Barney Google Like
Mutt and Jeff,
Barney Google started out on the sports page. First appearing as a
daily strip in the sports sections of the
Chicago Herald and
Examiner in 1919, it was originally titled
Take Barney Google, for Instance. The title character, a little fellow (although he shrank in stature even more after the first year) with big "banjo" eyes, was an avid sportsman and ne'er-do-well involved in
poker,
horse racing, and
prize fights. The "goggle-eyed, moustached, gloved and top-hatted, bulbous-nosed, cigar-chomping shrimp" (according to comics historian
Bill Blackbeard) was relentlessly henpecked by "a wife three times his size" (as the song lyric goes). The formidable Mrs. Lizzie Google, or "the sweet woman", sued Barney for divorce and thereafter virtually disappeared from the strip. By October 1919, the strip was distributed by
King Features Syndicate and was published in newspapers across the country. His name might have been an inspiration for the
large number name googol, which in turn inspired the company name
Google.
Spark Plug strip on a Sunday page. Beginning on July 17, 1922, the strip took a momentous turn in popularity with the seemingly innocuous introduction of an endearing race horse named "Spark Plug". Barney's beloved "brown-eyed baby" was a bow-legged nag that seldom raced, and was typically seen almost totally covered by his trademark patched blanket with his name scrawled on the side.
Peanuts creator
Charles M. Schulz was known to his friends as Sparky, a lifelong nickname given to him by his uncle as a diminutive of
Barney Google's Spark Plug. Comics historian
Don Markstein noted: In deference to his enormous popularity during this period, the strip was retitled
Barney Google and Spark Plug. DeBeck's strip hit its peak of popularity with Spark Plug at about the same time the 1923 song "Barney Google", written by
Billy Rose and
Con Conrad, was sweeping the country. It became one of the best known, most iconic
novelty records of its era, and has been recorded by such artists as
The Happiness Boys,
Eddie Cantor,
The Andrews Sisters,
Spike Jones, and
Mitch Miller: Other popular characters and concepts introduced in the strip about this time include "Sunshine", Barney's black jockey, a troublesome
ostrich named "Rudy", "Sully", a monocled champion wrestler, and the mysterious hooded fraternity "The Order of the Brotherhood of Billy Goats", a parody of mystic
secret societies. (There was also a "Sisterhood of Nanny Goats" for women.) Their password was "O-K-M-N-X" which, deciphered, stood for a standard breakfast order ("Okay, ham and eggs"). Barney was elected "Exalted Angora" in 1928.
Transition to Barney Google and Snuffy Smith In 1934, an even greater change took place when Barney and his horse visited the
North Carolina mountains and met a volatile, equally diminutive
moonshiner named Snuffy Smith.
Hillbilly humor was popular at the time (as
Al Capp was proving with ''
Li'l Abner''). The strip increasingly focused on the southern
Appalachian hamlet of "Hootin' Holler", with Snuffy as the main character. The mountaineer locals are suspicious of any outsiders, referred to as "flatlanders" or even worse, "revenooers" (Federal Revenue agents). Snuffy Smith was so popular that his name was added to the strip's title in the late 1930s, while the top-billed Barney Google became an increasingly peripheral character in what once was his own comic. Eventually, Barney Google left Hootin' Holler in 1954 to return to the city, and was essentially written out of the strip except as a very occasional visitor. Barney has appeared rarely in the feature from the mid-1950s on, but returned to Hootin' Holler for a visit in a series of strips beginning on February 19, 2012. Prior to 2012, Barney had not appeared in the strip since January 5, 1997, a span of over 15 years. Nevertheless, even during Barney's long absence the strip was always officially titled
Barney Google & Snuffy Smith. Barney Google — usually with Spark Plug in tow — made occasional return trips to Hootin' Holler from 2012 to 2020, and moved back permanently to Hootin' Holler in a series of strips run in May 2021. He now appears in the strip as more of a semi-regular character. Also appearing again on a semi-regular basis is Spark Plug, and — slightly more frequently — new cast addition "Li'l Sparky", billed as Spark Plug's grandson.
Snuffy Smith and the townsfolk of Hootin' Holler Snuffy Smith (whose last name is pronounced "Smif" by virtually all the characters in Hootin' Holler) is an ornery little cuss, sawed-off and shiftless. He lives in a shack, mangles the English language, and has a propensity to shoot at those who displease him. He makes "corn-likker" moonshine in a homemade still and is in constant trouble with the sheriff. He wears a broad-brimmed felt hat almost as tall as he is, has a scraggly mustache and a pair of tattered, poorly patched overalls. He constantly cheats at poker and checkers. He also has some proclivity toward stealing chickens, which led to a brief but effective use of his character in a marketing campaign by the
Tyson Foods corporation in the early 1980s. In 1937, he held the post of "Royal Doodle Bug" in the "Varmints" lodge; during this period, the strip heavily employed the
catchphrase, "What did the Doodle-Bug say?", an apparent homage to "What did the Woggle-Bug say?" in
L. Frank Baum and
Walt McDougall's
Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz strip of 1904–1905. Almost all of the characters in the strip (except the infrequently seen Barney Google and the occasional visiting "flatlander") are exaggerated hillbillies in the classic
burlesque tradition: sharp-tongued gossipy women such as Snuffy's wife Loweezy; his baby Tater; his mischievous nephew Jughaid; his neighbors Elviney and Lukey (Lucas Ebenezer Hinks); the sanctimonious (but nonetheless ungrammatical) Parson; Silas, the ever-parsimonious owner of the General Store; the ostentatiously badged Sheriff Tait, and others. Vehicles are rundown jalopies of a seeming 1920s vintage, even in the 1970s and beyond. The characters are drawn so that they appear to be talking out of the sides of their mouths. ==Topper strips==