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from
Pogo
books by
Walt Kelly
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Equal Time for Pogo
Copyright © 1967, 1968 by Walt Kelly
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| footnote |
As we thrash on to a finish through the current thicket of flags and banners, we realize it is no finish at all, but a new inning. Secure in the rules, we know that, given three strikes, the truth will out.
| Chapter 1
The Past Pardisciple of the Present Tension |
1967: 11-16 |
Congersman Moop:
I promise, when elected, to go overseas and settle everything.
Pogo:
You promised a lot to be elected congersman, too. You delivered zero or less.
Congersman Moop:
Well, well! Not everyone’s perfect you know... You don’t elect a god, y’know.
Pogo:
Depends... which party?
| Chapter 2
Out of the Mouths of Babes and Cannons |
1967: 11-22 |
Congersman Moop:
What we maybe ought to do, Pogo, is have a sanity test for voters.
Pogo:
How come, Congersman?
Moop:
We want to give folks a brain probe to carry a gun, to drive a car. But for the most risky thing of all, choosin’ a President, we let anybody over 21 go in there an’ lay the country on the line...
Pogo:
We could change the Constitution, nobody over 21 can vote.
Moop:
Bully! Gets rid of all them nutty people over 21.
Pogo:
Trouble is all the nuts ain’t necessarily adults.
| Topic: Democracy
| Chapter 3
The Square Pig in a Round World |
1967: 12-11 |
Pogo:
Sanity clause? You sure you don’t mean a give-away program?
Congersman Moop:
No, them is old hat... Nothin’ new there.. We even got two of ’em. One bein’ a overseas projeck an’ the other give-away bein’ when your neighbor gives you away to the tax man for concealin’ income.
| Topic: Taxes
| | 1967: 12-12 |
Pogo:
[...] The candidate might be more attractive if he could prove himself insane.. To be sane in an insane world would be incongruous.
Porky Pine:
In congruous assembled, therefore, we affirm the world is insane an’ will elect a nutty leader to cope with it! Thereby givin’ him an out!
Pogo:
An out?
Porky:
Sure.. No matter what he does he can be proven innocent by reason of insanity.
| Chapter 7
The American Booty Rose |
1968: 2-15 |
Mouse:
[...] Who gives out that Noble peace prize?
Pogo:
Um.. I b’leeve the Swedish people.
Mouse:
Them? Brother! What do they know about peace? They never has no wars.
| Topic: Peace
| Chapter 13
Bolster Your Pollster, Buster |
Note (Hal’s):
In 1968, Kelly caricatured many of the presidential candidates. Objections to his representation of LBJ led to the creation of substitute strips; dates like the following one, suffixed with the letter A, identify them.
— end note | | 1968: 4-12 A |
Seminole Sam:
What other kind of questions do you pollsters pose?
Li’l Bat Boy:
We ask of them in the headwaters: If we press forward,should we then press aside... or press back or press that ol’ bridge when we come to it....? Then, with our people in advance or retreat, would you still fight the incredible dream?
Sam:
I get a memory gap along there some eres.
Bat Boy:
A new answer! Usually, 100% replies = Huh?
| Topic: Doubletalk
| | 1968: 5-4 |
Pogo:
Man! I’d like to know how them bats works their polls.
Porky:
Jes’ like all the other ones do.
Pogo:
How’s that?
Porky:
You tell them bat pollsters what answer you want and they works out a formula of questions to get it... Presto! Instant placebo!
| Chapter 23
Deck Us All With Boston Charles |
1968: 12-20 |
Congersman Moop:
Three wench friends? Either you got the words upside down or my drum’s out of tune.
| | 1968: 12-22 |
Pogo:
Yeah.. who does remember the original version... all full of peace an’ light?
Churchy:
I think it goes like this.. Ahem... mi mi
| Deck..
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Owl:
I got it!.. It goes like this..
tum tum 
| Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla Wash., and Kalamazoo!
Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley,
Swaller dollar, cauliflour, Alla-garoo!
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Churchy:
AAARGH! You sung that a-purpose! to frusticate me! Jes’ when I was thinkin’ of it!
Owl:
Rowr! You’re allus hoggin’ the spot-light! You carol snatcher!
Porky:
That’s the way the peace an’ light version goes?
Pogo:
Aye... ’parently.
Congersman Moop:
What’s the second verse?
Beauregard:
As you can see, usually we don’t git that far.
| | 1968: 12-25 |
Pogo:
Merry Christmas.. This time I was waitin’ for you.. Every Christmas mornin’ you comes over.. first one.. Allus brings me a flower what you saved from our summer.
Porky:
Humph. It don’t indicate nothin’.. I allus gits up afore dawn ’cause, by George Y. Wells, it takes a long time for a porkypine to git his pajamas off. Here! I forgit how I happens to be carryin’ this... It don’t mean a thing.... Y’got a spoon? Eatin’ fried eggs with a fork takes a college education, son.
Pogo:
You never forgits.
| text checked (see note) Mar 2005
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Pogo’s Body Politic
Copyright © 1976 by The Estate of Walt Kelly, Selby Kelly, Executrix
Copyright © 1970, 1971, 1972 by Walt Kelly
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Foreword
by Jimmy Breslin |
He had this unique view of human politics and how it worked—the buffoonery of people trying to look solemn and important who were actually out doing evil things.
He would look about when he came to Washington in the rain, notice the sea of limousines—and realize that people in government never get wet! Kelly knew what it was to get wet, and he’d look at the pomposity of those people and capture them brilliantly.
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It was dazzling to see that mind at work. Not that he was so consistently gentle, so predictably pleasant, when he was around. He was like Irish weather. In places in that country there is a light rain which changes into a warm sunbath which dissolves into a fierce Atlantic storm all within the hour . . . Kelly was that piece of Irish sky.
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He always told me that it did not matter how long you lived; the important thing was how far you got. Well, he got far enough; the pity is that he did not live very long. In this he was very thoughtless, because original minds arrive in our midst only every quarter of a century or so, and if they leave us too soon, as Kelly did, we are in trouble.
| Chapter 2
Ah, what a gossamer web he’d weave. . . |
Sam the spider:
This is called the disappearing elephant trick . . . Watch closely . . . Kaflabber ipso presto facto gabump! Behold! Gone!
A.C.*:
Gone? What elephant?
Sam:
Don’t see him, do you? That one is my best.
I could teach you that one.
Note (Hal’s):
*The character I have designated “A.C.” (for “Agnew caricature”) doesn’t seem to have a name. Sam the spider is a caricature of Richard Nixon (with obvious reference to the nickname “Tricky Dick”).
— end note | Topic: Magic
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A.C.:
You’ll recall I came aboard to witness the perseverance of the spider who taught Robert Bruce to persevere.
Sam:
An ancestor of mine. Once he cast . . . twice . . . thrice . . . frice . . .five times . . .six times he cast . . .
A.C.:
Aye! Aye!
Sam:
Then, on the seventh cast . . . success!
A.C.:
Yea
Sam:
He hit his point, collected the pot and retired to a dukedom in Ireland.
| Topic: Spiders
| Chapter 7
Enemies in the message parlor, countin’ out the loyal |
A.C.:
You see, the reason for the chief sending out secret messages is so that the enemy won’t get them. So the best secret is one closed at both ends . . . Neither the sender nor the guy who receives it will understand it.
Deacon Mushrat:
Splendid . . except how does one know if one got enemies?
A.C.:
The proof one got enemies is that one is sending out secret messages.
| Topic: Cryptology
| Chapter 8
Success in the hard luck department |
Churchy La Femme:
You din’t think I’d bring you a Valentine? It’s fer girls an’ fellas.
Howland Owl:
Fer a box of fudge I’d kiss anybody five minutes worth.
| Topic: Kisses
| Chapter 9
This classy-filed ad’s
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Beauregard:
“Man needed for scientific experiment. Steady job. Good pay. Must be good sleeper.”
Y’hear that? You can get paid for what you’re doin’ now.
Albert:
It’s a job, right? . . . an’ a job is work . . . Anytime sleepin’ becomes work I don’t need it.
| Topic: Sleep
| Chapter 13
Throw the rascals in, out, or up |
A.C.:
We must throw the rascals out!
Seminole Sam:
Why doesn’t anybody think of that before they throw the rascals in?
| Chapter 20
Senator Bullfrog flips his wig |
Porky Pine:
What did ol’ Senator Bullfrog have to say this time, Pogo?
Pogo:
He gimme speech no. 44A.
Porky:
Mm?
Pogo:
Y’know, the one where he quotes Samson . . . “With the jawbone of an ass . . . I have slain a thousand . . .” . . . bills, he means . . .
Porky:
Well . . . why not? . . . He’s richly endowed with the proper equipment.
| Topic: Politicians
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Porky:
Come to think of it, the dead ought to be able to outvote the living.
Pogo:
Maybe . . . I’ve kinda lost count.
Porky:
They must outnumber us . . . an’ if not . . then Senator Bullfrog’s theories on defense . . . might find a way to fix that.
| text checked (see note) Feb 2006
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Graphics copyright © 2005 by Hal Keen
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