Walt Kelly

Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr. (25 August 1913 – 18 October 1973) was an American animator and cartoonist, usually known simply as Walt Kelly, most famous for the comic strip Pogo.

Looking back on things, the view always improves.

The eleventh day of the eleventh month has always seemed to me to be special. Even if the reason for it fell apart as the years went on, it was a symbol of something close to the high part of the heart. Perhaps a life that stretches through two or three wars takes its first war rather seriously, but I still think we should have kept the name "Armistice Day." Its implications were a little more profound, a little more hopeful.

Quotes

We have met the enemy and he is us.

Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.

• The eleventh day of the eleventh month has always seemed to me to be special. Even if the reason for it fell apart as the years went on, it was a symbol of something close to the high part of the heart. Perhaps a life that stretches through two or three wars takes its first war rather seriously, but I still think we should have kept the name "Armistice Day." Its implications were a little more profound, a little more hopeful.
  • Ten Everlovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo (1959), p. 100

• Not all segregationists are lunatics, or even dishonest men.
  • Ten Everlovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo (1959); an aside while recounting the 1954 shooting in the US Congress public-viewing gallery. Kelly noted that the shooters were not lunatic-fringe segregationists, then added the aside in a footnote.

• Suspicion is the mother of invention
  And a fishin' expedition
  Needs no repetition
  For the end is never new: you need a friend
  and you.
  • The Jack Acid Society Black Book (1960)

• God is not dead — He is merely unemployed...
  • A response to Time magazine's cover story of 8 April 1966, which asked, "Is God Dead?" This, in turn, came from Nietzsche's famous quote, "God is dead." It appears on page 96, the final panel in The Pogo Poop Book (1966).

• 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.
  • Equal Time for Pogo (1968)

• Looking back on things, the view always improves.
  • Impollutable Pogo (1970)

Pogo comic strip (1948 - 1975)

Pogo

• We have met the enemy and he is us.
  • This is derived from the famous statement of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry on the "War of 1812": "We have met the enemy and they are ours". It appeared in a "modern day" poster for the first Earth Day in April 1970, and next in the comic strip itself in August 1970 in Porky Pine's mouth, and was re-used by Kelly in a subsequent Earth Day poster (1971), and further strips and in the title of the book Pogo : We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us (1972).
  • A similar statement was actually used by Kelly many years earlier in his introduction to The Pogo Papers (1953) which he closes with these comments:

    Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle.
    There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blast on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.

    Forward!

Porky Pine

I been readin' 'bout how maybe they is planets peopled by folks with ad-vanced brains. On the other hand, maybe we got the most brains ... maybe our intellects is the universe's most ad-vanced. Either way, it's a mighty soberin' thought.

• Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.

• Eventually every man gotta face the problem of tryin' to figger if it’s worthwhile to prove that he is himself.

• The best break anybody ever gets is in bein' alive in the first place. An' you don't unnerstan' what a perfect deal it is until you realizes that you ain't gone be stuck with it forever, either.

• I been readin' 'bout how maybe they is planets peopled by folks with ad-vanced brains. On the other hand, maybe we got the most brains...maybe our intellects is the universe's most ad-vanced. Either way, it's a mighty soberin' thought.
  • The Honolulu Advertiser (20 June 1959), cited in "Pogo on intelligent life in the universe" by Garson O'Toole, in Archive of the American Dialect Society listserver (16 February 2017), and in 'Pogo Comic on Extraterrestrials: Either Way, It’s a Mighty Soberin’ Thought", The Quote Investigator (18 February 2017). This has often been paraphrased as: "Thar’s only two possibilities: Thar is life out there in the universe which is smarter than we are, or we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. Either way, it’s a mighty sobering thought."

• [After Pogo says, Eventual Porky, I figger ev'ry critter's heart's in the right place., Porky responds:] If you gotta be wrong 'bout somthin', that's 'bout the best thing they is to be wrong 'bout.

Beauregard

• Is we runnin' TO it or FROM it?
  • In response to being awakened from sleep by a stampede of animals and being told "The DAM is bust".

Others

• Ever since I heard you is got a million dollars I notice you is fraught with perspicacity.
  • Uncle Baldwin (speaking to Churchy)

• Foo, a beautiful gal wastes her time gracin' up this swamp.
  • Miz Beaver

• I'll tell you, son, the minority got us out-numbered!
  • Congersman Frog

• So we got fifty percent. Babe Ruth didn't do no better. — Did you mean hittin' it... or throwin' it?
  • The three bats (Bewitched, Bothered and Bemildred)

• Some is more equal than others, as is well known. It ain't that your majority is outnumbered, you're just out-surrounded.
  • Tammananny Tiger (to Pogo)

• The natural born reason we didn't git no yew-ranium when we crosses the li'l yew tree and the gee-ranium is on account of cause we didn't have no geiger counter.
  • Dr. Howland Owl

• Halp! My powerful brain is blowed itself up!
  • Albert Alligator in a thinking contest (after Howland Hoo Owl fires the starting gun)

• Y'see, when you start to lick a national problem you have to go after the fundamentables. You want to cut down air pollution? Cut down the original source... Breathin!
  • Churchy (to Howland)

• Deck us all with Boston Charlie
  Walla Walla, Wash, and Kalamazoo!
  Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
  Swaller dollar cauliflower Alleygaroo!
  Don't we know archaic barrel,
  Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou.
  Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
  Boola Boola Pensacoola Hullabaloo!
  
  Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
  Polly wolly cracker n' too-da-loo!
  Hunky Dory's pop is lolly gaggin' on the wagon,
  Willy, folly go through!
  
  Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
  Antelope Cantaloup, 'lope with you!
  Chollie's collie barks at Barrow,
  Harum scarum five alarum bung-a-loo
  
  Duck us all in bowls of barley,
  Hinky dinky dink an' Polly Voo!
  Chilly Filly's name is Chollie,
  Chollie Filly's jolly chilly view halloo!
  
  Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
  Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, Woof, Woof!
  Tizzy seas on melon collie!
  Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, Goof, Goof!

Dialogue

Albert: I'd give them a piece of my mind if I could find it! I mean, them!

Porky Pine: [to Pogo] Y'know, ol' Albert leads a life of noisy desperation.

External links

• Wikipedia: Pogo
• Brief biography of Walt Kelly
• Walt Kelly at the Lambiek "Comiclopedia"