Number 2093: Albert the Alligator sings!

Bumbazine was the only human character to appear regularly in what eventually became the Pogo comic strip.* Pogo Possum, seen here in his second appearance, looked more like an opossum and less like the cuter and more marketable Pogo that came later. Like all good comic characters, Pogo and Albert the Alligator had a ways to go before their images matured under Kelly’s hand, and “Pogo” became a longtime hit in newspapers. That’s a whole other story.

In this early episode (the second) Bumbazine and Albert are the title characters. Albert tries to pull off lip-syncing in order to win a singing contest. (His own voice sounds like “Roo-oo-oof! Wuff! Yowp!” which sounds more like ol' Hound Dog, who had not yet become a character in the feature.) Bumbazine was later dropped from the strip. Including a human just did not fit into the swamp universe as Kelly later envisioned it. Also, it might have turned off some of the Southern newspapers in those segregation days. Another whole other story.

Written and drawn by Walt Kelly. From Animal Comics #2 (1943):

*However, Bumbazine was not the only human character to appear in an Albert the Alligator story. Here we have several. Just click on the thumbnail.

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