The Dagwood Effect
The other day we were going to dinner in Escondido with Winston and Kathleen. Winston is such a great name, for a neighbor especially, since it evokes a person of interest that is both conservative and yet mildly daring at the same time. That description fits our Winston quite well, but more on that later. We drove down to the local Mexican restaurant (there are so very many in the area) that has the benefit of easy parking and even easier table acquisition. We never wait at this place, which probably should make us wonder if anyone else thinks they are any good, but I have such a hard time differentiating Mexican food that I’m sure I could blind taste-test my way past Taco Bell once it’s out of the wrapper. On the way down the hill I commented about the progress of some local construction and Winston paused to update us on a new recycling facility wanting to go in across the 15 from where we were. When Kim asked where, I said it was just under that hillside with the big seal rock on top. Kathleen then said, “Oh, you mean Schmoo Rock?”
I happened to know what a Schmoo was and, indeed, the rock on the hill did look like a Schmoo with its pear-shape and rounded head. The Schmoo was a cartoon invention of Al Capp, the cartoonist that wrote the Lil’ Abner cartoon strip that was wildly popular in the United States for four decades and portrayed the satirical life and times of a hillbilly country bumpkin named Abner Yokum. Lil’ Abner was naive and simple and shared a goodness that also characterized the Schmoo. The keeper of the Schmoos said that they represented the single biggest threat to mankind because they were so good that the dark world of man could not help but pale in comparison. The Schmoo came into existence in Capp’s mind in 1948 and quickly became familiar to over 60 million Americans through the comic strip. Many terms including schmoozing are attributed to this fictitious gentle creature. But since the strip ended in 1977, shortly before Al Capp’s death, it and its characters like the Schmoo are only familiar to people of a certain age. The more I have filled in my knowledge gaps about the Schmoo, the more I like what he represents.
There are two or three other cartoons I remember from my youth that are not part of today’s culture. First there is Nancy and her pal Sluggo, which seemed like simply a vehicle for childish humor and went no further. Ernie Bushmiller may have made us aware of Sluggo’s origins on “the other side of the tracks”, but there was not much more social commentary. There was Bettle Bailey, with his Sarge Snorkel and dog Otto, clearly intended to poke fun at the military and the men in uniform. While Bettle is no brain trust, he seems to have more inherent sense than either Sarge or any of the brass that inhabit Camp Swampy. As this strip started in 1950 by Mort Walker, it is fair to assume that this was a post-war release for the men who never got to see action in the big one.
And finally there is Blondie, penned by Chic Young for forty years and now taken over by the next generation of Young’s. The main character, Blondie Boopadoop was a pretty, but dumb flapper who had a boyfriend named Dagwood Bumstead, who was heir to an industrial fortune and who’s most prominent feature was that he liked great big sandwiches. The strip rode the late 1920’s flapper days through the depression and into WWII with Blondie and Dagwood going through all the life changes with which Americans were grappling from marriage to the growing role of women in the workforce. Blondie herself goes from a ditz to the sensible housewife while Dagwood takes on more of a bumbling image. At home he is the midnight snacker, the guy who is always late for work, the guy who naps away his afternoons and the guy who spends most of his time just getting by. He works for Mr. Dithers and is forever getting fired for screwing up.
It’s strange that Chic Young went from poking fun at frivolous pretty young things like Blondie to spending most of his strip dedicated to the bumbling and inane antics of Dagwood as the American male started to take a back seat to the nascent women of America. It is almost as though Dagwood is there to allow us American men to feel less bad about ourselves and our failings, because Dagwood is alway screwing up one bit worse than we might. So, as you can imagine, these cartoon strips say a lot about our culture and are so much more than just little petty jokes for our Sunday morning pleasure. Those of us who grew up with Doonesbury make no mistake in identifying the direct critical role of comics as a commentary about life in these United States. My hats off to the last generation of cartoonists like Capp, Walker, and Young for purposefully setting out a social and cultural commentary agenda, but in doing so subtly such that it put off few and probably therefore penetrated more.
By all rights, I should mention Pogo and Winnie the Pooh as well, but these are far more Orwellian strips in that they imbue human characteristics into swamp and forest animals. Walt Kelly and A.A. Milne put their political and social comment into strips, books and movies that could easily be enjoyed by children and adults alike (much like Pixar did with Toy Story). Who among us has not characterized someone as a the Owl, Alligator or Possum and perhaps even more so Eeyor or Tigger.
We all have our memories that help us relate back to these comic strips. I tend to do so mostly with Charles Shultz’s Peanuts with Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Peppermint Patty (the first outed Lesbian?) the Little Red Haired Girl (as illusive and unseen as she was) and, of course Pigpen with the constant cloud of dust over his head.
But today I am thinking about Dagwood because as I become more and more of a Dagwood around the house, I go out and buy a sandwich at the local deli and it comes home with me looking huge and reminding me that for most of my life, such a construct would be called a Dagwood. Therefore, as I ponder all the great comic strips I have enjoyed along the way, it may be the Dagwood Effect that has me in its grip more than any other. The only good part of that is that only people of a certain age will even remotely understand what that might mean.