Toon Talk plus

Saturday will be the 60th anniversary of the first Beetle Bailey cartoon strip. Beetle started out as a cartoon about college life at an unnamed school which just happened to have the same hangouts as strip-writer Mort Walker's alma-mater Missouri. One of Beetle's favorites was a shack of a bar known oddly enough as "The Shack." Like many, many real-life Freshman guys who spent too much time in The Shack between 1950 and 1975, Beetle ended up in the Army, where he found his true calling if not success. In fact, since he's been in the Army for about 59 years without promotion or even a hint of future retirement, it might be fair to say Beetle is one of the least successful college dropouts in history.

( About the cat )