h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Lost track of the thread where we were discussing this
and still unable to locate Albert spoof scenes in POGO;
but someone has found and sent me this very interesting
link to the very origins of the Orphant Annie prior
to her comic strip incarnation.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Orphant_Annie



And here's a link to a lot of POGO pages:
http://whirledofkelly.blogspot.ca/search?updated-max=2014-11-30T00:20:00-07:00&max-results=7&m=1

Cheers
~jwf~

Here's a link to the poem itself:

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/little-orphant-annie

I've loved it for a long time.

Harold Gray's "Little Orphan Annie" comic strip inspired another strip called "Little Annie Rooney."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Annie_Rooney

As late as the 1960s some newspapers were carrying the strip. Annie's dog was called Zero, and her catch-phrase was "Gloriosky, Zero," just as "Leapin' Lizards was Little Orphan Annie's. Gloriosky found its way into the "Sergeant Krupke" song in "West Side Story."

Egads! Yes, I had seen Annie Rooney. I don't recall any conflict
or conscious comparison with the better known Annie - but both must
have been carried in our local papers. Annie Rooney seems so stylish
now in a skinny thinny 60s Twiggy kinda way (compared to the Betty
Boop/Little Lulu/Rubenesque cuddly-baby-fat style).
http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/enlightenment-gary-hernandez.jpg

And thanks for the poem. That it has been among your favourites
so many years is quite impressive. And I confess, even as well
as I think I may have come to know and understand you, not just
a little surprising.



~jwf~

It's what comes of growing up in a small town that still had a functioning farm in the center of town when we moved there. I could
relate to the farm chores that little orphant Annie had to do. My mother's parents had a cow that had to be milked. How many people nowadays have their own cows to milk? Not many, I wager.

I think I know that cow. She was featured in POGO.
Think her name was Moo Cow. And there was a three-legged stool...
It was a cover image on one of the books I think.

BTW:
This is as close to Albert as an Orphan as I have found.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A5ivI5oY9j4/VJcNJCIrXiI/AAAAAAAAJx8/t7CuG4KPh3M/s1600/4c025440.jpg
I suspect this page was the opening premise to the scenes
of Albert's blunked-out eyebones but there is no link to
any following pages.

~jwf~

I keep forgetting to look up those strips in my collection of "Pogo" books. Sorry.

No prob. I really should go find the whole series
at a book sale or online somewhere. I used to have
them all back in the once-upon-a-times.

~jwf~

I still have most of them, but I am a master at procrastination.

I looked through six Pogo books yesterday, but with no success. I think the relevant strips were done in the early to mid 1960s, if that helps.

I've just nailed it! Lulu Arfin Nanny was in "G. O. Fizzickle Pogo."

http://www.amazon.com/G-O-Fizzickle-Pogo-Walt-Kelly/product-reviews/B0007DF7EO

Thanks. That was the 18 month long "year" declared by the UN
as the International Geophysical Year (1957-58) when our species
got its first photo glimpses of the planet from an orbital POV
and decided to learn more about it in a peaceful cooperative
way - in spite of the shock of realising it was pear shaped
and them damn Rooskies was up there first.

I was 12/13 and had caught a glimpse of Sputnik beeping by. The
POGO was my first exposure to puns and double entendres and to
the overall concept of a whirled spinning round and round in space.

~jwf~

Do you suppose we will someday discover a distant planet where the inhabitants are Pogo characters?