Cartoons; funny papers, Sunday funnies!
It
doesn’t matter what you call those panels of humor, but we all remember reading
them. For me, it was flat out on the floor on Sunday mornings with the
four-page color comic section: Dick Tracy, Blondie, Mark Trail (who must be
105 years old by now) and...
...Walt Kelly’s Pogo!
Syndicated in 1949, when I was only three
years old, the Pogo strip was a social,, political—even international sensation.
He was a possum who lived in Okefenoke swamp with a crowd of totally ridiculous
animals.
When
I was small, my father, armed with a six-pack and a box of charcoals and
pastels, drew the Pogo characters on my bedroom wall. The biggest was Albert
the Alligator, and the others trailed along the wall beside my bed!
By
the time I was ten, I knew most of the characters, including an owl, a turtle
and a trio of scruffy-looking bats named Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. I
remember making the connection to Frank Sinatra’s version of that wonderful
song!
At some point, my parents bought an LP,
“Songs of the Pogo,” which contained twenty-odd completely zany songs written
by Kelly and his crew. Inside the jacket was a sheet of lyrics (good thing, for
we never would have figured out some of them by listening):
Like this:
The
Keen and the Quing were quirling at quoits,
In
the meadow behind the mere.
Tho’
mainly the meadow was middled with mow
And
heretical hitherto here.
The
Prince and the Princess were plaiting the plates
And
prating quite primly the peer,
And
that’s why the Duchess stuck ducks on the Duke
For
no one was over to seer.
Or this one, delivered by a sexy babe with a
smoky voice:
Oh,
I may be your cup of tea,
But
baby, don’t you “Sugar” me!
Don’t
stir me boy, nor try to spoon,
Don’t
“sugar” me, ‘cause us is throon!
Last winter, while poking around on the
internet, I stumbled upon a CD of Walt Kelly’s re-issued “Songs of the Pogo.” I
bought it, gave it to my brother for Christmas.
He
opened it, grinned, slipped it into his CD player...
...fifty
year later, he and I knew nearly ALL the words!
Note: These Pogo shots are of an original
Walt Kelly panel that belonged to my aunt; it was signed and framed, and it
shows the pencil work beneath the inking. There’s Albert and the three bats...
