"Choo-Choo Charlie" by John Stanley

 

 

 

 

First, some general info..."Choo Choo Charlie" was the cartoon mascot for "Good & Plenty" candy (licorice with a crunchy candy coating). He appeared in commercials animated by UPA in the early 1960s. A full, comprehensive write-up (on Good & Plenty, and this comic) can be found at Scott Shaw!s fantastic Oddball Comics website:

Oddball Comics #1198

You can even watch the old commercials on youtube:








This great old comic feels like one of Stanley's classic Little Lulu comics. Reading the dialog between Charlie and the unnamed little girl, they could easily be Lulu and Tubby. And I love how Stanley draws animals! I wish he had done a funny animal comic somewhere along the line, drawn in his own style. If there is a "funny animal" equivalent to say, Melvin Monster out there, please let me know!

You'll notice my copy has "5 cents" written on the cover...remember when you could find this stuff in a used bookstore for great prices? Not any more. I paid 4 bucks for this at a convention (which is still a deal, I guess, considering the other copies I saw were priced starting around $20). But I digress. I love/hate my expensive hobby.

Okay, enough talkin'! Here is Choo-Choo Charlie #1 (1969):

 








7 comments:


Gabriel said...

Great, great, great! Total fun!
Thanks so much, Doug!
I appreciate your dedication for sharing this great stuff! I don't get tired to say it again and again (I promise this will be the last one).
I'm with you, I like Stanley's animals. What a great and funny thing the elephant is!

April 18, 2009 3:22 PM


KW said...

There's something thrilling about the idea of having a personal train track running through your backyard and all over creation.

I remember my favorite kinds of comics were the weirdola off-brands like this one. Usually they were hidden in the middle of a 3-pack bag. I remember prying them apart inside the bag just enough to be able to see what the mysterious middle comic was. Sometimes it would be a standard title, but it seemed like more times than not, it was some oddball thing I'd never heard of before.

thanks for sharing this!

KW

April 18, 2009 9:45 PM


Doug said...

Thanks, Gabriel! That elephant is great, and so is the gorilla. Too bad this was only a one-shot.

KW, I used to get those gold key/Whitman 3-packs, too, but the middle comic would always be some Disney or Hanna Barbera character I'd never heard of, like Moby Duck or the Charlie Chan Clan. Or worse, a comic version of one of those live-action Disney comedies. Ugh!

April 18, 2009 10:57 PM


KW said...

ha ha! do you remember O.G.Whiz? he always got secretly mixed into a pack. when i was little i hated O.G.Whiz but now i don't mind it so much.

April 19, 2009 10:15 AM


Doug said...

I never saw O.G.Whiz as a kid. I do like that book, though. I probably would have liked it when I was younger, before I got into the superhero stuff.

No, I'd always get something I had no interest in, like the Funky Phantom or Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch...or sometimes I'd get a good one like Daffy Duck, but they would put the same issue in the middle of more than one 3-pack!

April 20, 2009 2:42 AM


KW said...

I liked that Hanna-Barbara Goldkey stuff a lot. I don't know if i really read it or if i was just looking at the pictures. Back then when there weren't VCRs to record shows, comics were the only way to get a real good look at some of those characters.

I remember trying to draw my own versions of Saturday morning cartoon characters, and they would never hold still long enough for me to see their shapes.

April 22, 2009 12:41 PM


Anonymous said...

These are great. Thanks for sharing charlie

April 29, 2009 7:26 PM