Wednesday Advertising Day.
What is the one thing Marvel and DC had in common in the forties? Yes, it's the Captain Tootsie ads by Cptain Marvel artist C.C. Beck for the sweet Tootsie rolls. I don't know if these ads also appreared in Captain Marvel comics, but if they would, they would have caused a lot of disturbance, because the hero in this strip looks a lot like the Big Red Cheese loved by so many at Fawcett. Top Fawcett fan Peter Hamerlinck was working on an article about this long running ad strip (I have samples here ranging form 1945 to 1955), maybe even with a list of all known Captain T.'s adventures. The article was supposed to appear in an upcoiming iddue of Alter Ego, but we are stil waiting for it. A couple of years ago I came across a two months run of daily Tootsie ads from 1948, which 5 sent to Peter. But the article has still to appear and this blog is eating material at an astonishing rate, so I thought I'd give it a go here. My samples don't tell the whole story, but they do give an idea of the range of this ad strip. The first lot is a couple of early comic book appearances. In my experience these could very wll be adaptations of a three tier Sunday Comic Section version. Then we have my 1948 daily samples. Once a week, on a wednesday, these appeared in a paper I happen to have a bound version of. There also was a comic book version, which I have never seen, but I have read somewhere that there was very little mention of Tootsie Rolls in it. After that I have a couple of 1950/51 Sunday strips. They could be new, thye could be reworkings of older strips. Someone with a completercollection than me should be able to tell you that.
It is said that the strip was started by C.C. Beck and taken over by Pete Constanza, but the very last one I am showing here, a daily strip from 1955, taken from micro-fiche is signed Beck. My guess is it would have been a shared studio job for the both of them.
Comic book ad June 1945:
Comic book ad Oct 1945:
Comic book ad Aug 1948:
Comic book ad Sept 1948:
Daily Ad July 1 1948:
Daily Ad July 8 1948:
Daily Ad July 16 1948:
Daily Ad July 22 1948:
Daily Ad July 29 1948:
Daily Ad Aug 5 1948:
Daily Ad Aug 12 1948:
Daily Ad Aug 19 1948:
Daily Ad Aug 26 1948:
Sunday Ad April 3 1950:
Sunday Ad May 14 1950:
Sunday Ad June 18 1950:
Sunday Ad Nov 5 1950:
Sunday Ad Jan 14 1951:
Sunday Ad Oct 28 1951:
Daily Ad May 12 1955:
2 comments:
In the mid-70s, a friend gave a copy of a 1948 Action Comics to me, and I was first exposed to Captain Tootsie in an ad therein.
BTW, Tootsie Rolls have a significant amount of trans fat, along with the milk and body-building ingredients.
I was looking at the Captain Tootsie strips, and realised something - Captain Tootsie bears an incredibly close resemblance to another blond golden age superhero - Captain Triumph. Sans the big "T" on his chest, the costumes are identical.
Post a Comment