March 14th, 2014

What is Beetle Doing There?

by Mort Walker

One of the things we really enjoy about creating a comic strip is when we see evidence that other people are noticing what we do. It’s always fun to see Beetle appear in places we wouldn’t expect to see him. Those of us in the cartooning business love to put the creations of our friends in our own strips. Recently, my pal John Rose used Beetle in one of his editorial strips (shown above) and we loved it. In the same week, a clue in the famous New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle asked for a Beetle character’s name. The answer (spoiler alert for those who haven’t finished the puzzle) was Sarge. More often a crossword puzzle clue is “Beetle Bailey Dog” which would  be, of course, Otto.

Over the years Beetle has appeared or been mentioned in movies (“The Crawling Eye”, “Mr. Deeds” by Adam Sandler, “Amazon Women on the Moon ), TV shows (Simpsons, Family Guy, Sesame Street, Saturday Night Live) and, perhaps most strangely of all, in music when Beetle was mentioned by Wu Tang Clan. Beetle is currently visible in a graffiti show appearing at the Museum of the City of New York. I never expected to see Beetle and Sarge on a subway car!