Normally it's a treat for me to feature George McManus on the blog as he's one of my favorites. Today's obscurity by McManus, though, is such a misfire that I half want to sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened. But Cole Johnson sent me scans of this rare series, so after letting it sit and grow moldy for years, I'm going to air it out and let you have a look. It proves, I guess, that even a genius like McManus can have his off days.
McManus already had a pair of really popular stips running at the World in 1906, The Newlyweds and Panhandle Pete. Nevertheless he was still throwing new ideas up to see if anyone would salute. Suffice to say there was little saluting going on when Snoozer started appearing in the New York World's Sunday comic section on January 28 1906*. The plot is that this kid Snoozer falls asleep a lot. We see his dreams, we see the trouble caused by him falling asleep, and then we get the big zinger when Snoozer says, "Not Yet!" Not one aspect of which manages to be funny in this strip series.
Snoozer ran until May 6 1906*, and you can bet no one missed him when he stopped showing up in The Funny Side. Especially since he got canned in favour of a new McManus strip that was anything but a clunker, Nibsy the Newsboy in Funny Fairyland.
* Source: Ken Barker's New York World index in StripScene #14.
The title of this strip is a perfect example of truth in advertising.
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