Smokey Stover
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Smokey Stover was a comic strip written and drawn by Bill Holman from March 10, 1935 until he retired in 1973. It was distributed through the Chicago Tribune and was the longest lasting of the comic strips of the "screwball comedy" genre.
The strip featured Smokey the firefighter, in his two-wheeled fire truck called "The Foomobile", fire chief Cash U. Nutt, and his wife Cookie, with her question-mark pompadour. Odd bits of philosophy, and recurrent signs carrying bizarre phrases such as "Notary Sojac" and "1506 Nix Nix" were featured in the strip. (Holman described the phrase "Notary Sojac" as Gaelic for "horsecrap" and as Gaelic for "Merry Christmas". [1])
"Foo" was one of these recurring nonsense words and was taken up by World War II's "Foo Fighters". Foo may have been inspired by the French word for fire, feu, but Holman never gave a straight answer as to the origin. Smokey Stover wore a hat with a hole in its hinged bill. He sometimes used the hole in the bill to hold his (burning) cigar.
[edit] Trivia
- Smokey's two-wheeled fire engine unintentionally anticipated the Segway personal transporter.
- At the 1968 Democratic National Convention, one of the delegates cast a vote for Smokey.
