Smokey Stover

During a recent game of Comments Tag, Hoss brought up the old comic strip, Smokey Stover.
He makes reference to it and the creator, Bill Holman, in his posting for today.

Not to be outdone, I decided to dig up a little info myself. Hoss, flattering me by mistake, thought I might not be familiar with the character as I was too young. Alas, I knew the strip. As I found out today, it ran in syndication into the the 70s.

I remembered Smokey's two-wheeled firefighter truck that he called the Foomobile. I remembered that his wife's name was Cookie and that he had a son. But I needed the research of today to come up with Earl as the son's name. I also remembered that Smokey's boss was Chief Cash U. Nutt. Beyond that, just about everything else about that comic strip had slipped out of my conscious memory banks.

Much like the Smokey the Bear campaign for the prevention of forest fires, Smokey Stover appeared on public safety posters that could be seen in schools and libraries.

I also remember Spooky the Cat. Spooky sometimes appeared in the Smokey Stover strip, but eventually Holman devoted a strip to Spooky.

Both Smokey and Spooky would appear in Saturday Morning TV cartoons in the 70s as part of the program, The Archies. The segments alternated with cartoons of Broom Hilda, and others.

If you are old enough to remember Smokey Stover and would like to review a sampling of the comic srtip from the 1930s through the 1970s, click here . Or if you wish to view Spooky the Cat for the same period, try this one . Even if you aren't old enough, you might find them interesting and entertaining.

The framed picture above to the right is a drawing that Mr. Holman made for his nephew,
Victor Paul, who maintains the site.

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