Pouches and Punches!

Hi Everyone!

Andrew asked me to fill in for him today because he says I know more about this subject than he does.  Well, Andrew dear, I would be flattered, except I do dislike being essentialized.  There's more to us kangaroos than pockets and boxing gloves, you know!

Still, I can't blame the boy.  It seems that every time you see a cartoon kangaroo, he or she is always swaggering around ready to punch someone or showing off a distended pouch filled with who-knows-what.  It's positively ignorant, not to mention embarrassing.

Now I haven't given the matter much thought, but if I had to put a starting date to all of this nonsense, it would be sometime in the 1930s, when a certain Mouse was making his mark all over the newfangled world of animation.  Everyone loved the Mouse --and they loved his friends, too:  the duck, the dog, the cow, the girl mouse.  I'm sure you know who they are.

Kiko the Kangaroo, c. 1936-37

The Mouse and his friends weren't the only animated animals out there.  They were just the most popular.  Popularity naturally brings envy and imitation, and that's where Kiko the Kangaroo, well, hops in.

Kiko, according to Wikipedia, was animator Paul Terry's "desperate attempt to rival characters of other studios."  He was the star of ten short features and had his own theme song along with a line of toy tie-ins.  Picked up by home movie giant, Castle Films, Kiko made his way into countless American households during the latter years of the Great Depression.

Kiko had a variety of adventures, but throughout them all, he doesn't say a word.  He does spend a lot of time looking foolish as well as punching and kicking people.  He also seems to have a hard time keeping his tongue in his mouth.  In short, he's repulsive.

Kiko never approached the Mouse for popularity, but he certainly did his part to establish the false notion that kangaroos are the violent and dimwitted clowns of the animal kingdom.  Virtually every post-Kiko image that I have ever run across seems to support that idea, which is nowhere more forcibly expressed than on the covers of children's comic books.

Goofy Comics, c. 1946

This is simply insulting.  The mother seems to be surprised that the truant officer has shown up at her door.  Apparently the joke is that she doesn't know that her child is actually in her pouch.  The child himself is a little monster and has clearly not been raised right.

Little Iodine, c. 1951

Little Iodine was a Sunday comic strip character created by Jimmy Hatlo in 1943.  Like her younger and more famous cousin, Dennis the Menace, she is supposed to be a lovable brat.  Judging by the look on her face, Iodine is mentally impaired.  I am not sure why the kangaroo is wearing a dog collar or why there is a bouquet in her pouch.  My guess is that she is brain-damaged as well.

Rootie Kazootie, c. 1954

Rootie Kazootie was one of the more memorable characters to come out of early television's fascination with live broadcast puppet shows.  This image is relatively benign, but if I were that particular kangaroo, I wouldn't be so avid to let my child share a cone with such a strange-looking boy.

Poll Parrot, c. 1959

Poll Parrot was a leading maker of children's shoes back when.  Despite the disingenuous ten-cent cover price, this comic book was a giveaway.  Note the boxing glove fixed to the kangaroo's tail, a clear sign of both stupidity and excessive violence.

Mutt and Jeff, c. 1962

More kangaroo violence.  It seems extra spiteful without the ubiquitous boxing gloves.  Mutt and Jeff were venerable comic strip characters created by Bud Fisher in 1907.

Alvin, c. 1964

Alvin and the Chipmunks should have faded away with the late 1950s novelty record that spawned them.  Yet they are with us even today. Here we see them engaged in abusing a hapless-looking female kangaroo.  That bridle must hurt, yet the dumb bunny keeps on smiling.

Hanna-Barbera Fun-In Featuring the Hair Bear Bunch, c. 1973

Now this is just disturbing.  I certainly wouldn't care to have three dirty, hairy hippies go sliding into my pouch.  Plainly this young lady is high on something, like they all were in the early 1970s.

Andy Panda, c. 1975

A final and I think, appropriate, image inasmuch as it reflects my own sense of dismay.  Andy Panda was the creation of Walter Lantz, who was making animated cartoons around the same time as Paul Terry and the guy who created that Mouse character.  After his last short appeared in 1949, Andy was reborn as the star of a long-running comic-book.  This particular image first appeared under the Dell Comics logo in 1960, but was reused (with a different colored background) in this mid-1970s issue from Whitman's Gold Key Comics.

Unlike Kiko, Andy is intelligent, curious about the world around him, and able to tell what is normal and what is not.  If I were a panda, I would be proud.

Gwendolyn E. Bardwell Carew
April 2020