This version was done in 1960 as an episode of National Educational Television's Play of the Week, with Tammy Grimes (Molly Grue in The Last Unicorn) as Mehitabel. It opened April 13, 1957, under the name Shinbone Alley (which was where Mehitabel lived). It was also produced as a sound recording, with Eddie Bracken (Mole in the 1987 production of The Wind in the Willows) as Archy and Carol Channing (Granny in the 1992 version of The Addams Family) as Mehitabel.ĭarion and Kleinsinger, with the help of the young Mel Brooks (who, among other things, later did the voice of Santa Claus in Jimmy Neutron), reworked it into a Broadway play. It was performed at New York's Town Hall during December of that year, with Jonathan Anderson as Archy and Mignon Dunn as Mehitabel. In 1954, writer Joe Darion and composer George Kleinsinger (who also did the theme song of the Fleischer version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) adapted his work into a musical stage production. Herriman's art didn't appear in early editions, but once it was added it became indispensable.ĭon Marquis died in 1937, but his characters live on. An omnibus volume, the lives and times of archy and mehitabel, which collected all three, came out in 1940. It was followed by archys life of mehitabel (1933) and archy does his part (1935). And the human beings themselves liked it, as the first book collection (titled simply archy and mehitabel) was published by Doubleday in 1927 and has remained in print ever since. Mehitabel, too, had much to say (through Archy) about the human condition. Writing from an insect's point of view, he made sharp, incisive, not always very complimentary (but highly amusing) comments on the foibles and fallibilities of humanity. Powered by Marquis's imagination, Archy proved quite the literary genius. Mehitabel, it turned out, was the reincarnation of Cleopatra, as well as of any number of cheap floozies since then, who have trouble maintaining the dignity that was once theirs by natural right. A cat was mentioned in Archy's manuscript, but it was months before she had a name and personality. He first did this during March of the year 1916, and Marquis turned it in as part of his column for the 29th. He made himself known to Marquis by jumping up and down on the keyboard all night, so the columnist would find his work the following morning. Oh, and Marquis's name is pronounced MAR-kwiss, not, as the hyper-correct would have it, Mar-KEE.Īside from being a cockroach, Archy was also the reincarnation of a vers libre (free verse) poet. The name of the feature is usually capitalized the way Archy would type them, i.e., "archy and mehitabel" (he also can't handle the ampersand, and has trouble with punctuation all around), but the characters themselves are Archy the cockroach and Mehitabel the alley cat. He'd use normal capitalization too, but he's only a cockroach jumping up and down on Marquis's typewriter keyboard, and can't hold the shift key down while typing a letter. Note on orthography: Their names are capitalized normally, except when Archy types them. But after they started appearing in book form, Herriman's drawings became so closely associated with the pair, that it's hard to believe they could ever appear any other way. Later, they transferred to Collier's magazine, still without illustration. Tribune promoted the move with a picture of Archy by an unknown staff artist, nobody ever saw what either character looked like. From 1916, when it started, until September 11, 1922, when Marquis switched papers, and the N.Y. In its original venue, Marquis's column, "The Sun Dial", which appeared in New York's Evening Sun, the "archy and mehitabel" feature consisted entirely of words, with no toon connection at all. In fact, it's the Herriman contribution that calls for its inclusion here. Krazy has been reprinted numerous times in the half-dozen decades since it stopped being produced on a regular basis - but his drawings of the Marquis characters have been continuously in print even longer than that. But a very good case can be made that his most enduring is the illustration work on the poems and storiesĪbout the most famous work of newspaper columnist Don Marquis, archy and mehitabel. The most famous work of cartoonist George Herriman was, without a doubt, Krazy Kat. Please contribute to its necessary financial support. If this site is enjoyable or useful to you, ARCHY AND MEHITABEL Original Medium: Newspaper columns
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