This one's a bit more of a deep cut, but I think it's relevant. It's certainly very interesting.

I don't know how popular or well known the Marx Brothers as a whole are with most Americans these days, but from my experience Groucho Marx is a very familiar name and certainly a familiar face. At the very least, everyone knows what Groucho glasses are. They're those glasses with the big eyebrows and giant nose that you put on to look like Groucho, although the cigar is normally not included.

Now, Groucho, along with Chico, Harpo, Gummo, and Zeppo, were of course not the real names of the Marx brothers. Would you believe that the idea for their stage names came from a comic strip? Would you also believe that one of them in particular was lifted wholesale from said comic strip? It's true.

Gus Mager is best known among comic strip enthusiasts as the creator of the great strip Sherlocko The Monk. Sherlocko was, as you can guess from his name, a great detective, and he also had an assistant named Watso. Neither of them were monks in the Benedictine or Buddhist sense. "Monk" in this case is short for monkey, and Sherlocko and Watso were not the only Monks that Gus Mager drew. The very first was Knocko the Monk, who had his own strip. Others such as Rhymo, Henpecko, Braggo, Coldfeeto, Tightwaddo, Masherino, Grafto, and, yes, even Groucho joined later on and were eventually given a new strip called "The Monk Family." There were also a couple who didn't fit in with the obvious naming convention of the rest, such as Mufti and Freshy. Still, most of them began with some type of description of their character and ended in "o."

Now, the Marx Brothers themselves didn't decide to give themselves these names from the comic strip. That was done by one Art Fisher, a comedian who knew the Marx Brothers and decided to give them all nicknames based on the Monk Family naming convention. They obviously stuck, and went on to be much more famous than the comic strip they were named after.

As for Sherlocko, Arthur Conan Doyle was none too pleased with the similarity of Sherlocko's name to the name of his creation, Sherlock Holmes. Mager decided to have him renamed Hawkshaw the Detective and to have Watso renamed The Colonel. Over time, they were also both de-monkeyfied, so eventually they looked basically human.

For more info, see the articles at Don Markstein's Toonopedia, the Lambiek Comiclopedia, and at Marxology.

Okay, let's start off with an easy one. Everybody knows what a Rube Goldberg machine is, right? It's one of those things that through a convoluted series of actions and steps finally accomplishes a simple goal. A fan blows a windmill which pulls a string which makes a ball drop, etc. You've seen them. There are tons of videos on YouTube with people who have built them. In fact, just Google "Rube Goldberg" and you're likely to find more information on those machines than you are about the man himself. In fact, Rube Goldberg is literally synonymous with doing something simple by way of many convoluted steps. Really. It's in the dictionary.

But how many people actually know who Rube Goldberg was or what he did? Most people probably figure he was a guy who built weird machines. I did a search of Reddit, just because, and found a large number of posts on the "Today I learned" subreddit about people learning that Rube Goldberg never actually built any Rube Goldberg machines himself. People clearly don't know who he is or what he did.

He was a cartoonist, of course. He didn't build them. He drew them.

Goldberg drew a number of different comic strips (my other favorite being Boob McNutt), but the machines he is known for appeared in the strip The Inventions of Professor Lucifer G. Butts, A.K. The "G" of course stands for Gorgonzola.

The word that comes to mind when I think of that strip is "delightful." They are a joy to look at and to read. Thankfully, you can read them at your leisure at the official Rube Goldberg website, which I would highly recommend.

The most interesting thing about them, in contrast to most Rube Goldberg machines I see, is that Professor Butts' inventions were always meant to accomplish a specific task. There was always a convoluted series of steps to arrive at the conclusion, but it was always a practical conclusion. A lot of Rube Goldberg machines that you'll see in YouTube videos just go through the series of steps, but they don't do anything. A ball makes its way across the contraption, or all of the dominoes are finally knocked over, or something. I think that really goes against the spirit of a Rube Goldberg machine, or Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts invention.

The other fun thing is that Professor Butts' inventions didn't only include machinery but also people, young and old, as well as animals, real and fictional. I'd like to see a YouTube video of someone integrating a snozzleduk into their machine.

But again, if you haven't yet, click here to see and read about the inventions on the official website. You won't be disappointed.

I have an obsession. I'm obsessed with newspaper comic strips. I not only love reading them, but I love to study them, to study their creators, to study their history. It's fascinating to me. Unfortunately, I feel a little weird about it. It's not something that many people really seem to know about or be interested in. I know there are people that study them. Books have been written, and I've read many of them. Somebody who was interested in comic strips must have written them. But I've never met anyone in real life who really cared. I find that not only disappointing but also frustrating, as whenever I feel like having a conversation about it I have to go back to the turn of the 20th century and begin with something as simple as "Comic strips used to take up a whole page of the newspaper!" That little bit of knowledge does tend to impress people, but it's really the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more to it! There's such a deep and expansive world! It's an important part of history!

In fact, I'd posit it's one of the most neglected but most important parts of American history.

Think about it this way: For over a century newspapers with comic strips in them have been a part of the daily routine of a majority of Americans. Basically, anyone who can even rudimentarily read has read a newspaper, and those who haven't been able to read much normally find their way to the comic page where things are a bit simpler. When I say a majority of Americans, I mean it. It transcends age. It transcends race and class. While in the 21st century newspapers have steadily been on the decline, for most of the 20th century they were a major source of news as well as a major source of entertainment. The cultural impact of newspaper comics has been enormous, so enormous in fact that we often scarcely realize it.

In a way, it's kind of interesting that people don't know the real impact that comic strips have had on culture and society. It's telling when something is so ingrained in society that not only do we not know where it came from but we don't even question where it came from.

That's why comic strips are important, though, because we should know where these things came from. We should understand that cultural cliches that we all take for granted were not always so.

So, that's what I aim to change. I'm interested in comic strips and comic strip history generally, but recently I've become more interested in the cultural impact that comic strips have had. I plan to post some of those things on this blog, because I already have a few things in mind, but I'll also post more when I find them. Also, if anyone reading this blog happens to have any ideas for things I should cover because they're as obsessed with comic strips as I am, don't hesitate to chime in.