Back here, I did a couple of posts about bizarre cartoons that I had seen as a kid. When I thought about them decades later, I wondered if my memory was faulty and if I had imagined them. Fortunately, I found them both on the internet to prove I wasn’t nuts.
While the first examples were TV cartoons, this subject of today's post is a newspaper comic.
As I noted before on this blog, my parents used to pick up a Sunday Plain Dealer before the Journal began publishing an edition on that day. So I was exposed to all sorts of great comics that didn’t run in the Journal, such as Li’l Abner and The Wizard of Id (as well as the regular features Cappy Dick and Ask Andy).
I also remembered seeing a comic about two beans named H. J. and Heinz. The strips were little adventures. I recalled one where they were on a magic carpet.
And ever since then, for the past 50 years or so, every time I’ve seen a Heinz ketchup bottle I’ve thought of those two cartoon beans.
I’ve tried to find a copy of one of those H. J. & Heinz comic strips via Google for many years with no success.
So did I ever find a copy of one of their adventures? Well, it’s not exactly spilling the beans to tell you I did, since I’ve devoted today’s post to this whole affair. One of those newspaper archive services came through.
To my surprise, the whole thing was an advertisement for Heinz Beans in Tomato Sauce! Here are some samples, from the summer of 1965. I was six years old when I first saw these.
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| July 11. 1965 |
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| July 18, 1965 |
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| Sept. 5, 1965 |
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| The product is still around, even if H. J. & Heinz, the “almost human beans,” aren’t. |
10 comments:
Actually, those aren't too bad. Bought a can of those a few years back
"L'il Abner" ran in the Journal; I read it daily.
I remember the "H.J. and Heinz" commercials from tv; wonder if YouTube carries them? That reminds me... does anyone besides me remember the Duke Beer commercials with three cartoon characters singing about "big, round barley, Charlie"? YouTube doesn't have them. This was 1966 or so.
Heinz' ad agency probably ran out of bean puns - "I invented the beanophone"?
Alan - I don't remember that Duke Beer commercial, although, being 17 in 1966, I was keenly interested in the product.
Li’ Abner was in the Chronicle, too.
I’ve been looking thru old papers these past few days. It’d be fun to do a history of what comics appeared where and when.
Sports pages in papers, too. Their evolution is fascinating.
For some reason, the Journal had the Li’l Abner Monday through Saturday strips, but not the Sunday page. The Plain Dealer was just the opposite, with only the Sunday page. The Columbus Dispatch (which I read in college) had both –-but Li’l Abner ended during November of my freshman year. The paper didn’t run the very last Sunday page, and when I wrote the paper to complain, they sent me a black and white copy of the final strip. I’m probably the only person living in Columbus at that time (November 1977) who saw it!
Can you post the final strip?
Hi Alan,
This website has the last daily strip (which features Li’l Abner, Daisy Mae and Al Capp himself) and the last Sunday strip (which was a wrap-up of an odd Fearless Fosdick sequence).
https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2018/10/28/first-and-last-lil-abner/
"odd Fearless Fosdick sequence"
ALL the Fearless Fosdick sequences were odd.
As a fan of Dick Tracy, I always got an extra kick out of Det. Fosdick. Especially all the holes he shot in everything.
I was saddened to see Lil' Abner go away. Great commentary on the events of the day.
Don't even get me started on Pogo!
Dan, clicking on the website does nothing.
You have to copy-paste it into your browser!
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