Barney Google and Snuffy Smith
Encyclopedia
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, originally Barney Google, is a long-running American
comic strip
created by cartoonist
Billy DeBeck (1890–1942). Since its debut on June 17, 1919, the strip has gained a huge international readership, appearing in 900 newspapers in 21 countries. The initial appeal of the strip led to its adaptation to film, animation, popular song and television. It added several terms and phrases to the English language and inspired the 1923 hit tune "Barney Google (with the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes)" with lyrics by Billy Rose
.
, Barney Google started out on the sports page. First appearing as a daily strip
in the sports sections of the Chicago Herald and Examiner in 1919, it was originally titled Take Barney Google, F'rinstance. The title character, a little fellow (although he would shrink in stature even more after the first year) with big "banjo" eyes, was an avid sportsman and ne'er-do-well involved in poker
, horse racing
and prize fights
.
The "goggle-eyed, moustached, gloved and top-hatted, bulbous-nosed, cigar-chomping shrimp" (according to comics historian Bill Blackbeard
) was relentlessly henpecked by "a wife three times his size" (as the song lyric goes). The formidable Mrs. Lizzie Google (aka "the sweet woman") sued Barney for divorce and thereafter virtually disappeared from the strip. By October 1919, the strip was distributed by King Features Syndicate
and was published in newspapers across the country.
creator Charles M. Schulz
was known to his friends as Sparky, a lifelong nickname given to him by his uncle as a diminutive of Barney Googles Spark Plug.
In deference to his enormous popularity during this period, the strip was retitled Barney Google and Spark Plug. DeBeck's strip hit its peak of popularity with Spark Plug at about the same time the song "Barney Google (Foxtrot)" by Billy Rose
and Con Conrad
was sweeping the country. It would become one of the best known, most iconic novelty records of the 1920s, and has been recorded by everyone from Eddie Cantor
and The Happiness Boys
to The Andrews Sisters
and Spike Jones
:
Other popular characters and concepts introduced in the strip about this time include "Sunshine", Barney's black jockey, a troublesome ostrich
named "Rudy", "Sully", a monocled champion wrestler, and the mysterious hooded fraternity "The Order of the Brotherhood of Billy Goats", a parody of mystic secret societies. (There was also a "Sisterhood of Nanny Goats" for the ladies.) Their password was "O-K-M-N-X" which, undeciphered, stood for a standard breakfast order ("Okay, ham and eggs"). Barney was elected "Exalted Angora" in 1928. (Source: Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: 75 Years of an American Legend. Kitchen Sink Press, pgs. 88–91. 1994.)
mountains and met a volatile, equally diminutive moonshine
r named Snuffy Smith. Hillbilly
humor was extremely popular at the time, (as Al Capp
was proving with Li'l Abner
). The strip increasingly focused on the southern Appalachia
n hamlet of "Hootin’ Holler", with Snuffy as the main character. The mountaineer locals are extremely suspicious of any outsiders, referred to as "flatlanders" or even worse, "revenooers" (Federal Revenue agents). Snuffy was so popular that his name was added to the strip's title in the late 1930s; Barney Google himself has appeared only sporadically since the 1950s, his most recent appearance coming on January 5, 1997.
Snuffy is an ornery little cuss, sawed-off and shiftless. He lives in a shack, mangles the English language and has a propensity to shoot at those who displease him. He makes "corn-likker" moonshine in a homemade still and is in constant trouble with the sheriff. He wears a broad-brimmed felt hat almost as tall as he is, has a scraggly mustache and a pair of tattered, poorly patched overalls. He constantly cheats at poker and checkers. He also has some proclivity toward stealing chickens, which led to a brief but effective use of his character in a marketing campaign by the Tyson Foods
corporation in the early 1980s. In 1937 he held the post of "Royal Doodle Bug" in the "Varmints" lodge; during this period, the strip heavily employed the catchphrase, "What did the Doodle-Bug say?", an apparent homage to "What did the Woggle-Bug say?" in L. Frank Baum
and Walt McDougall's Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz
strip of 1904–1905.
Almost all of the characters in the strip (except the occasional visiting "flatlander") are exaggerated hillbillies in the classic burlesque
tradition (see Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon by Anthony Harkins, 2003 Oxford Univ. Press, pgs. 103–114): sharp-tongued gossipy women such as Snuffy's wife "Loweezy"; his baby "Tater"; his nephew "Jughaid"; his neighbors Elviney and "Lukey" (Lucas Ebenezer); the sanctimonious (but nonetheless ungrammatical) Parson; Silas, the owner of the General Store; the ostentatiously-badged Sheriff Tait, and others. Vehicles are rundown jalopies of a seeming 1920s vintage, even in the 1970s and beyond. The characters are drawn so that they appear to be talking out of the sides of their mouths.
strip, to run with Barney Google on Sundays.
s and movie and radio serials
that were popular at the time. The title character "Bunky" (short for Bunker Hill, Jr.) was a hapless waif whose penniless parents, Bunker Hill, Sr. and Bibsy, had given birth to the strangely erudite newborn with the enormous nose on November 13, 1927. The irresponsible Bunker Sr. eventually disappeared from the strip. From then on, pint-sized Bunky (still dressed in the baby bonnet and gown in which he was first seen) was the star, protector and benefactor of the family. His vocabulary rivaled that of any educated adult.
Arch-nemesis Fagin, introduced in 1928, was as vile and despicable a villain as any Charles Dickens
antagonist. He “would steal pennies from a blind man's cup and kick dogs that weren't even in his way. Robbing widows and orphans... was routine for him", according to Toonopedia. The strip popularized the phrase, "You’se is a viper!"
Fantasy
author and Conan the Barbarian
creator Robert E. Howard
, a big fan of Bunky, was fond of quoting from the strip, as noted by his friend, Tevis Clyde Smith. After DeBeck’s death in 1942, Bunky continued for a time under Joe Musial (The Katzenjammer Kids) and Fred Lasswell. The series ended in 1948.
, a self-described "hayseed" himself, took over Barney Google and Snuffy Smith in 1942. In the 1950s, Lasswell phased out DeBeck's long storylines in favor of a standard gag-a-day format. Lasswell drew the strip until his death on March 3, 2001. Other assistants to DeBeck included Cliff Rogerson (later an editorial cartoonist for Newsday
, beginning in 1946) and Paul Fung, Jr. John Rose, who inked the strip for Lasswell, draws the comic today. Margaret Shulock
is one of the strip's uncredited writers.
, a children's book about the Google and other fanciful creatures who live in Googleland: "The Google has a beautiful garden which is guarded night and day. All through the day he sleeps in a pool of water in the center of the garden; but when the night comes, he slowly crawls out of the pool and silently prowls around for food." Aware of the word's appeal, DeBeck launched his comic strip six years later, and the "goo-goo-googly" lyrics in the 1923 song "Barney Google" focused attention on the novelty of the word.
When mathematician
and Columbia University
professor Edward Kasner
was challenged in the late 1930s to devise a name for a very large number, he asked his nine-year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta, to suggest a word. The youthful comic strip reader told Kasner to use "Google". Kasner agreed, and in 1940, he introduced the words "googol
" and "googolplex" in his book, Mathematics and the Imagination. Milton Sirotta died in 1980. This is the term that Larry Page
and Sergey Brin
had in mind when they named their company in 1998, but they misspelled "googol" as "google," bringing it full circle right back to Billy DeBeck. In 2002, when Page set up a scanning device at Google to test how fast books could be scanned, the first book he scanned was Vickers' The Google Book.
slang
words and phrases into the English language
—including “sweet mama”, “horsefeathers”, “heebie-jeebies”, “hotsy-totsy” and “Who has seen the doodle bug?” Snuffy's catchphrases “great balls o’ fire” and “time's a-wastin'” remain popular to this day.
In DeBeck's memory, the National Cartoonists Society
in 1946 introduced the Billy DeBeck Award. (Eight years later, the name was changed to the Reuben Award after Rube Goldberg
.) In 1963, Lasswell won both the NCS Humor Comic Strip Award and Reuben Award. That same year, he won the Society's plaque for Best Humor Strip. In 1984, the Society gave him its Elzie Segar Award (named after the creator of Popeye
) for outstanding contributions to his profession.
Snuffy Smith currently appears in 21 countries and 11 languages. In 1995, the strip was honored by the U.S. Postal Service; it was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics
series of commemorative USPS postage stamps.
In 1960, King Features made plans to have Snuffy Smith serving hot dogs and chili at Snuffy's Shantys across the country, the grandiose plan of a Columbus, Georgia
franchiser who had hoped to have 700 Shantys operating by 1970.
In July 2004, Dark Horse Comics
issued a limited edition figure of Barney Google in a colorful collector tin as part of their line of Classic Comic Character figures—designated as statue #47.
Ace Comics
(1937). They appeared in their own comics as well—three issues from Dell Comics
in the 1940s, four from Toby Press in the 1950s, one from Gold Key Comics
in the 1960s, and six from Charlton Comics
in the 1970s.
live-action short films for F.B.O. Pictures, also featuring Philip Davis as Sunshine.
Barney Google series in the mid-1930s, produced by the Charles Mintz Screen Gems
Studio. Mintz made only four Barney Google cartoons, all released theatrically through Columbia Pictures
.
, distributed through Paramount Pictures
.
Two low-budget, live-action B feature
s based on the strip were produced at Monogram Pictures
in 1942: Private Snuffy Smith
(aka Snuffy Smith, Yardbird) and Hillbilly Blitzkrieg. Diminutive actor Bud Duncan portrayed Snuffy in both films, with Cliff Nazarro
appearing as Barney in Hillbilly Blitzkrieg. (Both films also feature former Keystone Cop Edgar Kennedy
and future Mouseketeer Jimmie Dodd
in supporting roles.)
released 50 six-minute Snuffy Smith cartoons for television, produced by Paramount Cartoon Studios
in New York. The opening credits included a catchy theme song that was specifically composed for the cartoon:
Other King Features properties, such as Beetle Bailey
and Krazy Kat
, also appeared as rotating segments under the collective title: King Features Trilogy. The series was widely shown in TV syndication, with prolific voice actor Paul Frees
providing the voices of both Snuffy and Barney. Ge Ge Pearson also doubled as Loweezy and Jughaid. A number of episodes feature animation by famed animator Jim Tyer. (All 50 episodes are available on the fourth DVD of the Advantage Cartoon Mega Pack.)
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
created by cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
Billy DeBeck (1890–1942). Since its debut on June 17, 1919, the strip has gained a huge international readership, appearing in 900 newspapers in 21 countries. The initial appeal of the strip led to its adaptation to film, animation, popular song and television. It added several terms and phrases to the English language and inspired the 1923 hit tune "Barney Google (with the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes)" with lyrics by Billy Rose
Billy Rose
William "Billy" Rose was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. He is credited with many famous songs, notably "Me and My Shadow" , "It Happened in Monterey" and "It's Only a Paper Moon"...
.
Barney Google
Like Mutt and JeffMutt and Jeff
Mutt and Jeff was a long-popular American newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Bud Fisher in 1907 about "two mismatched tinhorns." It is commonly regarded as the first daily comic strip. The concept of a newspaper strip featuring recurring characters in multiple panels on a six-day-a-week...
, Barney Google started out on the sports page. First appearing as a daily strip
Daily strip
A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays....
in the sports sections of the Chicago Herald and Examiner in 1919, it was originally titled Take Barney Google, F'rinstance. The title character, a little fellow (although he would shrink in stature even more after the first year) with big "banjo" eyes, was an avid sportsman and ne'er-do-well involved in poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
, horse racing
Horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...
and prize fights
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
.
The "goggle-eyed, moustached, gloved and top-hatted, bulbous-nosed, cigar-chomping shrimp" (according to comics historian Bill Blackbeard
Bill Blackbeard
William Elsworth Blackbeard , better known as Bill Blackbeard, was a writer-editor and the founder-director of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, a comprehensive collection of comic strips and cartoon art from American newspapers...
) was relentlessly henpecked by "a wife three times his size" (as the song lyric goes). The formidable Mrs. Lizzie Google (aka "the sweet woman") sued Barney for divorce and thereafter virtually disappeared from the strip. By October 1919, the strip was distributed by King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...
and was published in newspapers across the country.
Spark Plug
Beginning on July 17, 1922, the strip would take a momentous turn in popularity with the seemingly innocuous introduction of an endearing race horse named "Spark Plug". Barney's beloved "brown-eyed baby" was a bow-legged nag who seldom raced, and he was typically seen almost totally covered by his trademark patched blanket with his name scrawled on the side. PeanutsPeanuts
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...
creator Charles M. Schulz
Charles M. Schulz
Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.-Early life and education:Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Schulz grew up in Saint Paul...
was known to his friends as Sparky, a lifelong nickname given to him by his uncle as a diminutive of Barney Googles Spark Plug.
In deference to his enormous popularity during this period, the strip was retitled Barney Google and Spark Plug. DeBeck's strip hit its peak of popularity with Spark Plug at about the same time the song "Barney Google (Foxtrot)" by Billy Rose
Billy Rose
William "Billy" Rose was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. He is credited with many famous songs, notably "Me and My Shadow" , "It Happened in Monterey" and "It's Only a Paper Moon"...
and Con Conrad
Con Conrad
Con Conrad was an American songwriter and producer.-Biography:Con Conrad was born Conrad K. Dober in New York City. He published his first song, "Down in Dear Old New Orleans", in 1912. Conrad produced the Broadway show The Honeymoon Express, starring Al Jolson, in 1913...
was sweeping the country. It would become one of the best known, most iconic novelty records of the 1920s, and has been recorded by everyone from Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor and songwriter...
and The Happiness Boys
The Happiness Boys
The Happiness Boys was a popular radio program of the early 1920s. It featured the vocal duo of tenor Billy Jones and bass/baritone Ernie Hare who sang novelty songs.-Career:...
to The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters were a highly successful close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews , soprano Maxene Angelyn Andrews , and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie "Patty" Andrews...
and Spike Jones
Spike Jones
Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brothers cartoon characters, performed a drunken, hiccuping verse for 1942's "Clink! Clink! Another Drink"...
:
- Who's the most important man this country ever knew?
- Who's the man our Presidents tell all their troubles to?
- No, it isn't Mr. BryanWilliam Jennings BryanWilliam Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...
and it isn't Mr. HughesCharles Evans HughesCharles Evans Hughes, Sr. was an American statesman, lawyer and Republican politician from New York. He served as the 36th Governor of New York , Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States , United States Secretary of State , a judge on the Court of International Justice , and...
; - I'm mighty proud that I'm allowed a chance to introduce:
- Barney Google—with the goo-goo-googly eyes,
- Barney Google—had a wife three times his size;
- She sued Barney for divorce,
- Now he’s sleeping with his horse!
- Barney Google—with the goo-goo-googly eyes!
- Who's the greatest lover that this country ever knew?
- Who's the man that ValentinoRudolph ValentinoRudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...
takes his hat off to? - No, it isn't Douglas FairbanksDouglas FairbanksDouglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
that the ladies rave about; - When he arrives, who makes the wives chase all their husbands out?
- Barney Google—with the goo, goo, googly eyes,
- Barney Google—bet his horse would win the prize;
- When the horses ran that day,
- Spark Plug ran the other way!
- Barney Google—with the goo-goo-googly eyes!
Other popular characters and concepts introduced in the strip about this time include "Sunshine", Barney's black jockey, a troublesome ostrich
Ostrich
The Ostrich is one or two species of large flightless birds native to Africa, the only living member of the genus Struthio. Some analyses indicate that the Somali Ostrich may be better considered a full species apart from the Common Ostrich, but most taxonomists consider it to be a...
named "Rudy", "Sully", a monocled champion wrestler, and the mysterious hooded fraternity "The Order of the Brotherhood of Billy Goats", a parody of mystic secret societies. (There was also a "Sisterhood of Nanny Goats" for the ladies.) Their password was "O-K-M-N-X" which, undeciphered, stood for a standard breakfast order ("Okay, ham and eggs"). Barney was elected "Exalted Angora" in 1928. (Source: Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: 75 Years of an American Legend. Kitchen Sink Press, pgs. 88–91. 1994.)
Snuffy Smith
In 1934, an even greater change took place when Barney and his horse visited the North CarolinaNorth Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
mountains and met a volatile, equally diminutive moonshine
Moonshine
Moonshine is an illegally produced distilled beverage...
r named Snuffy Smith. Hillbilly
Hillbilly
Hillbilly is a term referring to certain people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas of the United States, primarily Appalachia but also the Ozarks. Owing to its strongly stereotypical connotations, the term is frequently considered derogatory, and so is usually offensive to those Americans of...
humor was extremely popular at the time, (as Al Capp
Al Capp
Alfred Gerald Caplin , better known as Al Capp, was an American cartoonist and humorist best known for the satirical comic strip Li'l Abner. He also wrote the comic strips Abbie an' Slats and Long Sam...
was proving with Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe, featuring a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished town of Dogpatch, Kentucky. Written and drawn by Al Capp , the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934 through...
). The strip increasingly focused on the southern Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
n hamlet of "Hootin’ Holler", with Snuffy as the main character. The mountaineer locals are extremely suspicious of any outsiders, referred to as "flatlanders" or even worse, "revenooers" (Federal Revenue agents). Snuffy was so popular that his name was added to the strip's title in the late 1930s; Barney Google himself has appeared only sporadically since the 1950s, his most recent appearance coming on January 5, 1997.
Snuffy is an ornery little cuss, sawed-off and shiftless. He lives in a shack, mangles the English language and has a propensity to shoot at those who displease him. He makes "corn-likker" moonshine in a homemade still and is in constant trouble with the sheriff. He wears a broad-brimmed felt hat almost as tall as he is, has a scraggly mustache and a pair of tattered, poorly patched overalls. He constantly cheats at poker and checkers. He also has some proclivity toward stealing chickens, which led to a brief but effective use of his character in a marketing campaign by the Tyson Foods
Tyson Foods
Tyson Foods, Inc. is a multinational corporation based in Springdale, Arkansas, that operates in the food industry. The company is the world's second largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork only behind Brazilian JBS S.A., and annually exports the largest percentage of beef out of...
corporation in the early 1980s. In 1937 he held the post of "Royal Doodle Bug" in the "Varmints" lodge; during this period, the strip heavily employed the catchphrase, "What did the Doodle-Bug say?", an apparent homage to "What did the Woggle-Bug say?" in L. Frank Baum
L. Frank Baum
Lyman Frank Baum was an American author of children's books, best known for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
and Walt McDougall's Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz
Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz
Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz was a newspaper comic strip written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by Walt McDougall, a political cartoonist for the Philadelphia North American. Queer Visitors appeared in the North American, the Chicago Record-Herald, and other newspapers from 28...
strip of 1904–1905.
Almost all of the characters in the strip (except the occasional visiting "flatlander") are exaggerated hillbillies in the classic burlesque
American burlesque
American Burlesque is a genre of variety show. Derived from elements of Victorian burlesque, music hall and minstrel shows, burlesque shows in America became popular in the 1860s and evolved to feature ribald comedy and female striptease...
tradition (see Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon by Anthony Harkins, 2003 Oxford Univ. Press, pgs. 103–114): sharp-tongued gossipy women such as Snuffy's wife "Loweezy"; his baby "Tater"; his nephew "Jughaid"; his neighbors Elviney and "Lukey" (Lucas Ebenezer); the sanctimonious (but nonetheless ungrammatical) Parson; Silas, the owner of the General Store; the ostentatiously-badged Sheriff Tait, and others. Vehicles are rundown jalopies of a seeming 1920s vintage, even in the 1970s and beyond. The characters are drawn so that they appear to be talking out of the sides of their mouths.
Bughouse Fables
In 1921, DeBeck began a gag panel called Bughouse Fables, featuring his observations of ordinary people doing foolish things, which he signed "Barney Google". He later added Bughouse Fables as an accompanying topperTopper (comic strip)
A topper in comic strip parlance is a small secondary strip seen along with a larger Sunday strip. In the 1920s and 1930s, leading cartoonists were given full pages in the Sunday comics sections, allowing them to add smaller strips and single-panel cartoons to their page.Toppers usually were drawn...
strip, to run with Barney Google on Sundays.
Bunky
On May 16, 1926, DeBeck began another topper strip, originally called Parlor, Bedroom and Sink—but better known as Bunky. Parlor Bedroom and Sink—which evolved into Parlor Bedroom and Sink Starring Bunky, and eventually simply Bunky—is an over-the-top parody of stage melodramaMelodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
s and movie and radio serials
Serial (radio and television)
Serials are series of television programs and radio programs that rely on a continuing plot that unfolds in a sequential episode by episode fashion. Serials typically follow main story arcs that span entire television seasons or even the full run of the series, which distinguishes them from...
that were popular at the time. The title character "Bunky" (short for Bunker Hill, Jr.) was a hapless waif whose penniless parents, Bunker Hill, Sr. and Bibsy, had given birth to the strangely erudite newborn with the enormous nose on November 13, 1927. The irresponsible Bunker Sr. eventually disappeared from the strip. From then on, pint-sized Bunky (still dressed in the baby bonnet and gown in which he was first seen) was the star, protector and benefactor of the family. His vocabulary rivaled that of any educated adult.
Arch-nemesis Fagin, introduced in 1928, was as vile and despicable a villain as any Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
antagonist. He “would steal pennies from a blind man's cup and kick dogs that weren't even in his way. Robbing widows and orphans... was routine for him", according to Toonopedia. The strip popularized the phrase, "You’se is a viper!"
Fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
author and Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Barbarian is a fictional sword and sorcery hero that originated in pulp fiction magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, several films , television programs, video games, roleplaying games and other media...
creator Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....
, a big fan of Bunky, was fond of quoting from the strip, as noted by his friend, Tevis Clyde Smith. After DeBeck’s death in 1942, Bunky continued for a time under Joe Musial (The Katzenjammer Kids) and Fred Lasswell. The series ended in 1948.
Other artists
Billy DeBeck died of cancer in 1942 at the age of 52. DeBeck’s lifelong assistant Fred LasswellFred Lasswell
Fred Lasswell was an American cartoonist best known for his decades of work on the comic strip Barney Google and Snuffy Smith.Born in Kennett, Missouri, he got his start as a sports cartoonist for the Tampa Daily Times...
, a self-described "hayseed" himself, took over Barney Google and Snuffy Smith in 1942. In the 1950s, Lasswell phased out DeBeck's long storylines in favor of a standard gag-a-day format. Lasswell drew the strip until his death on March 3, 2001. Other assistants to DeBeck included Cliff Rogerson (later an editorial cartoonist for Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
, beginning in 1946) and Paul Fung, Jr. John Rose, who inked the strip for Lasswell, draws the comic today. Margaret Shulock
Margaret Shulock
Margaret Shulock is an American cartoonist who works as a writer-artist on several features.Born in Canastota, New York, she lived in Franklinville, New York and Buffalo, New York. She currently resides in Friendship, New York. She began sending weekly, hand-drawn postcards to her parents, often in...
is one of the strip's uncredited writers.
Origin of "Google"
Following "The Goo-Goo Song" (1900), the word "Google" was introduced in 1913 in Vincent Cartwright Vickers' The Google BookThe Google Book
The Google Book was written by economist Vincent Cartwright Vickers in 1913 and is said to be a kind of children's monster book about a monster called Google that can howl. The book has surrealist illustrations of various fictitious birds created by Vickers...
, a children's book about the Google and other fanciful creatures who live in Googleland: "The Google has a beautiful garden which is guarded night and day. All through the day he sleeps in a pool of water in the center of the garden; but when the night comes, he slowly crawls out of the pool and silently prowls around for food." Aware of the word's appeal, DeBeck launched his comic strip six years later, and the "goo-goo-googly" lyrics in the 1923 song "Barney Google" focused attention on the novelty of the word.
When mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
professor Edward Kasner
Edward Kasner
Edward Kasner who studied under Cassius Jackson Keyser, was a prominent American mathematician who was appointed Tutor on Mathematics in the Columbia University Mathematics Department...
was challenged in the late 1930s to devise a name for a very large number, he asked his nine-year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta, to suggest a word. The youthful comic strip reader told Kasner to use "Google". Kasner agreed, and in 1940, he introduced the words "googol
Googol
A googol is the large number 10100, that is, the digit 1 followed by 100 zeros:The term was coined in 1938 by 9-year-old Milton Sirotta , nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner...
" and "googolplex" in his book, Mathematics and the Imagination. Milton Sirotta died in 1980. This is the term that Larry Page
Larry Page
Lawrence "Larry" Page is an American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who, with Sergey Brin, is best known as the co-founder of Google. As of April 4, 2011, he is also the chief executive of Google, as announced on January 20, 2011...
and Sergey Brin
Sergey Brin
Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin is a Russian-born American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the largest internet companies. , his personal wealth is estimated to be $16.7 billion....
had in mind when they named their company in 1998, but they misspelled "googol" as "google," bringing it full circle right back to Billy DeBeck. In 2002, when Page set up a scanning device at Google to test how fast books could be scanned, the first book he scanned was Vickers' The Google Book.
Legacy
DeBeck, who had a gift for coining colorful terms, is credited with introducing several Jazz AgeJazz Age
The Jazz Age was a movement that took place during the 1920s or the Roaring Twenties from which jazz music and dance emerged. The movement came about with the introduction of mainstream radio and the end of the war. This era ended in the 1930s with the beginning of The Great Depression but has...
slang
Slang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
words and phrases into the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
—including “sweet mama”, “horsefeathers”, “heebie-jeebies”, “hotsy-totsy” and “Who has seen the doodle bug?” Snuffy's catchphrases “great balls o’ fire” and “time's a-wastin'” remain popular to this day.
In DeBeck's memory, the National Cartoonists Society
National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...
in 1946 introduced the Billy DeBeck Award. (Eight years later, the name was changed to the Reuben Award after Rube Goldberg
Rube Goldberg
Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor.He is best known for a series of popular cartoons depicting complex gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. These devices, now known as Rube Goldberg machines, are similar to...
.) In 1963, Lasswell won both the NCS Humor Comic Strip Award and Reuben Award. That same year, he won the Society's plaque for Best Humor Strip. In 1984, the Society gave him its Elzie Segar Award (named after the creator of Popeye
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929...
) for outstanding contributions to his profession.
Snuffy Smith currently appears in 21 countries and 11 languages. In 1995, the strip was honored by the U.S. Postal Service; it was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics
Comic Strip Classics
The Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative postage stamps was issued by the US Postal Service in 1995 to honor the centennial of the newspaper comic strip....
series of commemorative USPS postage stamps.
Toys and merchandise
Spark Plug captured the nation's hearts and imagination during the 1920s, and became a merchandising bonanza for King Features and Billy DeBeck. "Spark Plug, I am happy to say, has caught on," wrote DeBeck in 1924. "All over the United States you find stuffed Spark Plugs and Spark Plug games and Spark Plug drums and Spark Plug balloons and Spark Plug tin pails. And there is a Spark Plug play on the road. The only thing that is lacking is a Spark Plug grand opera." (Source: Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: 75 Years of an American Legend, page 35).In 1960, King Features made plans to have Snuffy Smith serving hot dogs and chili at Snuffy's Shantys across the country, the grandiose plan of a Columbus, Georgia
Columbus, Georgia
Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Muscogee County, Georgia, United States, with which it is consolidated. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 189,885. It is the principal city of the Columbus, Georgia metropolitan area, which, in 2009, had an estimated population of 292,795...
franchiser who had hoped to have 700 Shantys operating by 1970.
In July 2004, Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
issued a limited edition figure of Barney Google in a colorful collector tin as part of their line of Classic Comic Character figures—designated as statue #47.
Sheet music
- Barney Google Foxtrot by Billy Rose and Con Conrad (1923) Jerome H. Remick & Co.
- Come On, Spark Plug! by Billy Rose and Con Conrad (1923) Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co.
- Bug House Fables by Clarence Gaskill (1923) M. Witmark & Sons
- So I Took the $50,000 by Jack Meskill and Al Gumble (1923) Jerome H. Remick & Co.
- O-K-M-N-X We're Twenty Million Strong (aka: The Brotherhood of Billy Goats) by Phil Baker, J. Russel Robinson and Sid Silvers (1928) Jerome H. Remick & Co.
- Time's a-Wastin' (The Original Yard Bird Song) by Olsen and JohnsonOlsen and JohnsonJohn Sigvard "Ole" Olsen and Harold Ogden "Chic" Johnson were zany American comedians of vaudeville, radio, the Broadway stage, motion pictures and television. Their shows were noted for their crazy blackout gags and orchestrated mayhem...
, Jay Levison and Ray Evans (1941) Broadcast Music, Inc.
Comic books
Barney Google and/or Snuffy Smith each had a spotty history in comic books, starting with the first issue of David McKay'sDavid McKay (publisher)
David McKay was a Scottish American publisher, head of David McKay Publications, which published books of all kinds, including early examples of comic books.- Early life :...
Ace Comics
Ace Comics
Ace Comics was a comic book series published by David McKay Publications between 1937 and 1949 — starting just before the Golden Age era of comics...
(1937). They appeared in their own comics as well—three issues from Dell Comics
Dell Comics
Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...
in the 1940s, four from Toby Press in the 1950s, one from Gold Key Comics
Gold Key Comics
Gold Key Comics was an imprint of Western Publishing created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated from 1962 to 1984.-History:...
in the 1960s, and six from Charlton Comics
Charlton Comics
Charlton Comics was an American comic book publishing company that existed from 1946 to 1985, having begun under a different name in 1944. It was based in Derby, Connecticut...
in the 1970s.
Book collections and reprints
(All titles by Billy Debeck unless otherwise noted.)- Barney Google and His Faithful Nag Spark Plug (1923) Cupples & Leon Co.
- Barney Google and Spark Plug #2 (1924) Cupples & Leon Co.
- Barney Google and Spark Plug #3 (1925) Cupples & Leon Co.
- Barney Google and Spark Plug #4 (1926) Cupples & Leon Co.
- Barney Google (1935) Big Little Book #1083 Saalfield
- Barney Google: 1919–1920 (1977) Hyperion Press ISBN 0-88355-631-6
- The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics (1977) Smithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
Press/Harry Abrams (Bill Blackbeard, ed.) - Barney Google and Snuffy Smith: 75 Years of an American Legend (1994) Kitchen Sink PressKitchen Sink PressKitchen Sink Press was a comic book publishing company founded by Denis Kitchen in 1970. Kitchen owned and operated Kitchen Sink Press until 1999. Kitchen Sink Press was a pioneering publisher of underground comics, and was also responsible for numerous republications of classic comic strips in...
(Brian Walker, ed.) ISBN 0-87816-283-6 - Barney Google: Gambling, Horse Races and High-Toned Women! (2010) Yoe! BooksCraig YoeCraig Yoe is an author, editor, art director, graphic designer, cartoonist and comics historian, best known for his Yoe! Studio creations and his line of Yoe! Books...
(imprint of IDWIDW PublishingIDW Publishing, also known as Idea + Design Works, LLC and IDW, is an American publisher of comic books and comic strip collections. The company was founded in 1999 and has been awarded the title "Publisher of the Year Under 5% Market Share" for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006 by Diamond Comic...
) ISBN 1-60010-670-6
1920s
Beginning in 1928, Barney Hellum portrayed Barney Google in a series of silentSilent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
live-action short films for F.B.O. Pictures, also featuring Philip Davis as Sunshine.
- Horsefeathers (1928)
- OKMNX (1928) (aka Barney Google's Welcome Home)
- T-Bone Handicap (1928)
- Money Balks (1928)
- The Beef-Steaks (1928)
- Runnin' Through the Rye (1929)
- Sunshine's Dark Moment (1929)
- Neigh, Neigh, Spark Plug (1929)
- A Horse on Barney (1929)
- Just a Stall (1929)
- The Pace That Thrills (1929)
- Slide, Sparky, Slide (1929)
1930s
There was an animated cartoonAnimated cartoon
An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...
Barney Google series in the mid-1930s, produced by the Charles Mintz Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....
Studio. Mintz made only four Barney Google cartoons, all released theatrically through Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
.
- Tetched in the Head (1935)
- Patch Mah Britches (1935)
- Spark Plug (1936)
- Major Google (1936)
1940s
Spree for All (1946), an animated Noveltoon produced by Famous StudiosFamous Studios
Famous Studios was the animation division of the film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 to 1967. Famous was founded as a successor company to Fleischer Studios, after Paramount acquired the aforementioned studio and ousted its founders, Max and Dave Fleischer, in 1941...
, distributed through Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
.
Two low-budget, live-action B feature
B-movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
s based on the strip were produced at Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures Corporation is a Hollywood studio that produced and released films, most on low budgets, between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram is considered a leader among the smaller studios sometimes referred to...
in 1942: Private Snuffy Smith
Private Snuffy Smith
Private Snuffy Smith is a 1942 American film directed by Edward F. Cline and starring Bud Duncan as Snuffy Smith.- Cast :*Bud Duncan as Snuffy Smith, Camp Yardbird*Edgar Kennedy as Sgt. Ed Cooper, ex-Revenue Agent*Sarah Padden as Lowizie Smith...
(aka Snuffy Smith, Yardbird) and Hillbilly Blitzkrieg. Diminutive actor Bud Duncan portrayed Snuffy in both films, with Cliff Nazarro
Cliff Nazarro
Cliff Nazarro was a popular double-talk comedian of the 1930s and 1940s who appeared in movies such as Hillbilly Blitzkrieg as Barney Google....
appearing as Barney in Hillbilly Blitzkrieg. (Both films also feature former Keystone Cop Edgar Kennedy
Edgar Kennedy
Edgar Livingston Kennedy was an American comedic film actor, known as "the king of the slow burn". A slow burn is an exasperated facial expression, performed very deliberately; Kennedy embellished this by rubbing his hand over his bald head and across his face, in an attempt to hold his temper...
and future Mouseketeer Jimmie Dodd
Jimmie Dodd
James Wesley Dodd was best known as the MC of the popular 1950s Disney TV show The Mickey Mouse Club, as well as the writer of its well-known theme song, "The Mickey Mouse Club March"...
in supporting roles.)
1960s
In 1963, King Features SyndicateKing Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...
released 50 six-minute Snuffy Smith cartoons for television, produced by Paramount Cartoon Studios
Famous Studios
Famous Studios was the animation division of the film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 to 1967. Famous was founded as a successor company to Fleischer Studios, after Paramount acquired the aforementioned studio and ousted its founders, Max and Dave Fleischer, in 1941...
in New York. The opening credits included a catchy theme song that was specifically composed for the cartoon:
- Uh-uh-oh! Great balls o' fire, I'm bodacious!
- Uh-uh-oh! Great balls o' fire, I'm a fright!
- Uh-uh-oh! Great balls o' fire, goodness gracious!
- I'm chop-chop-chop-chop-choppin' with all o' my might—YEA!
Other King Features properties, such as Beetle Bailey
Beetle Bailey
Beetle Bailey is an American comic strip set in a fictional United States Army military post, created by cartoonist Mort Walker. It is among the oldest comic strips still being produced by the original creator...
and Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George Herriman, published daily in newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run...
, also appeared as rotating segments under the collective title: King Features Trilogy. The series was widely shown in TV syndication, with prolific voice actor Paul Frees
Paul Frees
Paul Frees was an American voice actor and character actor.-Biography:He was born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago...
providing the voices of both Snuffy and Barney. Ge Ge Pearson also doubled as Loweezy and Jughaid. A number of episodes feature animation by famed animator Jim Tyer. (All 50 episodes are available on the fourth DVD of the Advantage Cartoon Mega Pack.)
- Snuffy's Song (1962)
- The Hat
- The Method and Maw
- Take Me to Your Gen'rul
- Snuffy's Turf Luck (1963)
- Pie in the Sky
- The Berkeley Squares
- The Shipwreckers
- The Master
- Barney Deals the Cars
- Snuffy Runs the Gamut
- The Tourist Trap
- Rip Van Snuffy
- Snuffy Goes to College
- Snuffy's Brush with Fame
- Give a Jail a Break
- Glove Thy Neighbor
- Snuffy's Fair Lady
- Just Plain Kinfolk (1964)
- Off Their Rockers
- Snuffy Hits the Road
- My Kingdom for a Horse
- The Country Club Smiths
- Jughaid's Jumping Frog
- Turkey Shoot
- The Work Pill
- Jughaid for President
- Loweezy Makes a Match
- Fishin' Fools
- Little Red Jughaid
- Jughaid the Magician
- A Hoss Kin Dream
- It's Better to Give
- Springtime and Spark Plug
- There's No Feud Like an Old Feud
- A Hauntin' fer a House
- Feudin' and a-Fussin'
- Barney's Blarney
- Do Do That Judo
- Farm Of The Future
- Gettin' Snuffy's Goat
- Barney's Winter Carnival
- Keeping Up with the Joneses
- The Big Bear Hunt
- Ain't It the Tooth
- Bizzy Nappers
- The Buzz in Snuffy's Bonnet
- Settin' and a-Frettin'
- Beauty and the Beat
- Smoke Screams
External links
- Snuffy Smith entry at Toonopedia
- Private Snuffy Smith movie
- Barney Google and Snuffy Smith at King Features SyndicateKing Features SyndicateKing Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...
- Bunky entry at Toonopedia
- NCS Awards
- I Love Comix Archive: Barney Google
- Snuffy Smith and Barney Google at IMDB