Number 1736: Boody Rogers’s Tree-Top Timmons

This 12-page backup to a 52-page (!) Sparky Watts story by Boody Rogers is from Sparky Watts #2. Both stories are compilations from Boody’s time as a newspaper comic strip cartoonist.

It is a Li’l Abner-styled strip about hillbillies. The men are lazy, and the women are smarter than the men. Or are they? They end up doing all the chores. Well, I guess someone has to, and if that man won’t get his lazy ass out of bed then I guess it is up to the womenfolk. In this case the lazy men are Tree-Top, Grampappy, Nubbin and Pappy (no relation). Tree-Top, despite being the title character, is basically a supporting player in his own comic strip.

Tree-Top is so tall his head is never shown. That is a funny sight gag, and forty years later, in 1982, it also showed up in the six-episode TV series, Police Squad. In this screen capture of a scene, Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielson) and his partner tell tall guy, Al, he has something on the side of his face. The series, made by Zucker-Abraham-Zucker, led to the Naked Gun movies. I don’t think they got the joke from Boody, I think it is just one of those things that people think of, independent of another’s ideas. Or, maybe they did get it from Boody. Surely, you don’t expect me to know. (“No, I don’t...and don’t call me Shirley.” Ba-da-bam! sound of snare drum rimshot.)

Whoever pasted up the strips made a mistake on page 8. Panels 3 and 4 are reversed.

Posted in: Pappy Comics