Manufacturer:
Baby Barry Toy Company
“My work is being destroyed almost as soon as it is printed. One day it is being read; the next day someone's wrapping fish in it"
- Al Capp
L'il Abner Yokum
Made by the
the Baby Barry Toy Company
1957
WELCOME TO THE
Baby Barry Toy Company
We have not yet learned much about the Baby Barry Toy Company. However, online auction houses give evidence of the strength of the company's production.
Clearly, Al Capp, whose self-portrait is shown above, would enjoy knowing he was being featured here. However, his reputation as a satirist has been eclipsed by his failures as a human being. In fact, the way he portrayed poor southern whites in his comic strip, L'il Abner, has been compared to the way Amos and Andy mocked poor blacks (more here...)
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Sadly, Al Capp was not the only one guilty of overt sexism and racism. One does not need to look hard to find examples of both. Even beloved Shari Lewis's puppet Wing Ding, a black crow, was accused of racial stereotypes. And her response was to remove him from future acts. You will still find the puppets available for sale online, of course.
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Enjoy the variety of this company's output: all is worth re-visiting for a variety of reasons.
Gallery One in our unique "Clic-A-Pic Gallery"
To view puppets from this period, click on any image below and scroll.
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Born Pansy Hunks, Mammy was the scrawny, highly principled "sassiety" leader and bare knuckle "champeen" of the town of Dogpatch. She had married the inconsequential Pappy Yokum in 1902; they produced two strapping sons twice their own size
(1957) Abner was 6′ 3″ and perpetually 19 "y'ars" old. A naïve, simpleminded, gullible and sweet-natured hillbilly, he lived in a ramshackle log cabin with his pint-sized parents. Capp derived the family name "Yokum" as a combination of yokel and hokum.
Beautiful Daisy Mae was hopelessly in love with Dogpatch's most prominent resident throughout the entire 43-year run of Al Capp's comic strip. Click on video link below...
(1957) The unwashed but shapely form of languid, delectable Moonbeam was one of the iconic hallmarks of Li'l Abner — an unkempt, impossibly lazy, corncob pipe-smoking, flagrant (and fragrant), raven-haired, earthly (and earthy) woman. Beautiful Moonbeam preferred the company of pigs to suitors — much to the frustration of her equally lazy pappy, Moonshine McSwine.
Fun Facts:
from Wikipedia. More here...
FUN FACTS... regarding
Emmett Kelly (1898 - 1979)
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Like many of the innovators of early animation, Kelly was a talented artist who earned extra cash doing "Chalk Talks" on the vaudeville circuit.
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However, unable to get a job as a cartoonist, he began working at local circus's as a labor.
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A self-taught trapeze artist, he "moved up" in the circus world, while continuing to draw, esp. hobos. It was the Great Depression, and there were many models to work from, sadly.
One can't help but wonder that if Emmett Kelly had not fallen for the circus, might he have become an animator, much like J. Stuart Blackstone, who was also a "Chalk Talk" vaudeville artist, like Kelly. Who knows?
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He first created Weary Willie as a cartoon character, but it proved highly successful as a clown act.
After perfecting his skills at many traveling circus shows, he was hired by Ringling Brothers during the war years, where he worked for 12 years.
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From there, he was so popular that he was hired to perform his role as Weary Willie as an independent artist for the rest of his life.
