Beetle Bailey

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Beetle Bailey (begun on September 4, 1950) is a comic strip set in the United States Army, created by Mort Walker. It is among the oldest comic strips still being made by the original creator. The strip also remains among the most popular comic strips today. Walker received the Reuben Award for 1953, as well as the National Cartoonist Society Humor Strip Award for 1966 and 1969 for the strip. King Features Syndicate is the publisher.

1 History and origins of Beetle Bailey
2 The strip
3 Cast
4 Controversy
5 External links
6 References

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History and origins of Beetle Bailey

In 1948 and 1949, Mort Walker submitted his comics to magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post. The editor of the SEP, John Bailey, suggested he draw some comics in a college setting, having seen some of Mort Walker's work during college. Walker did so, and Bailey suggested that he feature one character, who wore a hat down over his eyes. Walker named him Spider, after a fraternity brother.

Walker then decided to do a comic strip about college, putting all of his fraternity brothers from the University of Missouri-Columbia in it. Changing the name from Spider to Beetle, King Features Syndicate bought it; it was the last comic strip personally approved by William Randolph Hearst. Bailey was added as a last name in honor of John Bailey. Beetle Bailey first ran in twelve newspapers on September 4, 1950, the day after Mort Walker's birthday.

On March 13, 1951, during the Korean War, Walker had Beetle Bailey enlist in the Army. All characters other than Beetle were dropped, and new ones created. The struggling comic strip (King Features was considering not renewing the one-year contract) soon appeared in more newspapers, beginning Beetle's rise to popularity.

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The strip

Most of the humor revolves around the mostly inept characters stationed at Camp Swampy, inspired by Camp Crowder, where Walker had been stationed while in the Army. Private Bailey is a lazy sort and usually naps and avoids work, and thus is often the subject of verbal and physical chastising from his Sergeant.

The comic strip currently takes place in present day. The characters in Beetle Bailey have never seen combat themselves, with the exception of mock battles and combat drills. In fact, they seem to be in their own version of stereotypical comic strip "purgatory", i.e. they are forever locked into Basic Combat Training or Boot Camp. The uniforms of Beetle Bailey are still the uniforms of the 1950s Army, with green fatigues and baseball caps as the basic uniform. Sgt. Snorkel wears a green undress uniform with garrison cap; the officers wear M1 helmet liners painted with their insignia.

Beetle's sister is Lois Flagston of the comic strip Hi and Lois, a spinoff which debuted in 1954.

Beetle is always seen with a hat or helmet over his head, forehead, and eyes. He was only seen without it once in the real strip, when he was still in college. In a Mad Magazine parody in the 1960s, Beetle's hat is removed and on his forehead is written "Get out of Vietnam".

Over the years, Mort Walker has been assisted by (among others) Jerry Dumas, Bob Gustafson, Frank Johnson, and his sons Brian and Greg Walker, of which the latter is credited on the strips today.

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Cast

Beetle Bailey is unusal in having one of the largest and most varied permanent casts of any comic strip. While many of the older characters are rarely seen, almost none have been completely retired.

Beetle Bailey
Sgt. Orville Snorkel ("Sarge") - Beetle's nemesis
Otto - Sgt. Snorkel's anthropomorphic dog
General Amos T. Halftrack - the inept commander of Camp Swampy
Martha Halftrack - the General's domineering wife
Miss Buxley - Halftrack's beautiful ("buxom") secretary
Private Blips - Halftrack's competent secretary (not at all "buxom" - blips are small points of light on a Radar screen)
Bunny - Beetle's girlfriend
Lieutenant Jack Flap - the strip's first black character, introduced in 1970
"Killer" Diller - the ladies man
Zero - the uneducated, buck-toothed country boy
Lt. Sonny Fuzz - very young (with very little facial hair), over-earnest, by the book, always trying to impress uninterested superiors, and rubbing it in with his subordinates, introduced 1956
Cookie - the cook, who smokes cigarettes while preparing the mess hall's questionable menu
Plato - the intellectual (as Tom Lehrer might say, "brings a book to every meal"); named after Plato.
Corporal Yo - the strip's first Asian character, introduced in 1990
Capt. Sam Scabbard - He is frequently to Sarge as Sarge is to Beetle.
Major Greenbrass
Chaplain Staneglass - ("He's praying... he's looking at the food... he's praying again!")
Julius Plewer - fastidious fussbudget, who eventually became Halftrack's chauffeur
Cosmo - Camp Swampy's resident "shady entreprenur"; almost forgotten in the 1980s
Rocky - Camp Swampy's resident "rebel-without-a-clue", introduced 1958
Dr. Bonkus - Camp Swampy's staff psychiatrist, whose sanity is questionable at best (as in "Bonkers").
Specialist Chip Gizmo - Camp Swampy's resident computer geek, named by a write-in contest in 2002
Sgt. Louise Lugg - wants to be Sarge Snorkel's girlfriend, introduced in 1986
Bella - Sgt. Louise Lugg's pet female cat
Beetle's parents (apparently unnamed)
A camp doctor whose appearance is consistent, but who is apparently unnamed

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Unseen

Col. Cohen, CEO[1]
Major Burk, CFO[2]
Gen. Snead, CIO[3]
Capt. Finn, COO[4]

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Retired

Canteen (early 1950s) - "always eating," kind of redundant with Sarge
Snake Eyes (early 1950s) - "the barracks gambler," replaced by Cosmo, Rocky, and others
Big Blush (early 1950s) - "tall, innocent, and a great attraction to the girls"; many of his characteristics incorporated into both Sarge and Zero
Fireball (early 1950s) - "neophyte who always seems to be in the way"; forerunner of both Zero and Lt. Fuzz
Bammy (early 1950s) - "the southern patriot who is still fighting the Civil war"
Dawg (early 1950s) - "the guy in every barracks who creates his own pollution"
Ozone (late 1950s) - Zero's bigger, more naive friend
Moocher (early 1960s) - "stingy and always borrowing things"
Pop (1960s) - married private: "gets yelled at by Sarge all day and goes home at night for more abuse from his wife"
The entire cast, except for Beetle, of the early strip as set at Rockview University (although both incarnations of the strip include a spectacled intellectual named Plato)<ref>Quotations and documentation of characters from: Mort walker, The Best of Beetle Bailey (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1984)</ref>

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Extras, one-shots, and walk-ons

Numerous one-shot characters have appeared over the years, mostly unnamed, including an inspector general who looks like Alfred E. Neuman, and various officers and civilians; among the few to be given names were a Sgt. Webbing, who once engaged Sgt. Snorkel in a cussing duel, (and has made at least two appearances since, at least once by name) and Julian, a nondescript chauffer eventually replaced by Julius.<ref>Feb. 10, 1963 (Sgt. Webbing) and July 5, 1964 (Julian) Sunday strips, reprinted in Walker, At Ease, Beetle Bailey (New York: Grosset & Dunlap/Tempo, 1970).</ref>

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Controversy

The strip became the focus of feminist animosity in the '90s because of Gen. Halftrack's unrestrained (if ineffectual) libidinous approach to women. Reacting to this, Walker put the General through a bit of sensitivity training and dressed Miss Buxley more professionally.

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