Toots and Casper
Encyclopedia
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....
by Jimmy Murphy, distributed to newspapers for 37 years 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...
, resulting in many merchandising tie-ins, including books, dolls, paper dolls, pins, bisque nodders and comic books.
Comics historian 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...
commented on the strip's portrait of a happy, idealized family life: "Like Blondie, Toots is the picture of contentment, and if all homes were like these, the American Dream would be nearly realized."
Characters and story
It began as a gag-a-day strip but soon settled into a successful pattern of serialized stories of romance and mystery involving newlyweds Toots and Casper Hawkins, their child Buttercup and dog Spare-Ribs (which entered a dog race with a $2500 prize in 1933).Murphy began Toots and Casper for the New York American
New York Journal American
The New York Journal American was a newspaper published from 1937 to 1966. The Journal American was the product of a merger between two New York newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst: The New York American , a morning paper, and the New York Evening Journal, an afternoon paper...
and other Hearst newspapers during December 1918. He used his wife, Matilda Katherine Murphy, as the model for Toots.
The 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....
was picked up by King Features in 1919, and the Sunday strip
Sunday strip
A Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and virtually always in color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...
began the following year (July 1920). The Sunday page carried a topper
Topper (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 by Murphy, It's Papa Who Pays! Toots and Casper had a child, a boy named Buttercup, in November 1920. Buttercup remained a baby for over 20 years, eventually growing up as a six-year-old in the early 1940s, as noted by comics historian Don Markstein:
- Young, stylish, vivacious Toots was the star in the beginning, with short, bald, middle-aged Casper a mere stereotype of the harried, put-upon husband. It's said Murphy based Toots (who, according to historian Coulton WaughCoulton WaughFrederick 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...
, was the first good-looking married woman in comics) on his own wife, but being a mere 26 years old at the time, probably didn't base Casper on himself. The strip only lasted a couple of months in this form, but was back for good in 1920. On its return, Casper was a little taller, a little hairier, a little younger and a lot more important as a character; and there were two additions—a Sunday page beginning in July of that year, and a baby named Buttercup born in December. The immensely popular Buttercup beat Gasoline AlleyGasoline AlleyGasoline Alley is a comic strip created by Frank King and currently distributed by Tribune Media Services. First published November 24, 1918, it is the second longest running comic strip in the US and has received critical accolades for its influential innovations...
s Skeezix into print by three months, but Skeezix beat Buttercup to adulthood by a much greater margin. In fact, while Skeezix was in the U.S. Army, fighting World War II, the Hawkins kid was finally getting into grammar school—which is about as old as he ever got. Like the era's quintessential domestic strip, The GumpsThe GumpsThe Gumps, a popular comic strip about a middle-class family, was created by Sidney Smith in 1917, launching a 42-year run in newspapers from February 12, 1917 until October 17, 1959....
, the Hawkins family (the three humans, plus a dog named Spare-Ribs) got into continuing stories as the 1920s rolled on. In the 1930s, with Dick TracyDick TracyDick 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...
, Buck RogersBuck RogersAnthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue....
and the like serving up daily doses of high adventure, the plots got more melodramatic. But the central theme, the funny side of family life, remained.
Both the daily and the Sunday strips were popular favorites for decades. In 1934, Murphy began including collectible images (formatted like postage stamps) in his Sunday strips along with paper dolls, and these features proved so popular they were subsequently imitated by other cartoonists.
Licensing and merchandising
There was a wave of Toots and Casper licensing and merchandising, with items that ran the gamut from pins and dolls to comic books. The daily continued until 1951, and the Sunday strip lasted until 1956. Murphy's illness near the end of the run prompted the recycling of earlier strips and the hiring of ghost artists.Films
Thelma Hill and Bud Duncan starred in the 1927-29 series of Toots and Casper silent comedy film shorts with Cullen Johnson as Buttercup and George Gray as Casper's boss.Cultural legacy
The strip gave rise to a much recited jump-rope rhyme:- Toots and Casper went to town.
- Tootsie bought an evening gown,
- Casper bought a pair of shoes,
- Buttercup bought the Daily News.
Sources
- Goulart, Ron, editor. Encyclopedia of American Comics. New York: Facts on File, 1990.
- 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, CA: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1.