…AND, ANOTHER LITTLE RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS (Act 62)

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Captain America has arrived at Sun City Peachtree!  For some of our residents, I’m sure he’ll bring back childhood memories of lazy summer afternoons spent reading Timely Comics’s Captain America while lounging in the shade under a tree.

The superhero dates back to March of 1941 when Timely Comics (a predecessor to Marvel Comics) released Captain America Comics #1, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.  The character was designed as a patriotic super soldier who often fought the Axis powers of World War II. 

Captain America is the alter ego of Steve Rogers, a frail young artist enhanced to the peak of human perfection by an experimental “super soldier serum,” after joining the military to aid the United States in the World War II effort.  The character wears a costume bearing an American flag motif, and he utilizes a nearly-indestructible shield that he throws as a projectile. 

Joe Simon had first conceived the idea for Captain America in 1940 and made a sketch of the character in a patriotic costume.  In Simon’s autobiography, he stated, “I wrote the name ‘Super American’ at the bottom of the page.  No, it didn’t work.  There were too many ‘Supers’ around.  ‘Captain America’ had a good sound to it.  There weren’t a lot of captains in comics.  It was as easy as that.  The boy companion was simply named Bucky, after my friend Bucky Pierson, a star on our high school basketball team.”

Simon said Captain America was a consciously political creation; he and Jack Kirby were morally repulsed by the actions of Nazi Germany in the years leading up to the United States’ involvement in World War II.

Fittingly, their first issue featured Captain America punching Adolf Hitler in the jaw.  That image proved so popular that one million copies of the comic book were sold.

Not everybody was thrilled with the cover, though.  As Simon noted, “When the first issue came out we got a lot of… threatening letters and hate mail.  Some people really opposed what Cap stood for.”  The threats, which included menacing groups of people loitering out on the street outside of their offices, proved so serious that police protection was posted with Mayor Fiorello La Guardia personally contacting Simon and Kirby to give his support.

The fans outweighed the objectors, though, and Captain America was Timely Comics’ most popular character of the period.  The popularity of superheroes waned following the war, however, and Captain America comics was discontinued in 1950.  Marvel Comics revived it in 1964, though, and the superhero has been around ever since.  As of 2007, and estimated 210 million copies of the comics had been sold in 75 countries.

The superhero was the first Marvel Comics character to appear in media outside comics with the release of the 1944 movie serial, Captain America.  Since then, the character has been featured in other films and television series, including The Avengers, released in 2012.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned in my previous post about Popeye, if any more of his buddies (or enemies) came along to our community, I would let you know.  Although somebody snagged him off the bench before I got there, Bluto made a brief appearance.  The artist photographed the rock, so I could share it with you.

Bluto the Terrible is Popeye’s best-known enemy.  The brute always has a plot to get the better of his rival or strike it rich.  He’s a selfish and greedy dude, and has a devious attraction to Olive Oyl.  Popeye comes to her rescue, though, thanks to his trusty spinach, which makes him strong, powerful, and able to defeat the villain.

These beauties are a few random acts of kindness left on our neighborhood bench over the past days:

…AND, ANOTHER LITTLE RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS (Act 61)

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Popeye and his family have come to Sun City Peachtree to take shelter from Hurricane Ida, which is pummeling the Louisiana coast as I write.  He has abandoned his boat somewhere on the lower Mississippi, so I hope it will weather the storm ok. 

I missed the day Popeye arrived; he was snagged off the bench before I got to him.  The artist helped me out with a photo for this story.  The same happened with Wimpy.

The corn cob pipe-smokin’ sailor is actually from the upper Mississippi, in Chester Illinois.  We visited his birthplace in 2017, and you can read about Popeye’s hometown here.

Elzie Crisler Segar, Popeye’s creator, was born in Chester, and created his Thimble Theatre comic strip in 1928.  Several of his characters were based on his experiences with people from the town.

The muttering Popeye is a language-challenged character—he mangles the easiest of words to pronounce.  Although he is violent and uncivilized, the sailor is an introspective guy and has his morals. 

Sporting a couple of anchor tattoos on his huge forearms, he has an interesting body type with those skinny upper arms.  Since we never see his right eye, I’m not sure if he is missing it entirely or just squinting. 

Those massive forearms serve Popeye well when he needs his strength.  Of course, it isn’t until he eats spinach when he becomes mighty enough to lift huge, heavy objects.

Olive Oyl is Popeye’s absent-minded and flirty girlfriend.  Have you wondered how she got her name?  Back in the 1800’s, Chester’s chief commodity was castor oil, which was used as a lubricant.  Castor Oyl and Crude Oyl are two of Segar’s comic strip characters, and Olive is their little sister. 

Segar actually created Olive Oyl an entire decade before Popeye came along.  The sailor became so popular, though, that Segar renamed his strip after the spinach-eating dude.

Olive, as Popeye would like to say, is “a perfect 57… 19-19-19.”  Those are her measurements—extremely skinny! 

Baby Swee’Pea, named for the flower (and Popeye’s term of endearment for Olive Oyl), was found in a box on Popeye’s doorstep, on July 24, 1933.  Popeye adopted the baby and raised him as his son.  In an August 17, 1933 comic strip, he christened his “boy-kid” as “Scooner Seawell Georgia Washenting Christiffer Columbia Daniel Boom.”  It’s a bit cumbersome, don’t you think?

Finally, there’s Popeye’s lazy pal, J. Wellington Wimpy.  The guy loves his burgers, and it shows!  He’s smart and well-educated, but watch out, because he likes to mooch!  He’ll do whatever it takes to get a free burger.  Although he’ll always promise to pay you back “on Tuesday,” he never does. 

I’ll keep you posted if any of Popeye’s other pals come along.  Meanwhile, here are a bunch of other Betty Boop’s that I never got to see, because they were snagged before I got to the bench:

…AND, ANOTHER LITTLE RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS (Act 60)

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It’s Betty Boop and her pooch Pudgy!  Now, that’s a blast from the past of about thirty years before my time.  They came along in the same era as when our oldest Sun City Peachtree residents were born!

The year was 1930 when Betty made her first appearance in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes, the seventh installment of Max Fleischer’s series Talkartoon, which was released by Paramount Pictures.  She has also been featured in comic strips and mass merchandising and is one of the best-known and popular cartoon characters in the world.

Betty Boop began as a caricature of singer Helen Kane and was transformed into a cute, light-hearted flapper girl of the Jazz Age.  She was featured in 90 theatrical cartoons between 1930 and 1939.

Helen Kane took exception with her caricature, though.  In 1932, she filed a $250,000 infringement lawsuit against Max Fleischer and Paramount Publix Corporation for the “deliberate caricature” that produced “unfair competition”, exploiting her personality and image.  The case finally went to court in 1934, and Fleischer testified that Betty Boop purely was a product of the imaginations of himself and detailed by members of his staff.  Yeah, right.  Kane had risen to fame in the late 1920s as the “The Boop-Oop-A-Doop Girl”, a star of stage, recordings, and films for Paramount.  It’s a bit too coincidental to me, and Fleischer even admitted that Helen Kane had been their model for Betty Boop.  Surprisingly, Helen Kane lost her case.

Meanwhile, Betty Boop’s sexy looks weren’t acceptable to the prudes of the era, because once the Motion Picture Industry instituted the Hays Code, her character and appearance became quite demure.  The Hays Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1934 to 1968. 

In a 1934 court case, the flapper was described as: “combin[ing] in appearance the childish with the sophisticated—a large round baby face with big eyes and a nose like a button, framed in a somewhat careful coiffure, with a very small body of which perhaps the leading characteristic is the most self-confident little bust imaginable.”  (Yes, my eyes were rolling when I typed that last part!)

Once the Hays Code went into effect, Betty’s flapper dress was tossed in favor of a fuller dress or skirt.  Her hair became less curly, and she eventually stopped wearing her gold bracelets and hoop earrings. 

Betty had to tone down her personality, too.  Joseph Breen, the new head film censor, ordered Betty to stop winking and shaking her hips in her film introductions, because they were too “suggestive of immorality”.  As a result, Betty’s personality became less sexy and more mature.  At least they made her wiser, too!

It was about that time when Betty got her puppy pal, Pudgy, and he starred with her in Little Pal.  Pudgy is quite the cutie with his black spots, and he is her very faithful companion.

Now, then, are a few Betty Boop Quotes:

“I wanna be loved by you!”

“I’m too pooped to Boop…”

And, my favorite and yours, “Boop-Oop-a-Doop!”

…AND, ANOTHER LITTLE RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS (Act 59)

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Evidently, Rocky (of Rocky and Bullwinkle) made an appearance on the Sun City Peachtree bench while I was out of town, so I was able to obtain his picture from the artist. In the following days, Bullwinkle, Boris, and Natasha all dropped by as well:

Rocky and His Friends was a cartoon series that aired on television from 1959 to 1961.  The Bullwinkle Show followed from 1961 to 1964, and then it was syndicated as The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.  That’s the one I remember as a little kid. 

Rocket J. Squirrel (“Rocky”) is a flying squirrel, and Bullwinkle J. Moose is, well, a moose.  Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale (don’t you just love those last names?) are Russian-like spies that are the main antagonists of the show.

Created by Jay Ward, Alex Anderson, and Bill Scott, they named Bullwinkle after a car dealership, Bullwinkel Motors, in Berkeley, California.  Changing the order of the last two letters of the name kept them out of legal hot water!

Rocky (the smart one) and Bullwinkle (dim-witted, but well-intentioned) are best friends and shared a house in the fictional town of Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, a parody of the real-life town of International Falls, Minnesota.  Throughout the series, the two had various adventures that usually saw them thwart the various schemes of Boris and Natasha. 

…AND, ANOTHER LITTLE RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS (Act 58)

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Well, it’s about time you show up, Goofy!  What have you been doing; goofing around?  Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and the rest of the gang are long gone!

Considering Goofy’s clumsiness and ineptitude, I’m not at all surprised that he showed up so late—or showed up at all!

Here’s the scoop on the dog:  Originally dubbed Dippy Dawg, Goofy was conceived as a one-shot Disney character, but proved to be such a big hit that he made regular appearances in Disney short films.

According to Pinto Colvig, the original voice artist for the character, Goofy was inspired by a “grinny, half-baked village nitwit” from his hometown of Jacksonville, Oregon.

The long-eared dog is a bit of a hick with his southern drawl and slapstick style of comedy.  His interests include sports, movies, fishing, road trips, adventures, games, camping, barbecues, parties and dancing.  He also enjoys spending time with his son, Max, and he loves food.  (Who doesn’t?)

There are some things Goofy doesn’t like, especially his own clumsiness and Max’s stubbornness.  He also dislikes loneliness, heights, waterfalls, and rejection.

Since you don’t like waterfalls, Goofy, you better hang a left and head out the back way, because the golf course waterfall is just up ahead, and the Sun City Peachtree entrance has a big waterfall! 

…AND, ANOTHER LITTLE RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS (Act 57)

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Uh-oh!  Yogi Bear’s sidekick, Boo Boo, is carrying one of the “pic-a-nic” baskets that Yogi snatched away from some inattentive campers, and Ranger Smith is hot on his trail!  That’s too bad, because it really wasn’t Boo Boo’s fault.  He likes to do the right thing and keep Yogi from doing things he shouldn’t do, but he has a difficult time trying to keep Yogi out of trouble.  Ranger Smith will be very disappointed!

Boo Boo has been very loyal to Yogi and has been by his side since the “Yogi Bear” segment of The Huckleberry Hound Show in 1958.  When Yogi was given his own series in 1961, Boo Boo went with him.

As for Ranger Smith, the former US Army soldier oversees Jellystone Park and makes sure nobody (or no bear) is breaking the rules.  Wanting to protect both the campers and wildlife, the park ranger greatly disapproves of Yogi stealing food from the visitors.  As a result, he has a grudging respect for Yogi and can never quite decide if he should send Yogi off to a zoo or not.  Although their relationship is quite antagonistic, they are also friends, so if serious trouble were to befall one of them, the other, out of sheer guilt, usually attempts to rescue them.

In this case, Boo-Boo got caught in the middle, poor little bear!

…AND, ANOTHER LITTLE RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS (Act 56)

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Yogi Bear wandered away from Jellystone Park to join us here at Sun City Peachtree!  He must have sniffed out the “pic-a-nic” some residents were having.  He is a grizzly bear after all, and when there’s food around, a hungry grizzly bear will find it!

Not your typical bear, Yogi can be seen stylin’ a green hat and white collar with a green tie.  Hanna-Barbera Productions made sure he looked his best when they debuted the bear in 1958 as a supporting character in The Huckleberry Hound Show.  The fashionable bear became so popular that he was even more popular than Huckleberry Hound!  As a reward, he got his own show in 1961.

Like many Hanna-Barbera characters, Yogi’s personality and mannerisms were based on a popular celebrity.  Yogi was inspired by Art Carney’s Ed Norton character on The Honeymooners.

The plot of most of Yogi’s cartoons centered on his antics in the fictional Jellystone Park, which is based on Yellowstone National Park.  The bear’s sidekick, Boo-Boo Bear, would accompany him on his frequent quests to steal picnic baskets from the campers at the park.  That didn’t sit well with Ranger Smith, the park ranger, and Yogi’s girlfriend, Cindy Bear didn’t approve of his behavior either.

It didn’t matter what Ranger Smith or Cindy thought, though.  As Yogi would say, “I’m smarter than the av-er-age bear!”

Yogi had other catchphrases, too, such as “Hey, Hey, Hey!”  My favorite was, “Hey there, Boo-Boo!”

Watch for Yogi at a “pic-a-nic” near you!

…AND, ANOTHER LITTLE RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS (Act 55)

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Well, aren’t they a couple of cuties!  Pebbles Flinstone and Bamm-Bamm Rubble are playing together on the Sun City Peachtree bench. 

Pebbles is the daughter of Wilma and Fred Flinstone, and Bamm-Bamm is the adopted son of the Flinstones’s best friends Betty and Barney Rubble.  She was born at Bedrock Rockopedic Hospital on February 22, 10,000 B.C., according to the February 22, 1963 edition of TV Guide; however, most versions of the animated show say it was more like 1,000,000 B.C.  Just a minor discrepancy…

Don’t you just love the bone in Pebbles’s hair?  That’s her standard hairdo, compliments of her fashion-diva mom, Wilma.  As a preteen, Pebbles wasn’t into fashion, but she was an excellent baseball player, which led to a misadventure involving her dad Fred in the prime-time special, The Flinstones:  Little Big League.

By that time, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm had begun dating, and she was getting him and their friends into various misadventures.  Sound familiar?  Yeah, she was taking after her dad by getting into schemes that would inevitably backfire.

Pebbles best friends are Moonrock Crater, Wiggy Rockstone, and Penny Pillar.  They all attended Bedrock High School.  In the hallways, you could often hear Pebbles exclaim, “Yabba-Dabba-Doozie!” which was similar to her dad’s favorite catchphrase, “Yabba-Dabba-Doo!”

As an adult, Pebbles pursued a career in advertising, married Bamm-Bamm, and moved with him to Hollyrock.  They had fraternal twins, Chip and Roxy.

Meanwhile, back when Pebbles was a baby, Betty and Barney found an adorable little fella on their doorstep.  Who would abandon such a cutie?  As soon as he could talk, he was known for shrieking, “Bamm-Bamm!  Bamm, bamm, bamm!” 

The tyke hangs onto his club like other babies drag around their blankets.  He has quite the powerful swing with that thing, so watch out!  At least he is careful around Pebbles, because it was love at first sight during their first play date.  He even helped her learn how to walk.

As a teenager, Bamm-Bamm acquired a “cave buggy,” a prehistoric version of a dune buggy.  This is how he and Pebbles got around town for their dates out.  His interest in automobiles led him to become a mechanic; however, he had other career interests as well.

The love birds grew up and ultimately tied the knot in Rock Vegas where Pebbles’ parents were married.  Their reason for moving to Hollyrock was so Bamm-Bamm could pursue his true goal of becoming a screenwriter.

Pebbles, Bamm-Bamm, and their children Chip and Roxy lived happily ever after!

…AND, ANOTHER LITTLE RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS (Act 54)

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Meet the Rubbles!  You read a little bit about Wilma and Fred Flinstones’s best friends in my previous two posts.  They came to Sun City Peachtree to join their friends for a round of golf, so I thought I would let you get to know them better.

Hmmm, it just occurred to me how appropriate it is for the Flinstones and Rubbles to be visiting as painted rocks, because they are, after all, residents of Bedrock, and they are from the Stone Age.  As you can probably conclude, they will be playing golf by hitting golfrocks with their golfclubs when their golf game commences.

Anyway, back to the Rubbles, they have been the Flinstones’s best friends since they all worked at that resort when they were young. 

“Betty” is just a nickname for Barney’s wife.  She was born Elizabeth Jean Rubble and is the adoptive mother of their son Bamm-Bamm.  If you have ever watched the 1950’s television series The Honeymooners, you might see the similarities between Betty’s personality and that of Trixie Norton, wife of Ed Norton on the series.  This was deliberate as the Flinstones and Rubbles personalities and relationships were based on the two couples in that old-time comedy.

Betty spends most of her time socializing with Wilma Flinstone, and the two will often pair up to bail their husbands out of whatever scheme of Fred’s has landed them in trouble.

Bernard Matthew “Barney” Rubble is Betty’s height-challenged husband.  If it weren’t for Fred, he wouldn’t be getting into so much trouble.  Fred’s always on the lookout for get-rich-quick schemes, though, and Barney allows himself to get roped in, because he and Fred are best friends.  As a result, he sometimes loses his patience with Fred.

Considering all of Fred’s schemes that Barney has to put up with, he is a really good friend to Fred and the much more jovial, easy-going, and good-natured one of the two pals.  He is also a very caring and devoted husband and father; and, he is quite a respectful, noble, responsible, and understanding guy.

The Flinstones daughter Pebbles and the Rubbles son grew up together, got married, and had children; so, I wonder if they’re all tagging along for that game of golf.  I haven’t seen them yet, but you never know!  Stay tuned…

…AND, ANOTHER LITTLE RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS (Act 53)

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“WilllmAAAA!!”  That ear-piercing shout you just heard was Fred Flinstone calling out for his wife Wilma.  He’s yelling for her to get out of the rain!  “Oh, Fred.”  That’s Wilma’s typical response whenever he yells at her like that.

Wilma Anna Flinstone is quite the stylish one, wearing a string of pearls (rocks?), fashionable dress, and that gorgeous red hair up combed up in a bun.  Red lipstick completes the look. 

The daughter of Pearl Slaghoople, Wilma is the mother of Pebbles Flinstone and the grandmother to Roxy and Chip Rubble.  Her best friends are next door neighbors, Betty and Barney Rubble.

Wilma and Betty go back a long way.  As young adults, they worked as cigarette girls/ waitresses at a resort.  That is where they met and fell in love with their future husbands, Fred and Barney, who were employed as bellhops.

Fred proposed to Wilma, and they tied the knot in Rock Vegas.  He sure married up, because his wife is the serious, strong-willed, level-headed one in the marriage.  When Fred gets himself into trouble with his ill-fated schemes, Wilma always comes to his rescue and bails him out.

When they got hitched, Wilma became a housewife and developed some awesome cooking and baking skills.  One of her specialties is Gravelberry Pie—the recipe for which she eventually sold to the Safestone supermarket chain. 

In addition to baking and cooking, Wilma’s other homemaking duties include keeping house with such prehistoric aids as a baby elephant vacuum cleaner and pelican washing machine. 

Outside of the home, Wilma enjoys shopping and volunteering for various charitable and women’s organizations in Bedrock. 

When Pebbles was a teenager, Wilma and her best friend Betty both got hired as reporters by one of Bedrock’s newspapers (make that, news-slabs), the Daily Granite.  Their boss was Lou Granite.

After Pebbles grew up and left home, Wilma and Betty became entrepreneurs and started a successful catering business, “Bone-Appetite”.  I’m sure it was a relief to get out of the house and away from all of Fred’s yelling!