from
Pogo
books by
Walt Kelly

Naturally, if you are against either extreme, you are thought to be in the middle, which is no place to be when the latest philosophical fad tries to sway your sense of direction. It is probably folly to try to fight all three entrenchments. And these positions are trenches indeed, for each can eventually become the tiresome stuff of reaction. Freedom joins no organization but remains the goal toward which all organized men must move.

To quote from a TV broadcast I made recently for CBS, “TV Views the Press,” “Satire, in the hands of most cartoonists, including this one, becomes, at best, sarcasm—at worst, ridicule. This is especially true of editorial cartooning, but it is also true of the comic strip, where pathos, buffoonery and unadulterated malarkey make up the daily grist. On occasion we come close to satire through parody, which is merely broad caricature both in words and in pictures.

“Being a parodist and buffoon I was surprised recently to find the cartoon of the pig accused of being satire in bad taste. Also, POGO was accused of having gone in for editorial comment and of making fun of politics. [...] If editorial comment, whether on social themes or political, is ruled not part of comic strips, it may account for the low level of entertainment seemingly demanded by the objecting editors. If politics is not a matter of fun, what’s the use of the practice?

“We [cartoonists] might come close to parody, perhaps unwittingly, in our search for fun, but true satire is beyond us. When you deal with fifty million readers every day you don’t monkey around too much with subtlety, especially in the space provided [in newspapers] for strips these days. ”

Mouse:
I ever tell you how I an’ the U.S. Navy defeated the invaders durin’ World War II? The Navy slipped me aboard a U-Boat hoverin’ off our shores ... I was dressed up like a German mouse ... I mixed gasoline with the oil an’ then started squeakin’ in the big turbohydrates .. natch, they oiled ’em and ... Flam! the gas blew up an’ the sub sank like a stone with all hands...

Churchy:
How’d you escape?

Mouse:
Um ... yes, well .. oh, escape? Yeah, well, why don’t I look that up in my discharge papers? It’s hard to keep track of all the details.

Mole:
You forget, all embryo societies hoping for social gains for the mass must revert to ruthless methods at the start... Never spare the enemy, Deacon. Yes, it is a sad social truth, one which the Reds understand... We must, too! Without mercy, stamp out opposition! No new movement has succeeded using mercy and mushy brotherhood!

Deacon:
What? How about the early Christians?

Mole:
Come now! Do you forget how they treated those poor lions?

Goat:
Science has better use! In my country they put dog in dark 80 hours... They see what happens to him.

Pig:
Is good this science! What they see happens to this dog?

Goat:
They see nothing... Is dark...

Pig:
In my country we do it better... Everybody in dark all the time.

Beauregard:
Y’know... what you could do is invent a toothpaste san’wich... another national first for Okefenokee know-how!

Churchy:
Well, yeah... that plan got a little merit...

Beauregard:
A little?! Man! Do you realize you’d have the first san’wich what would brush your teeth in transit?

Churchy:
It got a kinda funny look.

Beauregard:
Funny? It’s beautiful... You jus’ ain’t used to seein’ fifty dollar bills.

Churchy:
I allus thought Grant was on the fifty...

Beauregard:
Grant!? Whut side was yo’ daddy on, anyhow, boy?

Mouse:
Him! Claims we din’t hit the moon hardly atall... After all the many experiments us mice went thru...

Churchy:
Well.. mebbe he wasn’t lookin’ at the time... din’t see it.

Mouse:
Phoo... the other fella what went into orbit said he didn’t see no angels.

Pogo:
Is it so important for you to see the angels? Allus thunk it was better if the angels kept a eye on you...

Churchy:
Is that thing loaded, Wiley?

Wiley Katt:
Ol’ Betsy here is always ready... Y’never know when you might see a enemy... You spot a stranger sneakin’ across your back land... Pow!

Churchy:
Pow? Right away? How do you know if he’s friend or foe?

Wiley:
Oh, you kin tell that easy when you turns him over... Nothin’ to it, turtle.

Wiley:
They’s no second guessin’ when ol’ Bets delivers a verdict.

Churchy:
But hasty shootin’ like that... Don’t you miss or make mistakes?

Wiley;
Miss? Never... ’course, now an’ then I might make a li’l’ mistake... After all, I ain’t completely perfect.

Rackety Coon Chile:
Uncle Albert, how come you smokes so many seegars?

Albert:
It’s all part of the President’s Physical Phitness Program.

Rackety Coon Chile:
How can seegar smokin’ improve the health of youth?

Albert:
’Cause when I, a youth, gives ’em up I immediately feels better...

Rackety Coon Chile:
Includin’ all those within nose-shot.

Bear:
Never say die, I says... Cast your peekabooze on that!

Albert:

“On a day, alack the day!
Love, whose month was ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air..”

Shakespere

What bosh is this?

Bear:
She don’t rhyme?

Albert:
It rhymes! It rhymes! But what sense do it make?

Bear:
I’ll give it another whack.

Albert:
Whence do I get such friends?

Bear:
How now?

Albert:
Great! Jus’ great!

“The little frog was colored pink,
What does a pinkie froggie think?
I’ll tell you what the froggie thunk...
He thunk: ka-chunk ka-chunk ka-chunk...”

Albert:
Now listen at what you is wrot... You can’t read tho’ you can write... an’, brother Bear, you is talent!

“Have you tried cripsey choolie Wummies?
They’re cool and glue and yummies!
They hold together tummies...
So go an’ ask your mummies
For yummy yummy Wummies...
They’re gristle to your mill!”

Stuff like that on the teevy will make you a million.

Bear:
No! No! I can always rob graves.

Churchy (sings):

Spring, spring, spring!
It’s a beautiful thing!
It’s welcome after winter...

Albert:
Oog

Churchy:

And in summer’s sun,
I will have fun
In a place I haven’t binter!

Albert:
Binter ain’t a word.

Churchy:
It rhymes, don’t it?

Albert:
Anybody uses a word like “binter” ought to have his head examined.

Churchy:
What for? They examined mine an’ din’t find a thing.

Churchy (sings):

My favorite bird is the tree frog
 It’s a harbinger branger of spring
It’s a bird with hardly no feathers
 and a big songer sanger of sing.

Albert:
A frog ain’t a bird.. It’s a behemoth!

Churchy:
A be he-who?

Albert:
A be-he-ever-lovin’-moth!

Churchy (sings):

Oh, be-he-moth
 Or be-he-bird,
He’s the pertiest frog
 I ever heard!

Beauregard:
Listen, two legs sat on three legs with one leg in his lap... Four legs runs off with one leg; two legs leaps up, picks up three legs, throws it at four legs, makes him drop one leg...

Churchy:
Nothin’ to it!

Beauregard:
Woddya mean, nothin’ to it?

Churchy:
It’s simply simple...

Beauregard:
A innernational brain twister an’ you claims it’s simple... What’s the answer?

Frog:
I got a good mind to go back an’ give ’em a piece of it!

Albert:
First thing you gotta know if you is goin’ to go to Harvard is whom are the father of your country. I’ll give you a hint... He was a fella in knee britches.

Bird:
Not Casey Stengel? I got it... It was Columbus! Columbus Ohio... He sailed over here in 1942.

Albert:
Mr. Ohio is not he of whom we have in mind... George Washington is the man. G. Washington come ridin’ thru Valley Forge... He seed a English soldier cuttin’ down a cherry tree. “Halt!” cried G. “You is violatin’ our Constitution!” An’ he charged right up Bunker Hill an’ saved the cherry tree. “Who saved that cherry tree?” asked Mr. Lincoln (his father). “I cannot tell a lie, Abe,” said Geo., “I did it myself.”

Bird:
Oog

Albert:
“You is a true Cheerful Charlie,” says Mr. L. “an’ you is gonna be the first to hear my Gettysburg Address. It’s 1776 Concord Avenue an’...” Hey! Where you goin’?

Bird:
Point me in the direction of Yale an’ gimme a shove.

It has been claimed by some that the Jack Acid Society is an imitation, in fact a parody, of extreme rightists. [...] The Jack Acids can only insist that the case is quite the other way around. The Jack Acid Society was formed first, secretly, it is true, but spiritually open, honest and forthright.

It should be pointed out that, whereas, the Chair agrees that anyone may hold an opinion different than the Chair’s and, whereas, such a person is quite free to express such an opinion, the Chair reserves the right to throw the bum out.

Pogo:
Is you never done nothin’ besides be a termite?

Termite:
Well... one year I was in gummint work. Actual, I was in a lobby... You ’member how they only lets a President be elected twice now?

Pogo:
If that

Termite:
Well, I was one of a group wanted to get the last fellow elected again...

Pogo:
You was a...?

Termite:
Exactly... I was a third termite... They was two fellows ahead of me... an’ the way they worked in that lobby, they near brung the house down.

Beauregard:
If you wanna be a success you gotta be funny.

Porky:
Senators an’ congersmen is successful.

Beauregard:
That’s what I mean... Now here’s a riposte you could spring at a appropriate time.

Porky:
Shoot

Beauregard:
A guy in armor comes in and says to his wife, “Who was that last knight I saw you with, lady?” Cool?

Porky:
I’ll tell it at the next funeral... It’ll cheer things up.

Beauregard:
Whose funeral?

Porky:
Oh, not yours... You already heard it.

Deacon:
You can help~~~ You know a lot of simps who believe in World Brotherhood~~ a lot of bleeding hearts~~~ Put down their names.

Pogo:
Just those I’m sure of.

Deacon:
Fine, fine, fine~~~ You’ve seen the light!

What?! One name! Yours! You’re not supposed to volunteer!

Pogo:
But I’m the only one I’m sure of.

Pogo:
There’s a document been around says liberty is a right an’ the governed got a right to alter any government wants to destroy the right.

Deacon:
Subversion! What’s the document?

Pogo:
Guess I left my copy in my Sunday suit... It’s called the Declaration of Independence.

Porky:
Ever’body got their own way of lookin’ at anything... Din’t you ever hear the story of the blind men an’ the elephant? ... Each one was partly right.

Pogo:
Yeah... an’ each was mostly wrong ... But you gotta remember each was all blind.

Miz Rackety Coon:
You hear ’bout ol’ Deacon complainin’ ’bout the population explosion?

Miz Beaver:
Can’t har’ly blame him... A population explosion kin be mighty messy... ’specially if folks been carryin’ pots full of pudding. I ’member one time Hervie, the one what din’t marry me, was in the Army an’ made a three day pass at me, then went off to war... Well, when I got thru the enemy din’t have a chance.

Miz Rackety Coon:
What’s that got to do with population explosions?

Miz Beaver:
Well, I’m part of the population, ain’t I?

Bug:
What’s all this I hear about a population explosion destroyin’ everything?

Mole:
Maybe not... The authorities have a clean bomb now.

Bug:
Huh? A clean population explosion?

Mole:
Yes... a neutron job ... very safe for real estate.

Bug:
You mean the new bomb spares buildings? I don’t own none!

Mole:
Hurry out an’ buy the Empire State or something.

Bug:
But what’ll happen to me?

Mole:
Oh, the bomb just knocks off life... You’ll be gone but think of havin’ a one hundred an’ two storey headstone.

Albert:
What’d ol’ Molester say ’bout a innocent man gittin’ hurt through his blacklist?

Pogo:
He said, “That’s the chance we hafta take in this business...” An’ he says, “I personally regret it if he is!”

Albert:
You mean to say ol’ mole is sorry the man is hurt?!

Pogo:
Oh, no... no... he’s sorry the man is innocent...

Wiley:
Lot of them dopes in high places maybe ain’t disloyal but, like I say, they’re dopes an’ swallow all that hogwash about brotherly love an’ forgiveness. The God in my Bible is a God of wrath an’ that’s whose side I’m on!

Mole:
As far as the eye can reach lie the peaceful and beautiful things we believe in, our heritage: limousines, country estates, minks. Others do not believe in these patriotic things... otherwise they would not be boring from within, upholding the Constitution, milking we honest taxpayers of our God-given spoils... that is, hard-earned pittances.

As is generally known, we are on God’s side and all who oppose us are against God!

A long time ago, while Hitler was marching into the Sudetenland, I asked a fellow artist what he thought was the essential difference between communism and fascism. He was immediately aghast. People were easily taken aghast in those days. He explained that in the communist state, the state was for the individual, while in the fascist state, the individual was for the state. He seemed to think this explained everything until I asked him which individual the communist state was for. At this he grew sullen, and I did not finish the course. The same question to a man of different stripe brought the answer that of course fascism was very great because it meant that a great many sticks bound together produced strength. When I said that the key word seemed to be “bound,” he, too, grew restive and denied me further enlightenment.

To me, totalitarianism remains totalitarianism.