Comics-Pogo TB2

This trackable has the modest goal to circulate more than five years and to be moved by at least 25 cachers.  That is a rate of five drops per year for five years.  As of 23-Mar-20 it had been active for 4.1 years and had been moved by 32 cachers.  How far can it get?  Keep it moving!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S.  While in the U.S., please drop it in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event where there is no security.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

Trackable photos are appreciated and will be re-posted here.

My youth was in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  Drawing from that period, this is one of a series of travel bugs made to commemorate favorite characters from comic books, comic strips, movie cartoons, B-movies and animated feature-length movies.  Some of the characters had only a brief existence, some survived as radio and early TV programs and some have been digitally-modernized into some of the blockbuster movies of today.  There were many other characters, but these are the ones on which I was willing to spend my dimes (comic books) and quarters (movie and popcorn).  However, I didn’t pay for the daily comic strips or Sunday funnies that came with the newspaper.

Pogo is the title and central character of a long-running daily American comic strip, created by cartoonist Walt Kelly (1913–1973.  Set in the Okefenokee Swamp of the southeastern United States, the strip often engaged in social and political satire through the adventures of its anthropomorphic funny animal characters.

Pogo combined both sophisticated wit and with lushly detailed artwork and broad burlesque humor.   The same series of strips can be enjoyed on different levels by both young children and savvy adults.

Kelly's characters are a sardonic reflection of human nature —venal, greedy, confrontational, selfish and stupid—but portrayed good-naturedly and rendered harmless by their own bumbling ineptitude and overall innocence.  Some of the permanent residents of the Okefenokee are as follows.

Pogo Possum: An amiable, humble, philosophical, personable, everyman opossum.  The wisest (and probably sanest) resident of the swamp, he is one of the few major characters with sense enough to avoid trouble. Though he prefers to spend his time fishing or picnicking, his kind nature often gets him reluctantly entangled in his neighbors' escapades. He has repeatedly been forced by the swamp's residents to run for president, always against his will. He wears a simple red and black striped shirt and (sometimes) a crushed yellow fishing hat.

Albert Alligator: Exuberant, dimwitted, irascible and egotistical, Albert is often the comic foil for Pogo. The cigar-chomping Albert is as extroverted and garrulous as Pogo is modest and unassuming, and their many sequences together tend to underscore their balanced, contrasting chemistry.  Albert's creation actually preceded Pogo's, and his brash, bombastic personality sometimes seems in danger of taking over the strip, as he once dominated the comic books.  Having an alligator's voracious appetite, Albert often eats things indiscriminately, and is accused on more than one occasion of having eaten another character.

Porky Pine: A porcupine, a misanthrope and cynic; prickly on the outside but with a heart of gold. The deadpan Porky never smiles in the strip.  Pogo's best friend, equally honest, reflective and introverted, and with a keen eye both for goodness and for human foibles.

Miz Ma'm'selle Hepzibah: A beautiful, coy French skunk modeled after Kelly's mistress, who later became his second wife.  Hepzibah has long been courted by Porky and others but rarely seems to notice. Sometimes she pines for Pogo, and isn't too shy about it. She speaks with a heavy burlesque French dialect and tends to be overdramatic.

Miz Beaver: A no-nonsense, corncob pipe-smoking washerwoman; a traditional mother (she is frequently seen minding a perambulator, her pet fish, or a tadpole in a jar) and "widder" (she occasionally speaks of "the Mister," always in the past tense), clad in a country bonnet and apron. Uneducated but with homespun good sense, she "takes nothin' from nobody," and can be daunting when riled. She is Hepzibah's best friend and occasional matchmaker, although she disapproves of menfolk as a general rule. Her trademark line is: "WHY is all you mens such critturs of dee-ceit?"