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Walt Kelly

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The Incompleat Pogo

The Pogo Sunday Parade

The Pogo Sunday Brunch

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The Incompleat Pogo

Copyright © 1953, 1954, by Walt Kelly

included in Walt Kelly’s Pogo Romances Recaptured

Copyright © 1975 by Selby Kelly, executrix for the estate of Walt Kelly

1953 Chapter 1

From Here On Down It’s Uphill All the Way

Porky:
Well, ever’body talks ’bout the weather but nob’dy does nothin’ ’bout it...as the feller says...

Pogo:
Yep.

Churchy:
Yep, Mr. Twain said it.

Owl:
Mr. Clemens said it!

Churchy:
Mister Twain!

Owl:
Mister Clemens!

Churchy:
Twain!

Owl:
Clemens!

Pogo:
Who did say it?

Porky:
You was here... You heared it... I said it.

Chapter 2

Our Hero Dots One Eye and Crosses the Other, Hand Over Hand

Churchy:
This comic book I bought off’n ol’ fox shows how we goes up to Mars, brings back some Martians an’ they dee-stroys the whole Earth!

Porky:
What nonsense! Bringin’ Martians back. We’ll never need their help.

Churchy:
Boy! That’s a relief.

Chapter 6

Brains From Far and Wide Are Summoned to Ponder a Suicide Pack

Albert:
[...] I’m throwin’ every brain in my head into this.

Pogo:
As long as we’re short handed I’ll go get help!

Chapter 8

Brains, Size 6¼, Are Pooled to Form a Shallow But Slippery Puddle

Albert:
The way evidence is pilin’ up, it is positively uncanny!

Porky:
It’s sure too deep for me.... I need my boots.

Topic:

Evidence

Pogo:
Ain’t you shamed? You owes Mole a apology. You packed pup dog in by mistake and you was sayin’ Mole was a kidnapper... wanted him lynched.

Albert:
But I was lookin’ for s’picious critturs.... varmints what could do a dirty trick like that! An’ ’long come that sneaky Mole, a old enemy...

Pogo:
But you was guilty... an’ you blamed him unfair! Enemy or not.

Albert:
What dogboned good is a enemy if you can’t blame him for stuff like that there!!?

Chapter 9

A Medium Day in June Is Well Done

Pogo:
Sometimes I don’t follow you an’ so far it allus has paid off.

Chapter 16

The Bite of the Remedy

Pogo:
Does you make snakes bite people so they’ll buy your snake bite remedy?

Roogey Batoon:
Now, friend... That’s hardly the way to describe my service... I got snake bite cure for sale... What good is it without snake bite? Friend, you look like an honest man... Would you respect any man who sold you somethin’ you didn’t need?

Beauregard:
’Course not.

Roogey Batoon:
Right! and so, friend, I go to the trouble an’ expense of givin’ you a free snake bite before I sell you a single drop of remedy!

Chapter 18

Who Is Now and Ever Has Been a Member of the Tea Party?

Pogo:
Allus thunk my loud banjo work covered my voice perty good.

Porky:
Well....yes an’ no.

Topic:

Music

Chatper 20

A Tiger Burns Bright

Mr. Tammananny:
Well, you don’t have to snap my head off.

Porky:
Din’t know it was made of rubber, son.

Pogo:
I figgers, Porky, that every man’s heart is eventual in the right place.

Porky:
An’ I figgers Pogo, that if a man’s gonna be wrong ’bout somethin’, that is the best wrong thing to keep bein’ wrong about ’til forever.

Topic:

Optimism

Chapter 22

A Scandal for School

Owl:
[...]

“Where the Bee sucks,

There suck I;

In a cowslip’s bell I lie;

There I couch

When Owls do cry...”


Shamefully poor work, my boy! Too bad.

Bug:
Why din’t you tell him you was jes’ copyin’ Mr. Shakespeare?

Churchy:
No.. If I’m caught with it, I’ll take the blame for it.

Chapter 24

Nothing Taught Here Fearlessly

Cowbird:
Academic freedoms, my eye!

Owl:
Sir, my freedoms is as academic as they come.

Topic:

Freedom

Chapter 26

The Carols Ground Out . . . First Bass to Short

Porky:
Why isn’t you tads practicin’ up for Christmas like all the others?

Rackety Coon Chile:
Shucks, us chillun is been ready all the whole year.

Porky:
Ready for whatever comes, huh? Y’all kin spell yo’ name good so’s when you sees a package tagged for you you’ll open it right quick...

Rackety Coon Chile:
You betcha!

Porky:
An’ all year you showed yo’ mams an’ paps, yo’ uncles, aunts an’ kin that the world is really a place of love by bein’ sweet to ’em... keepin’ ’em as ready for Christmas as you is? Helpin’ ’em git through?

Rackety Coon Chile:
Well... Well... Think there’s still time to give ’em a hand that way, Uncle Porky?

Porky:
Aw... There’s allus time for it providin’ you don’t waste none of it.

Topic:

Time

Chapter 27

One Final Word Leads to Another

Bun Rabbit:
You tole me that you wasn’t home but there you is, plain as sin!

Churchy:
This ain’t me... Besides, sin ain’t plain, it’s fancy.

Bun Rabbit:
Sin comes in only two sizes..... plain or chonklit!

Bat:
Ptah was a Egyptian deity.... the chief idol of Memphis.

Bat:
Ptah? In Memphis? What happened to Mr. Crump?

Bat:
A differ’nt town.... You couldn’t find Memphis with a compass.

Bat:
Memphis don’t need no compass. Ever hear of non compass Memphis?

Topic:

Puns

July 4, 1954The Estate of Our Independence In this Era of the Boomerang it is easy to counter suspicion with suspicion. It is not quite as easy to return hate for love but many of us manage it through the simple procedure of viewing all love with the suspicion reserved for the unknown. This is unfortunate because love takes many forms (not all of them immediately identifiable and therefore even more suspect). One of these forms is humor.

Topics:

Humor

Love vs. Hate

These Original Americans employed at least one comic device (a sure-fire boff) that consisted of several humorists smearing and throwing dung over some selected colleague.

As humor, the act had one serious drawback in that it became impossible, eventually, to embrace the target in a show of good fellowship directly after the performance.

The full import of inventing the world’s most devastating weapon was not realized until we learned that the enemy, acting like cads, had swiped the secret. Having been prepared to snigger, we are not prepared to applaud; but neither should we be ready to whimper.

It is not the time for a man to demonstrate the strength of his guts with a belly-laugh, but nevertheless here is a comic situation. It is a comedy in the classic tradition, so near to tragedy that the difference is indiscernible to the participant. This classic comedy is fundamentally that of the Pompous Ass falling on his bulging behind. It is nearly always funny to the onlooker. It is seldom funny to the Pompous Ass. Like it or not, however, the joke remains . . . and it is on us.

So, as we move along, we cannot care who sings our country’s songs; beneath the high notes of patriotism, we want to hear the low notes of laughter, always off-key, always true.

text checked (see note) Apr 2005

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The Pogo Sunday Parade

Copyright © 1953, 1954, 1958 by Walt Kelly

included in Pogo’s Double Sundae

Copyright © 1978 by the estate of Walt Kelly, Selby Kelly, Executrix

All in the Wash

Bug:
See them poor pitiful feet pookin’ out from under beneath of yo’ wash?... It show that some unfortunate crittur is perished perchance, or is rendered hors de combat.

Miz Beaver:
No..tain’t no horse, son, an’ I is practical positive it ain’t no wombat!

Down to Bear and Brassy Facts

Churchy:
[...] J’accuse!

Owl:
Don’t you call me no jaccuse!

Topic:

Translation

A Good Spot for a Dog

Owl:
I is ugly when I is riled, li’l’ sirs.

Frog:
Come to think of it, you is ugly unriled too.

Topic:

Insults

A Great Idea

Owl:
I got a patent on this here machine an’ I forbids you to even think about it. Under penalty of disenfranchisement and vagabondage! Law is law!

Albert:
Aw, haw shucks Owl, you..uh..haw, haw, knows I never does any thinkin’ to speak of... I don’t bleeve I did any real harm this time.

Topic:

Law

text checked (see note) Apr 2005

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The Pogo Sunday Brunch

Copyright © 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959 by Walt Kelly

included in Pogo’s Double Sundae

Copyright © 1978 by the estate of Walt Kelly, Selby Kelly, Executrix

Quo Vadis?

We are a race in search of the joke. It occurs to a few that the greatest joke in the world is life itself, which, aside from being pleasant, full of hope, fears, sustained interest and laughs, finally winds up with a thing called death. Death is an essential part of the life, like the laugh is part of the joke. It is a sort of recognizable ending.

It is really one more ridiculous facet of the joke, then, that we are so intent upon reaching the last laugh that a good many of us are fooling around with all sorts of means to the end. Perhaps we should enjoy more the telling of this tale, the living of this life and not hasten the arrival of the punch line. After our learning has set fire to the fuse of ignorance and we have finally blown the world into a billion funny pieces, what are we going to do for an encore?

But, enough of chuckles. Let us move into the serious part of the book.

A Sorry Soirée

Albert:
I been studyin’ an’ a-studyin’ this here Christmas carol what go on about them twelve days of Christmas, an’ I declare, for the second straight year, I is stumped.

Pogo:
A new record.

Albert:
Looky how this fella uproots a pear tree an’ sends it off to his true love... That’s on the first day. Next day he stuffs two turtle-doves and another partridge into another pear tree an’ hauls that over to his gal’s house... Looks to me like she startin’ either a fruit stand or a school for birds. Not only that, but there’s a innocent partridge livin’ in that pear tree...an’ yet this love-sick lollygag rips it up..bird an’ all...makin’ him homeless, an sings about it...gay as can be. How would you like to get pear trees, partridges, an’ turtle-doves for two days hand runnin’?

Pogo:
It ain’t nothin’ I is set my heart on.

Albert:
There it is in black an’ white. An’ on the third day this bird plucker sends over three French hens! Foreign chickens! This boy din’t love this girl... He hated her... You ever hear chickens talk? It’s gabble gabble cluck cluck cluck all the livin’ long day... Imagine hearin’ that kinda talk in French. If I was this girl I’d sell this guy to the travelin’ gypsies... If anybody gives me any poultry what puts out a lot of hinky dinky polly voo, mornin’, noon an’ night, they don’t git my hand in marriage.

OAF OAKS AT HOME

The sentiment of cinnamon

Is synonym for sneeze.

The rapid rap of rhapsody

Is wrapping with the breeze.

The hapless hop of hoppy-toads

Doth trump each nightly tree.

But of the maids I ever knew

You’re ever new to me.

A Corner of the Circle

Around in the hoop with the loop
of my love

Lies longing my heart sinking low,
thinking of

Wonders and magic and worries of woe

With windows all waddled
in yesterday’s snow.

The sun in its tower tolls out the noon

While here in the sphere
of the moth-eaten moon

All huddled befuddled with night
in the eyes

The whoop of my heart
in its wilderness lies.

1959

A BOODLE OF BOON

Who loots my heart steals traveled trash

For, carved upon a trunk of ash

Is “Floyd loves Flora”, with a flash

Of yestereven’s balderdash.

text checked (see note) Apr 2005

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Background graphic copyright © 2003 by Hal Keen