''Toonerville Folks'' ( ''The Toonerville Trolley That Meets All the Trains'') was a popular

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

cartoon feature by

Fontaine Fox Fontaine Talbot Fox, Jr. (June 4, 1884 – August 9, 1964) was an American cartoonist and illustrator best known for writing and illustrating his ''Toonerville Folks'' comic panel, which ran from 1913 to 1955 in 250 to 300 newspapers across North ...

, which ran from 1908 to 1955. It began in 1908 in the ''Chicago Post'', and by 1913, it was syndicated nationally by the

Wheeler Syndicate John Neville Wheeler (April 11, 1886 – October 13, 1973) was an American newspaperman, publishing executive, magazine editor, and writer. He was born in Yonkers, New York, graduated Columbia University (which holds a collection of his paper ...

. From the 1930s on, it was distributed by the

McNaught Syndicate The McNaught Syndicate was an American newspaper syndicate founded in 1922. It was established by Virgil Venice McNitt (who gave it his name) and Charles V. McAdam. Its best known contents were the columns by Will Rogers and O. O. McIntyre, the ' ...

Characters and story

The single-panel gag cartoon (with longer-form comics on Sunday) was a daily look at Toonerville, situated in what are now called the suburbs. Central to the strip was the rickety little trolley called the "Toonerville Trolley that met all the trains", driven in a frenzy by the grizzly old Skipper to meet each commuter train as it arrived in town. A few of the many richly formed characters included Suitcase Simpson, Mickey McGuire, the Powerful Katrinka, the Terrible Tempered Mr. Bang, Aunt Eppie Hogg, Little Woo-Woo Wortle, The Little Scorpions, and "Stinky" Davis.

Origin

Fox described the inspiration for the cartoon series in an article he wrote for ''The Saturday Evening Post'' titled "A Queer Way to Make a Living" (February 11, 1928, page six):

After years of gestation, the idea for the ''Toonerville Trolley'' was born one day up in Westchester County when my wife and I had left New York City to visit Charlie Voight, the cartoonist, in the Pelhams. At the station, we saw a rattletrap of a streetcar, which had as its crew and skipper a wistful old codger with an Airedale beard. He showed as much concern in the performance of his job as you might expect from Captain Hartley when docking the Leviathan.

Films

Between 1920 and 1922, 17 ''Toonerville'' silent film comedy adaptations were scripted by Fox for Philadelphia's Betzwood Film Company. These starred

Dan Mason Dan Mason (born Daniel Grassman; February 9, 1857 – July 6, 1929) was an American actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films from 1913 to 1929. He is remembered as the "Skipper" in the "Toonerville Folks" comedy films.Wilna Hervey Wilna Hervey (October 3, 1894 – March 6, 1979) was an American silent film actress and artist. Early life Known to friends and family as "Willie," Wilna Hervey was the only child of the marriage of William Russell Hervey and Anna Van Horn Tra ...

as Katrinka. Only seven of those 17 shorts survive today. Four are preserved in the Betzwood Film Archive at Montgomery County Community College, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.

Mickey Rooney Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule Jr.; other pseudonym Mickey Maguire; September 23, 1920 – April 6, 2014) was an American actor. In a career spanning nine decades, he appeared in more than 300 films and was among the last surviving stars of the ...

starred as Mickey McGuire in more than 55 comedy shorts filmed between 1927 and 1936. Rooney (né Joe Yule, Jr.) adopted the professional name Mickey McGuire for a time before finally settling on the last name Rooney. The first of three

Van Beuren Studios The Van Beuren Corporation was a New York City-based animation studio that produced theatrical cartoons as well as live-action short-subjects from the 1920s to 1936. History In 1920, the Keith-Albee organization formed Fables Pictures for the ...

Rainbow Parade ''Rainbow Parade'' was a series of 26 animated shorts produced by Van Beuren Studios and distributed to theaters by RKO between 1934 and 1936. This was the all-color series and final series produced by Van Beuren. History Many of the ''Rainbow Pa ...

'' animated cartoons adapted from the syndicated panels was released by

RKO Radio Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orphe ...

on January 17, 1936. Some of those became available on

laserdisc The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as DiscoVision, MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diam ...

in 1994 and later, on DVD from Image Entertainment in 1999. Katrinka was animated by

Joseph Barbera Joseph Roland Barbera ( ; ; March 24, 1911 – December 18, 2006) was an American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist who co-founded the animation studio and production company Hanna-Barbera. Born to Italian im ...

.Joseph Barbera: ''My Life in 'Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century'', Turner Pub, Nashville 1995, , p 44 A ''Toonerville Trolley'' cartoon, "Lost and Found", was included in ''Simple Gifts'', a Christmas collection of six animated shorts shown on PBS TV in 1977. Over the years, various ''Toonerville'' characters acted as spokesmen for popular products of the day. Skipper, Flem Proddy and Katrinka appeared throughout the decades in advertisements for

Drano Drano (styled as Drāno) is an American brand of chemical drain cleaner that is manufactured by S. C. Johnson & Son. Crystal Drano According to the National Institutes of Health's Household Products Database, the crystal form is composed of: * ...

Kellogg's The Kellogg Company, doing business as Kellogg's, is an American multinational food manufacturing company headquartered in Battle Creek, Michigan, United States. Kellogg's produces cereal and convenience foods, including crackers and toaste ...

cereals and

Chef Boyardee Chef Boyardee is an American brand of canned pasta products sold internationally by Conagra Brands. The company was founded by Italian immigrant Ettore Boiardi in Milton, Pennsylvania, U.S., in 1928. History After leaving his position as head ...

foods.

Reprints

Between 1934 and 1940, comic book reprints of the panel appeared in many issues of ''

All-American Comics ''All-American Comics'' was a comics anthology and the flagship title of comic book publisher All-American Publications, one of the forerunners of DC Comics. It ran for 102 issues from 1939 to 1948. Characters created for the title, including Green ...

'', ''

Famous Funnies ''Famous Funnies'' is an American comic strip anthology series published from 1934 to 1955. Published by Eastern Color Printing, ''Famous Funnies'' is considered by popular culture historians as the first true American comic book, following semin ...

'', and ''Popular Comics''. In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the

Comic Strip Classics The Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative postage stamps was issued by the US Postal Service on October 1, 1995, to honor the centennial of the newspaper comic strip. Walker, Mort. ''Mort Walker's Private Scrapbook : celebrating a life of l ...

series of commemorative

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

postage stamps. In 1972, Herb Galewitz and Don Winslow compiled ''Fontaine Fox's Toonerville Trolley'', a 184-page book of daily panels, for Weathervane Books, an imprint of

Charles Scribner's Sons Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Rawli ...

Theatrical cartoon shorts

Three ''Toonerville'' cartoons were produced by

in 1936 as part of the ''

'' series.

In popular usage

"Toonerville Trolley" has been used as a nickname for various specific trolleys in towns and cities across the United States and Canada. The trolley that took tourists from the nearest town to the Seattle City Light hydroelectric project on the Skagit River in Washington State in the early years of the project (~1920-1938) was called the "Toonerville Trolley". The 1933 musical revue

As Thousands Cheer ''As Thousands Cheer'' is a revue with a book by Moss Hart and music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, first performed in 1933. The revue contained satirical sketches and witty or poignant musical numbers, several of which became standards, includin ...

featured the Toonerville Trolley in a number called 'The Funnies' honoring comic strip characters.

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...

had a character in ''

Pet Sematary ''Pet Sematary'' is a 1983 horror novel by American writer Stephen King. The novel was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1984, and adapted into two films: one in 1989 and another in 2019. In November 2013, PS Publishing rel ...

'' refer to a drug trip on

Tuinal Tuinal was the brand name of a discontinued combination drug composed of two barbiturate salts (secobarbital sodium and amobarbital sodium) in equal proportions. Tuinal was introduced as a sedative-hypnotic (sleeping pill) medication in the lat ...

s as a ride on the "Toonerville Trolley". In

William Gass William Howard Gass (July 30, 1924 – December 6, 2017) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, and philosophy professor. He wrote three novels, three collections of short stories, a collection of novellas, and seven vol ...

' ''

Middle C C or Do is the first note and semitone of the C major scale, the third note of the A minor scale (the relative minor of C major), and the fourth note (G, A, B, C) of the Guidonian hand, commonly pitched around 261.63 Hz. The actual frequen ...

'', the main character lists some of the kinds of people he doesn't like, including "the nutsy fagans and other detrolleyed toonervilles". Toonerville was mentioned by an onlooker in the ''

Emergency! ''Emergency!'' is an American action-adventure medical drama television series jointly produced by Mark VII Limited and Universal Television. Debuting on NBC as a midseason replacement on January 15, 1972, replacing the two short-lived situatio ...

'' episode "Parade" in reference to an impromptu rescue with a vintage fire engine. A Toonerville Trolley toy is shown briefly in

Rintaro is the pseudonym of , a well-known director of anime. He works frequently with the animation studio Madhouse (company), Madhouse (which he co-founded), though he is a freelance director not employed directly by any one studio. He began working i ...

's segment in the 1987

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

anthology '' Neo Tokyo''. The powerful Katrinka appeared in ''

Gasoline Alley ''Gasoline Alley'' is a comic strip created by Frank King and distributed by Tribune Content Agency. It centers on the lives of patriarch Walt Wallet, his family, and residents in the town of Gasoline Alley, with storylines reflecting traditio ...

'' on November 6, 2015 and helped explain the uproar about Jeff at the Old Comics Home. 1960s rock band

The Electric Prunes The Electric Prunes are an American psychedelic rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1965. Much of the band's music was, as music historian Richie Unterberger described it, possessed of "an eerie and sometimes anguished ambiance." T ...

featured a song called 'The Toonerville Trolley' honoring the comic strip on their self-titled debut album. From 1977-2018, there was a "Toonerville Trolley" record store in Williamstown, MA.

References

External links

Fontaine Fox mss. at Indiana UniversityStrickler, Dave. ''Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924–1995: The Complete Index''. Cambria, California: Comics Access, 1995.
{{ISBN, 0-9700077-0-1 American comic strips 1908 comics debuts Gag-a-day comics Fictional American people American comics characters Male characters in comics Comics characters introduced in 1908 1955 comics endings American comics adapted into films Comics adapted into animated series Fiction about rail transport Van Beuren Studios