Songs About Comic Strips

April 25, 2006 1:23 PM

A few songs about comic strips. Here is Edward Meeker performing "Oh Min!" (mp3 link), a song about Sidney Smith's "The Gumps". Barney Google also had a song or two (mp3 links). Little Orphan Annie is probably the most famous (Real Audio), aside from Popeye.
posted by interrobang (12 comments total)

Most of these are from archive.org's amazing 78s collection.
posted by interrobang at 1:24 PM on April 25, 2006

Songs of the Pogo. Ah, Pogo.
posted by cairnish at 1:47 PM on April 25, 2006

That Toonpedia link on Barney Google (which I first read via the always-amusing Comics Curmudgeon) is filled with one insane thing after another:

1) That millions of Americans waited with baited breath to see the first race of a horse in a comic strip (then again, some of us were affected emotionally when a comic strip character was seen without a helmet)

2) That Hillbillies were such a force in American entertainment that the introduction of one into a sports comic strip would lead to the title character disappearing from the strip for 50 years

3) That the National Cartoonists Society, heartless bastards that they are, named their highest honor "The Billy DeBeck Award" after Barney Google's creator, who died of cancer at 52, only to change the name of the award to the Reuben a short 12 years later in 1954. Apparently twelve years was as long as Billy DeBeck needed to be remembered. What's even more baffling, according to Wikipedia, the Reuben Award is named for Rube Goldberg, who didn't die of cancer in 1954 (or apparently do anything else to merit this renaming, other than being wildly popular) AND who didn't even receive the award named after him until 1967!
posted by unsupervised at 2:02 PM on April 25, 2006

Don't forget Alley Oop, oop.... oop oop.
posted by soyjoy at 2:08 PM on April 25, 2006

And Ernie K-Doe's (the emperor of the universe) "Check Mr. Popeye," which ignited a dance craze across the southern united states.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:11 PM on April 25, 2006

Hey, does an entire musical about a comic strip count?
posted by soyjoy at 2:23 PM on April 25, 2006

Oh yeah, I guess "Annie" would fit that bill too, huh.
posted by soyjoy at 2:23 PM on April 25, 2006

Little Orphan Annie is probably the most famous (Real Audio), aside from Popeye.

Ahem:

Little Lulu, Little Lulu, with freckles on your chin,
Always in and out of trouble, but mostly always in.
Using Daddy's necktie for the tail on your kite,
Using Mommy's lipstick for the letters you write.

"Though the clock says 7:30, it's really after 10;
Looks like Lulu's been repairing it again.
Though you're wild as any Zulu,
And you're just as hard to tame,
Little Lulu, I love you-Lu just the same, just the same,
Little Lulu, I love you-Lu just the same.

posted by y2karl at 2:57 PM on April 25, 2006

Pure Joy - "Calvin and Hobbes"
posted by ktoad at 3:07 PM on April 25, 2006

Two of my favourite things -- comic strips and strange music. Great post; thanks!
posted by Robot Johnny at 3:24 PM on April 25, 2006

Let's not forget "Scenes From a Night's Dream" by Genesis from ...And Then There Were Three...(1978), which is about the early 20th century comic Little Nemo in Slumberland
posted by jburka at 7:53 PM on April 25, 2006

Nice post, interrobang. Thanks.
posted by luckypozzo at 8:19 PM on April 25, 2006