Monday, March 14, 2022
Obscurity of the Day: The Teenie Weenies (2nd run)
William Donahey's The Teenie Weenies is certainly no obscurity, but the aspect that is rather obscure is that the long-running Chicago Tribune feature went through three separate and quite widely separated runs.
The first run, June 1914 to October 1924, is not terribly obscure. Admittedly, tearsheets of this first run can be hard to find because the feature did not run in the Trib's regular Sunday comics section, but plenty of contemporary kids did find it, making it popular enough to spawn a few books and spin-off items.
As best as can be determined, William Donahey ended the first series as a protest against the Trib's wanting him to make the feature into a comic strip. He instead decided to explore other marketing avenues for his creation. For the Tribune he created a new feature, The Pixeys, which was quite rightly panned and hence ran only for a short while.
In 1941, Donahey's Teenie Weenies finally returned to the pages of the Chicago Tribune, and that series went on until the creator's death, ending in 1971. This is by far the most familiar series to most cartooning fans, as it appeared in the regular comics sections of the Chicago Tribune, New York Sunday News, and some syndicated papers.
Okay, so that accounts for two series, neither of which sets off the Stripper's Guide Obscurity alarm bell. No, it was a short-lived series in between those two, like the forgotten middle child, that qualifies as our Obscurity of the Day. In 1933, perhaps feeling the pinch of the Great Depression, William Donahey finally caved in to Captain Patterson of the Chicago Tribune and agreed to make a comic strip version of the panel feature. The strip debuted on October 1 1933.
The new comic strip version was quite delightful and gave no hint that its creator was labouring on it under duress. All the familiar characters were there and the art was just as wonderful as on the original series, perhaps just a little simplified. The strips, more gag-oriented than the panel version, were nevertheless gentle and delightfully witty.The half-page strip lacked only the paper dolls which were a popular aspect of the original series.
Despite Donahey's successful rejiggering of his feature, he evidently wasn't happy. He worked out his one year contract, and that was it for the strip version. It last ran on December 2 1934. Children who liked the new version would be well on their way to young adulthood before the Teenie Weenies would return. But kids had a new feature to grow up with, because The Teenie Weenies was replaced the next week by the new Sunday version of Terry and the Pirates.
Labels: Obscurities
