I fixed it!

Date: Tue, Apr 2, 2002 3:33 AM

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

HellPopeHuey <hellpopehuey@subspamgeenyus.com> wrote:

> >Yowsers...cubisty of what...
> >Everytime i see a picture of Bob, i get reminded of Mr. Appleton from
> >the comic strip (a rather sick and twisted one, i might say) that used
> >to run in National Lampoon. Mr. Appleton also always used to have a
> >pipe in his mouth. As Mr. Appleton predates Dobbs, i can't help but
> >wonder is the originator of Dobbs had some sort of inspiration from
> >the character of Mr. Appleton...
>
> I question whether A. predates Dobbs...I believe the Dobbshead was already
> making the rounds in Texas, so the sacred Pamphlet #1 COULD have triggered
> it...but then, "Bob" was ALSO gracing ads as far back as 1923, when Granny
> Molo's Tincture of Fropywanna was riding high. Anybody with a less deteriorated
> mental faculty than mine able to pin down the dates thereof? I read NatLamp,
> but fuck my lobes if I can parse that one.
>
> BTW, I'm sure that pic was "easy" enough to assemble, but its certainly a
> well-crafted bon-bon of mental illness. Into the wallpaper stash it goes! I
> want it on a t-shirt, pajamas, bed linens, tattooed on my ASS!
>
> It very favorably reminds me of the Hipgnosis illustrations gracing the Genesis
> triple album "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" back when. Just some very basic
> juxtapositions, but the effect was simply MAHvelous, dahling. Great bit of work,
> doktor.

The One True Portrait of Dobbs definitely predates the Appletons.
Neither Philo nor Dobbs remember (or will say) exactly when the main
portrait was done, but we got it in 1978 from a book of obscure
corporate in-house clip-art that was from the EARLY seventies or
perhaps even the 60s. Pamphlet #1 was printed Jan. 1980. I have no idea
when Mr. Appleton started, but I sure don't remember NOTICING it until
after I knew about "Bob." It was one of MANY "Bobish" characters who
popped up almost simultaneously but (seemingly) unconnectedly -- DEVO's
first album cover, for instance. Jay Kinney had started using bulldada
clip art exactly like Dobbs had been training us to, at exactly the
same time.

Nowadays, of course, the "Bob" relatives, hints, rip-offs, sightings
and tips-of-the-hat-to are hard to even keep up with. This is not
surprising considering that he is "Bob," and also that he was in
hundreds if not thousands of print magazine ads from the late forties
to the middle sixties.

--
4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath of Dobbs Yeti,
Resurrected
P.O. Box 181417, Cleveland, OH 44118 (fax 216-320-9528)
A subsidiary of:
The SubGenius Foundation, Inc. / P.O. Box 140306, Dallas, TX 75214
SubSITE: http://www.subgenius.com PRABOB

Back to document index

Original file name: Mr Appleton.txt - converted on Friday, 20 September 2002, 16:07