts_ strip went through a period of wearing an eyepatch to correct her lazy eye. I’m guessing this was actually pretty common a few decades ago.
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### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2004, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/9 "2004-10-31T01:33:54Z")
> [@Peter Morris](#):
>
> I’m guessing this was actually pretty common a few decades ago.
I was born in '60 (tomorrow is my birthday, by the way :eek: ) and I remember lots of kids in the 60’s & 70’s having patches for lazy eye. I don’t see any kids wearing them now. Has something changed in the treatment?
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### Author:  [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2004, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/10 "2004-10-31T01:40:31Z")
I think he’s the ancestor of [Dumb Donald](http://www.tvparty.com/satfat/donald.html) no one speaks of.
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### Author:  [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2004, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/11 "2004-11-01T04:01:16Z")
I was born in '82 and I saw kids who had an eyepatch (or even just a gauze bandage over the eye) for lazy eye treatment. If I were to see a small kid with one, my first assumption would be that he or she had a lazy eye, not that he or she was missing an eye.
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### Author:  [@mitchythekid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mitchythekid)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2004, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/12 "2004-11-01T04:34:07Z")
PK,try this guy on “the bubble gum comic collection” site,he would definatly know,let us know what he says. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2004, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/13 "2004-11-01T07:45:11Z")
> [@I Love Me](#):
>
> Mort, of course, is Death. And Death only shows you his full face when he is visiting on Serious Business. Since you are presumably not dead, you can’t see all of Mort’s face.
>
> Or something.
Can’t be, because he doesn’t speak IN CAPITAL LETTERS. (Or does he?)
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### Author:  [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2004, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/14 "2004-11-02T00:11:31Z")
Mort is only Death’s apprentice.
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2004, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/15 "2004-11-02T07:43:46Z")
Bazooka Joe’s Mort and Fat Albert’s [Dumb Donald](http://www.geocities.com/rdeadw01/Fat_Albert/dumb-donald-production-cel.jpg) were just two sides of the same coin. Perhaps they were hiding bad cases of acne.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/16 "2005-07-10T18:38:01Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#):
>
> Yeah, & why does BZ lack an eye?
> Is everyone in that neighborhood some kind of mutant, requiring a disguise? :eek:
Mort: Joe, I have to ask you a question. A real question, An important question. ANd if you answer it with one of your typical lame , ancient jokes, I’m going to gouge out your eye with white hot needles. Now, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?
Joe: Practice.
Mort: I **WARNED** you, damn it! (Pulls out white hot needles at pounces.)
Joe: AAAAAAARGH, my eye! The pain, the pain!
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### Author:  [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/17 "2005-07-10T18:55:37Z")
Aaaaach! Zombie!
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### Author:  [@EleventyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EleventyOne)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/18 "2005-07-10T19:09:13Z")
Mort’s a zombie?!?
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/19 "2005-07-10T19:13:54Z")
I always assumed that Mort shot his mouth off in the same bazooka accident that cost Joe his eye.
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### Author:  [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-deal-with-mort-from-bazooka-joe/272072/20 "2005-07-10T19:48:41Z")
> [@pkbites](#):
>
> I was born in '60 (tomorrow is my birthday, by the way :eek: ) and I remember lots of kids in the 60’s & 70’s having patches for lazy eye. I don’t see any kids wearing them now. Has something changed in the treatment?
My 6 year old relative has a Lazy eye (aka Amblyopia). The Eye Doc gave us a choice: an eye patch that needed to be put on every day or “liquid patch” eye drops in his good eye to blur the vision and force him to use the bad eye. Given the potential for fighting and forgetting we went liquid. He gets drops 1X per week the only side effect is that the drops dilate the pupil and can make the eye light sensitive. That and he almost always has a giant pupil unlike a patch that can come off at certain times, that BIG pupil can freak folks out - if they even notice. The 2nd & 3rd graders at school of course did almost right away - but more along the lines of “Wow your pupils are weird” rather than teasing - not sure what a patch might have done.