Moon Mullins
Encyclopedia
Moon Mullins, created by cartoonist
Frank Willard
(1893–1958), was a popular American
comic strip
which had a long run as both a daily and Sunday feature from June 19, 1923 to June 2, 1991. Syndicated by the Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate
, the strip depicts the lives of diverse lowbrow characters who reside at the Schmaltz (later Plushbottom) boarding house
. The central character, Moon (short for Moonshine
), is a would-be prizefighter—perpetually strapped for cash but with a roguish appetite for vice and high living. Moon took a room in the boarding house at 1323 Wump Street in 1924 and never left, staying on for 67 years.
, the son of a physician, who early determined to become a cartoonist. After attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago
in 1913, he was a staff artist with the Chicago Herald (1914–18), where he drew the Sunday kids' page, Tom, Dick and Harry and another strip, Mrs. Pippin's Husband. He next wrote and drew The Outta Luck Club for King Features Syndicate
(1919–23).
In The Comics (1947), Coulton Waugh
described Willard's art style as "gritty-looking". In 2003, the Scoop newsletter documented the 1923 events that led to the creation of the strip:
Reportedly, the strip was originally intended as a rival for King Features' Barney Google
, also about a lovable, banjo-eyed lowlife at home in the sporting world. It proved so popular that men named Mullins, born from about the 19-teens through the 1960s, were as likely as not to be nicknamed "Moon". Willard was in tune with the working class
characters he created, as noted by David Westbrook in From Hogan's Alley to Coconino County: Four Narratives of the Early Comic Strip:
After Johnson took over, other colorful characters were added to the cast, including:
The strip was reviewed by Dr. Hermes in Dr. Hermes Retro-Scans:
(1905–1996) began as Willard's assistant a few months after the strip began in 1923. Starting with the lettering, then the backgrounds, Johnson gradually progressed to the point where he was handling the entire operation; but it was only after Willard died that he began signing it. When Willard died suddenly on January 11, 1958, the Tribune Syndicate hired Johnson, who also had a natural gift for funny, slangy dialogue, to helm the strip as Willard's logical successor. (Frank Willard's tombstone at the Anna Cemetery in Anna, Illinois, is graced with an engraving of Moon Mullins.)
Ferd Johnson was born December 18, 1905, in Spring Creek, Pennsylvania. Johnson became interested in cartooning after winning the Erie (Pennsylvania) Dispatch-Herald cartoon contest at the age of 12. After finishing high school in 1923 he attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts but left school after only three months to take an assistant's job at the Chicago Tribune with Willard. While assisting on Moon Mullins, Johnson remained active with other Tribune projects. He created several comic strip features for the Syndicate—Texas Slim (1925–1928) and Lovey-Dovey (1932)—did sports illustration work, and produced advertising cartoons. In 1940, he revived Texas Slim in Texas Slim and Dirty Dalton (with the companion strip, Buzzy), which ran for 18 years.
After Willard's death in 1958, he took over full responsibility for Moon Mullins. By that time it had evolved from long story continuities to a gag-a-day strip, although the humor remained character-based, as always. Unlike many long-running newspaper comics, Moon Mullins did not have a period of decline; maintaining its high standard of humor and art for almost seven decades. In 1978, Ferd's son, Tom Johnson, signed on as his assistant. Ferd Johnson stayed with the strip until it came to an end upon his retirement in 1991. Johnson worked on Moon Mullins for 68 years—a stint that probably stands as the longest tenure of an artist on a single feature in the history of American comics.
books (1927–1937), Big Little Books and comic books for Dell Comics
(starting in 1936) and later, the American Comics Group
(1947–1948). Dover Publications
reprinted a collection of the daily strips in 1976, consisting of the third and fifthth Cupples & Leon books. Representative samples of Moon Mullins daily continuity were featured in Great Comics Syndicated by the Daily News-Chicago Tribune (Crown Publishers, 1972), and The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics (Smithsonian Institution Press/Harry Abrams, 1977). The latter volume also reproduces several full-color Sunday pages. Comic strip historian Bill Blackbeard
edited a series of strip reprints for SPEC Productions.
pins, a Milton Bradley
board game (1938), salt and pepper shakers, perfume bottles, Christmas lights, bisque toothbrush holders, a set of nodder figures, carnival chalkware statues, a wind-up toy handcar
, cloth and celluloid Kayo dolls, coloring books and a series of jigsaw puzzle
s (1943).
"Kayo Chocolate Drink" was the name of a popular bottled soft drink
. It was manufactured for several decades, and featured Kayo Mullins on its colorful label. In recent years, nostalgic "Drink Kayo" tin and embossed metal advertising sign reproductions have been available.
Moon Mullins was adapted for radio
during the 1940s. In the third episode of the series (March 25, 1940), the Plushbottoms trade Moon's only suit to pay for a collect telegram and learn they are owners of a goldmine. In a CBS
audition recording dated January 31, 1947, Uncle Willie asks Moon for $10 bail, and Moon teaches the game of Blackjack
to Kayo. Lord Plushbottom plans to go to a costume party as an Indian
but instead winds up with a suit of armor. Character actor Sheldon Leonard
was in the cast.
animation process in the early 1960s, but it didn't clear enough television stations to go into production. Comic actor and director Howard Morris
was the voice of Moon when the strip was adapted to animation for Archie's TV Funnies
(1971–1973), produced by Filmation
. Moon and Kayo became one of several rotating segments on the Saturday morning cartoon series. Other comic strip character features in the rotation included Broom-Hilda
, Dick Tracy
, The Captain and the Kids, Alley Oop
, Nancy and Sluggo and Smokey Stover
. It was repeated in 1978, without Archie
, under the title The Fabulous Funnies.
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
Frank Willard
Frank Willard
Frank Henry Willard was a cartoonist best known for his comic strip Moon Mullins which ran from 1923 to 1991. He sometimes went by the nickname Dok Willard....
(1893–1958), was a popular American
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....
which had a long run as both a daily and Sunday feature from June 19, 1923 to June 2, 1991. Syndicated by the Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate
Tribune Media Services
Tribune Media Services is a syndication company owned by the Tribune Company.The company has two divisions, "News and Features" and "Entertainment Products"...
, the strip depicts the lives of diverse lowbrow characters who reside at the Schmaltz (later Plushbottom) boarding house
Boarding house
A boarding house, is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "bed...
. The central character, Moon (short for Moonshine
Moonshine
Moonshine is an illegally produced distilled beverage...
), is a would-be prizefighter—perpetually strapped for cash but with a roguish appetite for vice and high living. Moon took a room in the boarding house at 1323 Wump Street in 1924 and never left, staying on for 67 years.
Origins and history
Frank Henry Willard was born on September 21, 1893 in Anna, IllinoisAnna, Illinois
Anna is a city in Union County, Illinois, United States. Located in Southern Illinois, the population was 5,136 at the 2000 census. The city is known for being tied to its close neighbor Jonesboro, together known as Anna-Jonesboro. Anna is well renowned for the Anna State Mental Hospital or the...
, the son of a physician, who early determined to become a cartoonist. After attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
in 1913, he was a staff artist with the Chicago Herald (1914–18), where he drew the Sunday kids' page, Tom, Dick and Harry and another strip, Mrs. Pippin's Husband. He next wrote and drew The Outta Luck Club for 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...
(1919–23).
In The Comics (1947), Coulton Waugh
Coulton Waugh
Frederick Coulton Waugh was a cartoonist, painter, teacher and author, best known for his illustration work on the comic strip Dickie Dare and his book The Comics , the first major study of the field.His father was the marine artist Frederick Judd Waugh, and his grandfather was the Philadelphia...
described Willard's art style as "gritty-looking". In 2003, the Scoop newsletter documented the 1923 events that led to the creation of the strip:
- Moon was a tough-talking, if generally good natured, kind of guy who took (and dealt) plenty of punches during his run. And actually, those are very appropriate characteristics. See, back before Moon was created, Frank Willard was working on a strip called The Outta Luck Club for King Features Syndicate. That's when he got the notion that some of his ideas were being slipped to fellow cartoonist George McManusGeorge McManusGeorge McManus was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of Irish immigrant Jiggs and his wife Maggie, the central characters in his syndicated comic strip, Bringing Up Father....
(creator of Bringing Up FatherBringing up FatherBringing Up Father was an influential American comic strip created by cartoonist George McManus . Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it ran for 87 years, from January 12, 1913 to May 28, 2000....
). So, in typical Moon Mullins fashion, Willard approached McManus and gave him a wallop that knocked the latter out cold and got the former fired. That little episode didn't stop Captain Joe PattersonJoseph Medill PattersonJoseph Medill Patterson was an American journalist and publisher, grandson of publisher Joseph Medill, founder of the Chicago Tribune and a mayor of Chicago, Illinois.-Family:...
's interest from being piqued, however, and Willard soon set to work on a new strip for the Chicago Tribune SyndicateTribune Media ServicesTribune Media Services is a syndication company owned by the Tribune Company.The company has two divisions, "News and Features" and "Entertainment Products"...
. That strip was Moon Mullins...
- Ah, Moon Mullins! He made a horrible role model but a hilarious star nonetheless—as did his assorted pals... Adventures included stints in jail, trysts with stolen cars, failed employment opportunities, misunderstandings and plenty of black eyes for all. Yet, there was a certain lightness to all of Moon's debaucheries that made his low-down ways pretty charming...
Reportedly, the strip was originally intended as a rival for King Features' Barney Google
Barney Google
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, originally Barney Google, is a long-running American comic strip created by cartoonist Billy DeBeck . Since its debut on June 17, 1919, the strip has gained a huge international readership, appearing in 900 newspapers in 21 countries...
, also about a lovable, banjo-eyed lowlife at home in the sporting world. It proved so popular that men named Mullins, born from about the 19-teens through the 1960s, were as likely as not to be nicknamed "Moon". Willard was in tune with the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
characters he created, as noted by David Westbrook in From Hogan's Alley to Coconino County: Four Narratives of the Early Comic Strip:
- Some comic strip artists laid claim to a similar working-class authenticity by representing themselves in the position of employee. When Frank Willard, author of Moon Mullins, narrates a scene from his workplace, he portrays himself as a rowdy underdog much like The Yellow KidThe Yellow KidThe Yellow Kid emerged as the lead character in Hogan's Alley, drawn by Richard F. Outcault, which became one of the first Sunday supplement comic strips in an American newspaper, although its graphical layout had already been thoroughly established in political and other, purely-for-entertainment...
. He becomes, in effect, the "tricky and roguish" character cited by Gilbert SeldesGilbert SeldesGilbert Vivian Seldes was an American writer and cultural critic. He was editor and drama critic of The Dial. He also hosted the NBC television program The Subject is Jazz....
as the quintessence of the comic strip.
- When Brennecke (in "The Real Mission of the Funny Paper" by Ernest Brennecke, from The Century MagazineThe Century MagazineThe Century Magazine was first published in the United States in 1881 by The Century Company of New York City as a successor to Scribner's Monthly Magazine...
, March 1924) locates the truth of comic strip realism in the comics' habit of "commenting trenchantly" on "the life of the middle classes", it is comics like The Yellow Kid and artists like Willard that he has in mind...
Characters and story
- Moon Mullins: with his big eyes, checkered pants, perpetual cigar and yellow derby hatBowler hatThe bowler hat, also known as a coke hat, derby , billycock or bombin, is a hard felt hat with a rounded crown originally created in 1849 for the English soldier and politician Edward Coke, the younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester...
; Moon is an amiable roughneck amid a cast of roughnecks. He haunts saloons, racetracks and pool halls, mangles the English language with Jazz AgeJazz AgeThe 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...
slangSlangSlang 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...
, and gets into endless scrapes looking for an easy buck or a hot dame. Moon himself is a low-rent but likeable sort of riff-raff, involved in get-rich schemes and bootleg whiskey, crap games and staying out all night with disreputable friends. None of the roughhousing was fatal or even particularly threatening, however. Indeed, the gentleness of the situational humor behind all the characters' rough edges kept the strip on an even keel. The name "Moonshine" referenced Mullins as a drinker and gambler during ProhibitionProhibitionProhibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
. - Kayo: Moon's street urchin kid brother, who sleeps in an open dresser drawer—one of the strip's most iconic images. Kayo is usually clad in suspenders, polka dot pants and a black derby. Pint-sized Kayo (a play on "K.O.", sportswriters' shorthand for a knockoutKnockoutA knockout is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, Karate and others sports involving striking...
punch) is wise beyond his years and even a bit of a cynic. His plain-speaking, matter-of-fact bluntness is a frequent source of comedy. Full of mischief and bad grammar, Kayo is a good deal more of the ruffian than Moon.
- Emmy (Schmaltz) Plushbottom: the nosy, lanky, spinsterish landlady who likes to put on airs. All the characters take turns receiving their comeuppance, and Emmy certainly gets her share. She finally married on October 6, 1933 and became Lady Plushbottom. She says "My stars" and "For pity sakes" a lot, but her trademark line—always delivered after a (frequent) putdown—is "I'll smack your sassy face!"
- (Uncle) Willie: introduced in 1927; Moon's long lost, no-account uncle wears a checkered suit and is perpetually unshaven. Willie, who would disappear for months at a time, prefers the hoboHoboA hobo is a term which is often applied to a migratory worker or homeless vagabond, often penniless. The term originated in the Western—probably Northwestern—United States during the last decade of the 19th century. Unlike 'tramps', who work only when they are forced to, and 'bums', who do not...
life—despite being married and half-domesticated. His only occupation seems to be the avoidance of confrontations with his formidable wife, Mamie. - (Aunt) Mamie: Miss Schmaltz's burly, no-nonsense washwoman and cook; her rolled-up sleeves reveal a conspicuous star tattoo. She's the only featured character of the working classWorking classWorking class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
cast who actually works. Mamie is usually tolerant of her errant husband, but she can be dangerous when riled—much to Willie's dismay. - Lord Plushbottom: (aka "Plushie", as Moon calls him.) Willard introduced him because Patterson thought tossing a well-bred Englishman into that shabby crowd had great comic possibilities. Plushbottom initially appeared as a man of wealth, whom Emmy pursued for ten years before their marriage. Afterwards he moved in, in apparently reduced circumstances, but never discarded his evening clothes, spats and top hatTop hatA top hat, beaver hat, high hat silk hat, cylinder hat, chimney pot hat or stove pipe hat is a tall, flat-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, predominantly worn from the latter part of the 18th to the middle of the 20th century...
for everyday wear. - Egypt: Emmy's beautiful flapperFlapperFlapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...
niece with the bobbed Louise BrooksLouise BrooksMary Louise Brooks , generally known by her stage name Louise Brooks, was an American dancer, model, showgirl and silent film actress, noted for popularizing the bobbed haircut. Brooks is best known for her three feature roles including two G. W...
coiffure, and Moon's sometime girlfriend. - Mushmouth: Moon's pal and much-maligned step-and-fetch-it.
- Kitty Higgins: was the star of Willard's "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 about a precocious little girl and her maid, Pauline. Kitty eventually joined the Moon Mullins cast as Kayo's girlfriend.
After Johnson took over, other colorful characters were added to the cast, including:
- Professor Byrrd: an erudite, tweed-suited academic
- Myna Byrrd: the Professor's lovely brunette daughter
- Miss Swivel: a sexy blonde stenographer, frequently pursued by Moon
- Mr. Doodle: an eccentric, temperamental artist
- Joke: a cab driver
The strip was reviewed by Dr. Hermes in Dr. Hermes Retro-Scans:
Later years
Ferdinand "Ferd" JohnsonFerd Johnson
Ferdinand Johnson , aka Ferd Johnson, was an American cartoonist, best known for his 68-year stint on the Moon Mullins comic strip....
(1905–1996) began as Willard's assistant a few months after the strip began in 1923. Starting with the lettering, then the backgrounds, Johnson gradually progressed to the point where he was handling the entire operation; but it was only after Willard died that he began signing it. When Willard died suddenly on January 11, 1958, the Tribune Syndicate hired Johnson, who also had a natural gift for funny, slangy dialogue, to helm the strip as Willard's logical successor. (Frank Willard's tombstone at the Anna Cemetery in Anna, Illinois, is graced with an engraving of Moon Mullins.)
Ferd Johnson was born December 18, 1905, in Spring Creek, Pennsylvania. Johnson became interested in cartooning after winning the Erie (Pennsylvania) Dispatch-Herald cartoon contest at the age of 12. After finishing high school in 1923 he attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts but left school after only three months to take an assistant's job at the Chicago Tribune with Willard. While assisting on Moon Mullins, Johnson remained active with other Tribune projects. He created several comic strip features for the Syndicate—Texas Slim (1925–1928) and Lovey-Dovey (1932)—did sports illustration work, and produced advertising cartoons. In 1940, he revived Texas Slim in Texas Slim and Dirty Dalton (with the companion strip, Buzzy), which ran for 18 years.
After Willard's death in 1958, he took over full responsibility for Moon Mullins. By that time it had evolved from long story continuities to a gag-a-day strip, although the humor remained character-based, as always. Unlike many long-running newspaper comics, Moon Mullins did not have a period of decline; maintaining its high standard of humor and art for almost seven decades. In 1978, Ferd's son, Tom Johnson, signed on as his assistant. Ferd Johnson stayed with the strip until it came to an end upon his retirement in 1991. Johnson worked on Moon Mullins for 68 years—a stint that probably stands as the longest tenure of an artist on a single feature in the history of American comics.
Comic books and reprints
The strip was reprinted in a long-running series of Cupples & LeonCupples & Leon
Cupples & Leon was an American publishing company founded in 1902 by Victor I. Cupples and Arthur T. Leon . They published juvenile fiction and children's books but are mainly remembered today as the major publisher of books collecting comic strips during the early decades of the 20th century.In...
books (1927–1937), Big Little Books and comic books for 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...
(starting in 1936) and later, the American Comics Group
American Comics Group
American Comics Group was a New York City-based comic book publisher which operated during the Golden and Silver Age of comic books. ACG published one of the first horror comics titles, Adventures into the Unknown. Another of ACG's claims to fame was the character of Herbie Popnecker, who starred...
(1947–1948). Dover Publications
Dover Publications
Dover Publications is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward Cirker and his wife, Blanche. It publishes primarily reissues, books no longer published by their original publishers. These are often, but not always, books in the public domain. The original published editions may be...
reprinted a collection of the daily strips in 1976, consisting of the third and fifthth Cupples & Leon books. Representative samples of Moon Mullins daily continuity were featured in Great Comics Syndicated by the Daily News-Chicago Tribune (Crown Publishers, 1972), and The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics (Smithsonian Institution Press/Harry Abrams, 1977). The latter volume also reproduces several full-color Sunday pages. Comic strip 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...
edited a series of strip reprints for SPEC Productions.
Merchandise and advertising
Moon Mullins merchandising began when agent Toni Mendez arranged a licensing deal for Kayo suspenders. The wave of products that followed included such items as a series of Kellogg's Pep CerealKellogg Company
Kellogg Company , is a producer of cereal and convenience foods, including cookies, crackers, toaster pastries, cereal bars, fruit-flavored snacks, frozen waffles, and vegetarian foods...
pins, a Milton Bradley
Milton Bradley Company
The Milton Bradley Company is an American game company established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the largest game manufacturer in the United States, and in 1987, it purchased Selchow and Righter,...
board game (1938), salt and pepper shakers, perfume bottles, Christmas lights, bisque toothbrush holders, a set of nodder figures, carnival chalkware statues, a wind-up toy handcar
Handcar
A handcar is a railroad car powered by its passengers, or by people pushing the car from behind. It is mostly used as a maintenance of way or mining car, but it was also used for passenger service in some cases...
, cloth and celluloid Kayo dolls, coloring books and a series of jigsaw puzzle
Jigsaw puzzle
A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of numerous small, often oddly shaped, interlocking and tessellating pieces.Each piece usually has a small part of a picture on it; when complete, a jigsaw puzzle produces a complete picture...
s (1943).
"Kayo Chocolate Drink" was the name of a popular bottled soft drink
Soft drink
A soft drink is a non-alcoholic beverage that typically contains water , a sweetener, and a flavoring agent...
. It was manufactured for several decades, and featured Kayo Mullins on its colorful label. In recent years, nostalgic "Drink Kayo" tin and embossed metal advertising sign reproductions have been available.
Radio
Old-time radio
Old-Time Radio and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the primary home entertainment medium in the 1950s...
during the 1940s. In the third episode of the series (March 25, 1940), the Plushbottoms trade Moon's only suit to pay for a collect telegram and learn they are owners of a goldmine. In a CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
audition recording dated January 31, 1947, Uncle Willie asks Moon for $10 bail, and Moon teaches the game of Blackjack
Blackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
to Kayo. Lord Plushbottom plans to go to a costume party as an Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
but instead winds up with a suit of armor. Character actor Sheldon Leonard
Sheldon Leonard
Sheldon Leonard was a pioneering American film and television producer, director, writer, and actor.-Biography:...
was in the cast.
Animation
Cambria Studios produced two sample episodes of a proposed Moon Mullins syndicated TV series with their Syncro-VoxSyncro-Vox
Syncro-Vox is a filming method which combines static images with moving images, the most common use of which is to superimpose talking lips on a photograph of a celebrity or a cartoon drawing. It is one of the most extreme examples of the cost-cutting strategy of limited animation...
animation process in the early 1960s, but it didn't clear enough television stations to go into production. Comic actor and director Howard Morris
Howard Morris
Howard Morris was an American comic actor and director who was best known for his role as Ernest T. Bass on The Andy Griffith Show.- Life and career :...
was the voice of Moon when the strip was adapted to animation for Archie's TV Funnies
Archie's TV Funnies
Archie's TV Funnies is a Saturday morning cartoon animated series produced by Filmation which appeared on CBS from September 11, 1971 to September 1, 1973...
(1971–1973), produced by Filmation
Filmation
Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live action programming for television during the latter half of the 20th century. Located in Reseda, California, the animation studio was founded in 1963...
. Moon and Kayo became one of several rotating segments on the Saturday morning cartoon series. Other comic strip character features in the rotation included Broom-Hilda
Broom-Hilda
Broom-Hilda is an American newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Russell Myers. Distributed by the Tribune Media Services, it depicts the misadventures of a man-crazy, cigar-smoking, beer-guzzling, 1,500-year-old witch and her motley crew of friends....
, Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy is a comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a hard-hitting, fast-shooting and intelligent police detective. Created by Chester Gould, the strip made its debut on October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate...
, The Captain and the Kids, Alley Oop
Alley Oop
Alley Oop is a syndicated comic strip, created in 1932 by American cartoonist V. T. Hamlin, who wrote and drew the popular and influential strip through four decades for Newspaper Enterprise Association...
, Nancy and Sluggo and Smokey Stover
Smokey Stover
Smokey Stover is an American comic strip written and drawn by cartoonist Bill Holman, from 1935 until he retired in 1973. Distributed through the Chicago Tribune, it features the wacky misadventures of the titular fireman, and had the longest run of any comic strip in the "screwball comics"...
. It was repeated in 1978, without Archie
Archie Andrews (comics)
Archie Andrews, created in 1941 by Vic Bloom and Bob Montana, is a fictional character in an American comic book series published by Archie Comics, as well as the long-running Archie Andrews radio series, a syndicated comic strip, The Archie Show, and Archie's Weird Mysteries.-Character and...
, under the title The Fabulous Funnies.
Sources
- Strickler, DaveDave StricklerDave Strickler is a reference librarian noted for his compilation of Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924–1995: The Complete Index, regarded as a major reference work by researchers and historians of newspaper comic strips....
. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index. Cambria, California: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1
External links
- Moon Mullins at Don Markstein's ToonopediaDon Markstein's ToonopediaDon Markstein's Toonopedia was a web encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation. Don D...
- I Love Comix, Moon Mullins dailies in sequence from 1945,
- Pinocho: Moon Mullins in Spanish (1927)
- Ferd Johnson Cartoons 1946–1965 and Frank Willard Cartoons at Syracuse University (original Moon Mullins artwork)
