Long before the difficult greenness of being Kermit, there was amiable philosophizing Pogo. While the beloved frog chose to stroll the streets of New York singing, the personable possum opted for permanent residence in the Okefenokee Swamp, deep in the state of Georgia.
I’m not at all certain that the Weaver children knew some of their occasional nicknames were borrowed from the cast of characters drawn and authored by Walt Kelly. Among the ones I couldn’t resist were Grundoon and Howland Owl. From the dozens of sometimes insightful and often clueless characters, I admit being fond of the alliterative Albert Alligator, though he wasn’t the wisest wit in the world. After the starting gun in a thinking contest, he was heard to say, “I’d give them a piece of my mind if I could find it! I mean them.”
The early 1950s were restless, fearful years for many. The undeclared “war” in Korea was taking its toll, conservatives were calling attention to the Red Menace to government, entertainment and intellectual life, while liberals feared the supporters of Massachusetts Senator Joseph McCarthy and his career-ending attacks on reputations of individuals accused of associating with the “wave of the future”, communism.
News notes in May of 1953 included Walter Weaver returning from military service in time to see the introduction of Simple J. Malarkey (a vicious wildcat), the cartoon stand-in for McCarthy. He soon drove out the blind Mole MacCarony, who had been recruited to help clean up dangerous elements in the swamp. By now you know that the painfully real Joe McCarthy was finally ousted, but the swamp has never been cleared.
As for Pogo, in 1952 the swamp’s residents trumped up excuses forcing him to run for president offering “I Go Pogo” buttons to match eventual winner Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “I Like Ike” theme.
In 1960 the swamp’s nominal candidate was an egg with two protruding tiny feet, an allusion to the relative youth of John F. Kennedy. The egg kept saying: “Well, I’ve got time to learn; we rabbits have to stick together.” You do understand, the strip was intentional audiobabble, my neologism for delightful nonsense with healthy doses of current affairs commentary.
Kelly personally took advantage of these fake political efforts by promoting voter registration with his own stumping tour slogan “Pogo says: If you can’t vote my way, vote anyway, but VOTE!”
Perhaps I liked the strip because the extent to which Kelly honored his claim to be against “the extreme Right, the extreme Left, and the extreme Middle”.
You probably already know that Pogo’s most famous quote was “We have met the enemy and he is us.” You may not have known that his full name is Ponce de Leon Montgomery County Alabama Georgia Beauregard Possum, an obvious parody of the aristocracy of the old South.
Finally, my favorite from my favorite opossum (Yes, I know the correct spelling.) “Don’t take life so serious, son. It ain’t nohow permanent.” If you don’t subscribe to that, my friend, please permit me to suggest you Think Again.