Come For the Palooka, Stay For the Farts!

Summary

Episode Summary: "Come For the Palooka, Stay For the Farts!"

Host: Noel Brown
Co-Host: Ben Bowlin
Release Date: June 17, 2025
Podcast: Ridiculous History by iHeartPodcasts

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1. Introduction to the Episode

In this captivating episode of Ridiculous History, Noel Brown and Ben Bowlin delve into the intriguing origins and cultural significance of the term "palooka." The episode, aptly titled "Come For the Palooka, Stay For the Farts!", intertwines historical anecdotes with pop culture references, offering listeners a deep dive into a word that has permeated various facets of society.

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2. 'Palooka' in Pop Culture: Pulp Fiction Reference

The episode kicks off with a discussion that bridges classic cinema and linguistic exploration. Ben reminisces about the 1994 cult classic Pulp Fiction, highlighting a memorable exchange:

Ben Bowlin [07:25]: "Vince Vega's character in Pulp Fiction uses 'palooka' as an insult, referencing his disgraced boxer colleague, Butch. It's a throwback to old-timey slang that adds depth to his character."

Noel adds context by connecting the term's usage in the film to its historical roots, emphasizing how Quentin Tarantino often infuses his scripts with historically rich dialogues.

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3. Etymology and Meaning of 'Palooka'

The hosts transition into the etymology of "palooka," shedding light on its elusive origins. Noel shares insights from their research associate, Andrea, who uncovered the word's appearance in the comic strip Brenda Starr:

Noel Brown [05:56]: "In Brenda Starr, 'palooka' referred to a clumsy bank robber using a hostage. This sparked Andrea's curiosity about its broader meanings."

Ben further explores its definitions, clarifying:

Ben Bowlin [07:31]: "'Palooka' essentially means a lout or a mediocre person. However, its connection to boxing adds another layer to its meaning."

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4. The Legacy of Joe Palooka

The conversation then shifts to the iconic comic strip Joe Palooka, created by Ham Fisher. Noel provides a historical backdrop:

Noel Brown [06:03]: "Joe Palooka debuted in 1930, showcasing a champion boxer. Unlike Bazooka Joe, which was tied to a bubblegum brand, Joe Palooka held significant cultural weight in the 1940s."

Ben clarifies the distinction:

Ben Bowlin [06:39]: "Unlike Bazooka Joe’s low-quality comics, Joe Palooka was a prominent newspaper strip that portrayed Palooka as a heroic pugilist."

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5. Feud Between Ham Fisher and Al Capp

A substantial portion of the episode delves into the notorious feud between Ham Fisher and Al Capp, the creator of Li'l Abner. Noel outlines the origins of their rivalry:

Noel Brown [26:07]: "Ham Fisher and Al Capp were once mentor and protege. However, creative differences led to a bitter feud when Capp created Li'l Abner, which featured hillbilly characters similar to those in Joe Palooka."

Ben expounds on the personal dynamics:

Ben Bowlin [34:02]: "Fisher felt that Capp stole his concepts, leading to mutual animosity. This feud wasn't just professional but deeply personal, affecting their reputations and creative outputs."

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6. Allegations of Subliminal Messages in Li'l Abner

The hosts reveal a darker chapter in the feud, where Ham Fisher accused Al Capp of embedding subliminal pornographic messages in Li'l Abner:

Noel Brown [47:00]: "Fisher claimed that Li'l Abner contained hidden erotic imagery, aiming to discredit Capp and tarnish his work."

Ben cites a pivotal moment covered by Time magazine:

Ben Bowlin [48:00]: "Time reported that Fisher provided doctored drawings to support his claims, suggesting a conspiracy to undermine Capp's reputation. This episode highlighted the extent of their rivalry and its impact on the comic industry."

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7. Ham Fisher's Decline and Death

The intensity of the feud took a toll on Ham Fisher's mental health, culminating in his untimely death:

Noel Brown [53:04]: "In December 1955, overwhelmed by his ongoing battle with Capp and the mounting accusations, Fisher tragically overdosed on pills, marking a somber end to their feud."

Ben reflects on the aftermath:

Ben Bowlin [53:49]: "Fisher's death didn't just end his personal struggles but also left a void in the comic world, affecting how comic feuds were perceived in the future."

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8. Conclusion and Reflections

Closing the episode, Noel and Ben reflect on the enduring legacy of the term "palooka" and its journey from a comic strip insult to a term embedded in popular culture. They invite listeners to appreciate the intricate interplay between language, culture, and personal vendettas that shape historical narratives.

Noel Brown [55:07]: "The Great Palooka Feud is a testament to how personal conflicts can ripple through cultural mediums, leaving lasting impressions on language and storytelling."

Ben Bowlin [55:06]: "It's a fascinating saga that intertwines with broader themes, much like the layered storytelling in Pulp Fiction."

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Notable Quotes

• Noel Brown [05:56]: "In Brenda Starr, 'palooka' referred to a clumsy bank robber using a hostage. This sparked Andrea's curiosity about its broader meanings."

• Ben Bowlin [07:31]: "'Palooka' essentially means a lout or a mediocre person. However, its connection to boxing adds another layer to its meaning."

• Noel Brown [06:03]: "Joe Palooka debuted in 1930, showcasing a champion boxer. Unlike Bazooka Joe, which was tied to a bubblegum brand, Joe Palooka held significant cultural weight in the 1940s."

• Noel Brown [26:07]: "Ham Fisher and Al Capp were once mentor and protege. However, creative differences led to a bitter feud when Capp created Li'l Abner, which featured hillbilly characters similar to those in Joe Palooka."

• Noel Brown [47:00]: "Fisher claimed that Li'l Abner contained hidden erotic imagery, aiming to discredit Capp and tarnish his work."

• Noel Brown [53:04]: "In December 1955, overwhelmed by his ongoing battle with Capp and the mounting accusations, Fisher tragically overdosed on pills, marking a somber end to their feud."

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Final Thoughts

"Come For the Palooka, Stay For the Farts!" masterfully intertwines linguistic exploration with historical storytelling, revealing how a single word can encapsulate complex cultural and personal dynamics. Noel Brown and Ben Bowlin offer listeners not just a lesson in etymology but a window into the tumultuous world of early 20th-century comic strip legends.

For those who haven't listened to the episode, this summary provides a comprehensive overview of the key discussions, insights, and conclusions drawn by the hosts, celebrating the often ridiculous yet fascinating threads of human history.

Transcript

[Noel Brown]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you as always so much for tuning in. This is a Palookaville episode. Big thanks to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams.

[Ben Bowlin]

Remember Palookaville?

[Noel Brown]

I know.

[Ben Bowlin]

It was not fancy at all. It was like a burger, hot dog kind of joint. Very like, kind of monster themed. They were like, yeah, like, I don't know, like sci fi horror. It was this place in Avondale Estates neighborhood of Atlanta that Ben and I both loved. Like, you know, chili suck as you go to suck on a chili dog.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, yeah, they're great pork burgers. They had way too many versions of milkshakes and fruity drinks. That is none other than the legendary Mr. Noel Brown.

[Ben Bowlin]

And that's my friend Ben, who is not a palooka that I know of.

[Noel Brown]

Well, we're gonna have fun with this one.

[Ben Bowlin]

This is super fun episode.

[Noel Brown]

We've got big Friday energy, thanks to our research associate Andrea, who not too long ago was rewatching Pulp Fiction and fell in love with a word. Now, we're all etymology nerds here, and we've all been in that situation where a word just catches you and you gotta know everything about it. Noel Andrew was telling us when she was watching Pulp Fiction, an amazing film. There was a one liner, a throwaway line where someone says, you looking at something, friend? And the response is, you ain't my friend, palooka.

[Ben Bowlin]

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[Ben Bowlin]

Yeah, it's Vincen Vega. Vega talking to Butch, whose last name escapes me, played by John Travolta and Bruce Willis, respectively. Bruce Willis is sort of a ashamed boxer. He's known for taking dives, let's just say in the plot of the story. And not to spoil a 30 year old movie at this point, but 3, 2, 1, spoiler. He doesn't take the dive at one point and he bets on himself, I think. And he totally, I think he kills the guy, actually, if I'm not mistaken. And that leads to him being on the shit list of one Marsalis Wallace, who's kind of the big bad in the film. When John Travolta's character Vince Vega encounters him at a and he says, you look into something, friend. That's what the boxer guy says. And to which Travolta's character responds, you ain't my friend, palooka, referencing the fact that he was a shamed, disgraced boxer who was known for having no moral character. I think that's how I always took it. And he even follows it up with calling him punchy, which is another fun old timey term that we use a lot referring to being kind of having Big Friday energy.

[Noel Brown]

Right, Right. Exactly. Now, immediately our pal Andrea says, what the heck is a palooka? And we're paraphrasing you there, Andrea, because it's a family show. But she said something like that and she realized she had seen this word before in a comic strip. Brenda Starr. And this is where in this comic strip specifically, someone calls a bank robber who's using her as a hostage And a big palooka.

[Ben Bowlin]

Yeah. Something you could hear said in almost like a Jersey Mid Atlantic. Yeah. Big Ya.

[Noel Brown]

Big palooka.

[Ben Bowlin]

You know, something like that.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, and let me correct that Brenda Starr was a. We're talking specifically about the film adaptation starring Brooke Shields. Yeah. Of the. Of the original comic strip. And so now we learn that the literal definition of palooka is synonymous with lout. However, learning the origin of the word takes us on a strange and unexpected journey. Noel, how would we set this up? I guess we gotta mention Joe Palooka comics.

[Ben Bowlin]

Joe Palooka comics. Not to be confused with Bazooka Joe, which is a bubblegum brand that contained a comic. Right. Considered to be very low quality comics within those bubblegum rappers. But Joe Palooka was a comic strip that debuted in newspaper syndication, I believe, in 1930, while Brenda Starr came out a decade later in June of 1940. So it made sense that Starr would be jumping off of that popularized term, considering the 40s setting of the strip. It also makes sense that Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction, played by John Travolta, would use that term as an insult to butch, like I said, who was a disgraced boxer, because there's history there. Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

Joe Palooka, just like butch, is a pugilist. Up.

[Ben Bowlin]

This is the word that's new for me.

[Noel Brown]

A boxer.

[Ben Bowlin]

Really? That's what that. But isn't pugilism also like a concept that's more referring to being overly aggressive, perhaps?

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, yeah. Pugilist is anyone who fights with their hands.

[Ben Bowlin]

Got it. And pugilistic is an adjective that can refer to someone who is. Can be more generalized as someone who is like, by nature aggressively belligerent and prone to fighting.

[Noel Brown]

Cognacious. A guard dog to jump in here.

[Ben Bowlin]

Real quick because I want to see if this is why Ben knows this one as well. I only know that because of Elder Scrolls.

[Noel Brown]

That's interesting.

[Ben Bowlin]

There's like a. There's like. I think it's in Skyrim, but it might be oblivion where there is a. There's some goddamns here that improve unarmed, like damage or something like that.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah.

[Ben Bowlin]

Go like a buff. Yeah, boxer's buff. And if you do type in pugilistic and pugilism, it really does come directly up as boxing. So you're. Yeah. 100% never heard that term used to refer to the actual sport. So I learned something new today in addition to everything else that we learned for today's episode.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, and sadly, you know the reason maybe pugilist is not as well known, even though it's a Great word is possibly because after a certain amount of traumatic brain injury, it's going to be tough for the boxers to remember specific words.

[Ben Bowlin]

And again, the next insult that Vincent lobs is punchy, which does refer to that condition that you're describing.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, exactly. So let's go to a pretty interesting conversation about this. From an exchange on Reddit, someone asked, is it possible that palooka just meant tough guy? But after the creation of the character Joe Palooka, it took on the meaning bad boxer. It seems that even for pretty determined researchers, the origin of palooka was mysterious.

[Ben Bowlin]

That's right. The term did start appearing in print in the early 1920s and came to be used as a stand in for a clumsy or unskilled boxer. Now, Butch Pulp Fiction isn't necessarily unskilled, but he is one who has compromised his integrity as a sportsman in favor of taking dives for organized criminals. And it's an interesting kind of character arc because what sets off his storyline in the film is him failing to do that thing and in fact maybe being sick of it and just, you know, sick of being laying down, let's just say. And he actually goes a bit too far and does kill the guy, leading to one of the intersecting plot lines of Pulp Fiction. Like I was saying.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. And it's always, I guess, heart wrenching to see someone whose career is in decline. And that's right, our guy was always and also ran. He was never going to be Muhammad Ali again. Pulp Fiction is a great film if you have somehow have not seen it. Not all of it aged super well, but there's high art to it. So the idea, Joe Palooka in the comic strip is that he is a champion boxer. He's really good. Maybe the author thought it would be funny or cute or satirical to name a great to give a great boxer a bad name, essentially Joe Clumsy Boxer. But maybe the word had some other earlier meaning and it got transformed by the popularity of this comic strip.

[Ben Bowlin]

And just really quickly to add, speaking of clumsy boxers, this is a story that I wasn't super familiar with and maybe one for another day, but there was a former boxer by the name of, it's so aptly named Eric Crumble, who is an American boxer, former boxer, who is notable for his absolute horrific performance. He was, I believe, considered, at least in this bio that I'm reading, the most prolific of American boxers in terms of consistent losses since his debut in 1990. I love that his name is Crumble. He just comes apart. Right.

[Noel Brown]

What a backhanded way to describe that he's prolific in losses.

[Ben Bowlin]

That's right. Yeah. And there's some good info on this dude out there if you want to read more. So that would be a quintessential palooka is Mr. Eric Crumble.

[Noel Brown]

And palooka gets further. It gets further embedded in the zeitgeist with the creation of Popeye the Sailor Man.

[Ben Bowlin]

Do check out our previous episode on Popeye. We had a good time and some Big Friday energy on that one, too.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. And this has the cartoon, when it comes out adapting from the comic strip, has a theme song. We all know the. Oh, yeah, yeah. The theme song has this line, I'm one tough gazookas who hates all palookas.

[Ben Bowlin]

He's Popeye the sailor Man. I think it's funny, that line. It kind of changes, if I'm not mistaken. Cause, you know, of course I fight through the finish because I eat me spinach. And then there's different ones, but this is one that I did not recall. But, boy, has this been living rent free in my head. I'm one tough gazookas who hates all palookas. It's kind of poetically brilliant rhyme scheme, if you ask me. Gazookas and palookas.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, we tried to figure out what a gazookas is. It is an unspecified term, like gadzooks.

[Ben Bowlin]

Right. Like sort of like a nonsense word that gets its own kind of various uses. Right.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. In the 1920s, apparently Gazooka's slangily meant an unspecified item, a thingy or a gadget. So he's like, I'm one tough doodad.

[Ben Bowlin]

Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

That hates palookas.

[Ben Bowlin]

Yeah, that makes sense. I get that as a stand in. Also, you know what word is coming to mind from this era, too, is galoot.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah.

[Ben Bowlin]

Big galoots. That's right. A clumsy, foolish, or silly person. There's also a sense of also a galoot perhaps being a bit boorish and large.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. A bit brutish. Maybe not the brightest crayon in the box. This also taps into a long standing, hopefully friendly rivalry that existed back then and exists in the modern day. Popeye is a Navy guy. He's a sailor man. And of course, he would hate Joe Palooka, who is an army dude. An army boxer.

[Ben Bowlin]

Okay. Okay. So it did make our researcher, Andrea, wonder if the word had only become a term for an inept boxer in response to people that didn't like the way Joe was represented in the comic strip.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, yeah. Because Joe, like so many other comic strip characters, reflected the era he looked More and more like the current heavyweight champ. Every time the comic strip was published and there was another heavyweight champ. Until Joe Louis starts to rise in the boxing ranks, the pugilism ranks. And the artist of Joe Palooka said, oh, well, we have to keep our pattern. We may need to turn Joe Palooka into a black character. It gets into a little bit of cultural analysis because white heavyweight champions represent, to a lot of people, white male dominance at the time. Palooka is therefore a fictional representation of that. But then, if the world and culture recognizes there may soon be a black heavyweight champ, they made the decision not to draw Joe Palooka, not to transform him into a black character. And so instead, maybe this is speculation. The word palooka then became synonymous with not a champion boxer, but a guy who's not as good.

[Ben Bowlin]

Wait, just to backtrack real quick. Cause the character of Joe palooka was a badass. Right.

[Noel Brown]

Originally. Yeah.

[Ben Bowlin]

I see. Okay. So it wouldn't necessarily have been something that was intended at that point.

[Noel Brown]

Right.

[Ben Bowlin]

To use it as a negative. Like he was presented sort of as like a champion.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Joe Louis is so good at what he does in the ring that people started referring to his opponents as the, quote, bum of the month. Everybody knew they were going to get their bell rung. So the simplest likelihood of Joe Palooka's effect on the word palooka as a phrase, which we're obviously all in love with and bringing back, it may have just been something where new boxers entered the ring and people were trash talking, like, look at this guy. Who's he think he is? The next Joe palooka?

[Ben Bowlin]

Look at him in his goose suit. That's for another day.

[Noel Brown]

It can't be you. You know why it can't be you, right?

[Ben Bowlin]

You know why it's for sure true. So we. This leads us to the perhaps simplest explanation. It's only a matter of time before we get to our pals at the Oxford english dictionary, which references a. A book from 1920 called Character Glimpses by Australian Albert Horace Cooper. Its use in there is unrelated to boxing and instead just refers to a more generally idiotic, stupid, buffoonish, clumsy, perhaps the worst thing of all, mediocre person.

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[Ben Bowlin]

That was the quote, right?

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, that's the quote that we're referencing that first appears in print, right? Palooka. So it also may have appeared in boxing publications in 1923, as far as we know. There's a quote we'd love to give you about boxing from Pennsylvania's Altoona Tribun.

[Ben Bowlin]

Boy, oh boy. Palooka is a new word much used lately to describe what was formerly called a hit out, a setup, a sucker, a bohunk, a pushover. All of these words mean a very poor fighter. The origin of palooka, however, is unknown.

[Noel Brown]

Unknown, unknown. So, okay, the author of that first attestation, that's what we call it the first time a word emerges in print. The Australian guy that you mentioned earlier, Noel Albert Horace Cooper, was a military man. He was in the service from 1916 to 1920. He came back at the end of his service in London and he was stationed in Bonn as part of the 1st Infantry Division for about two years at the end of the war. There may therefore be a military origin to the use of palooka. It had it. So we know it had a prior meaning, but it did not have necessarily the meaning, tough guy, so much as it had the meaning of this guy thinks he's, you know, hot. Hot potatoes.

[Ben Bowlin]

Exactly. Fresh beans.

[Noel Brown]

There he goes. He thinks he's fresh beans, this guy. So it was probably used in boxing before the creation of the character Joe Palooka.

[Ben Bowlin]

Well, that would make sense. I mean, it's not like, you know, the dude that created that character just Summoned it from thin air. Comic strips, to your point, Ben, were always meant to be a reflection of the Zeitgeist and of what was going on at the time. So he would have pulled from what he knew, I would conjecture. Yeah, yeah.

[Noel Brown]

So Vincent Vega, therefore, is not just pulling dumb insults out of thin air. He is referring directly to pugilism, because Vega is. There's always this subtext in Pulp Fiction that Vega is smarter than he presents.

[Ben Bowlin]

And also, he drives a classic car. He dresses of that era. Obviously, this is Quentin Tarantino writing, and this dude's into all this stuff, but Vince Zvega's character in particular, his use of this word kind of represents that old timey sensibility that he has.

[Noel Brown]

If I could jump in here real.

[Ben Bowlin]

Quick, actually, my counter will always be what happens to Vincent Vega later in the movie when he interacts with Bruce Willis, which is probably the dumbest thing.

[Noel Brown]

He could possibly do.

[Ben Bowlin]

And I'll leave it at that, so I don't spoil it. But I do also want to point out the whole fact that I compared Pulp Fiction to Finnegan's Wake just to watch Ben get angry. I haven't read Finnegan's Wake, but Finnegan's Wake infamously starts and ends in the same place. Oh, right.

[Noel Brown]

That's an excellent observation, Max, but no, let me save you some time.

[Ben Bowlin]

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[Noel Brown]

I don't think James Joyce read Finnegan's Wings. Yeah, that's fair, if we're being honest. All right. Sorry, James. Anyway, check out our episode.

[Ben Bowlin]

Isn't he the guy that was really into farting?

[Noel Brown]

Yes.

[Ben Bowlin]

Yeah, check out that episode of James Joyce. That one's PG18.

[Noel Brown]

I mean, you know, we're very friendly, inclusive people. In real life, we don't enjoy kink shaming, but, boy, he was on one.

[Ben Bowlin]

Yeah, no, no kink shaming, but, like, just the. The letters. Boy, oh, boy, it make a sailor blush. We beeped every profanity in that episode.

[Noel Brown]

But we have an internal, like, rating.

[Ben Bowlin]

That we use here at iHeart Service that just kind of says, like, you know, it flags stuff for, like, you know, when we talk about, like, wars and stuff like that will flag, like, you know, mediums like that sexual content was, like, highest level possible for that episode.

[Noel Brown]

We may have set a beep record for that one. Anyway, we just want to. We just want to do the one line while we're here because we have such a bone to pick.

[Ben Bowlin]

Give it to us.

[Noel Brown]

Okay, we're back we took some time off air just to find this. We're not going to give you the whole thing. You're going to have to listen to the episode. But he does say things like. And he's talking to the love of his life. He says, you. You had an arse full of farts that night, darling. And I them out of you big fat fellows. Long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a few tiny naughty little fartings ending in a long gush from your hole.

[Ben Bowlin]

You've made this episode our races. Now the children can't enjoy.

[Noel Brown]

It's for literature.

[Ben Bowlin]

Palooka talk. I know, it's true. It is from literature.

[Noel Brown]

Come for the palooka, get tricked into the farts.

[Ben Bowlin]

Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

It's crazy though, what we're talking about now again, I love falling for one specific word. Why are people familiar with some comic characters of yesteryear but not Joe Palooka? Apparently it comes down to a feud between two creators. The creator of Joe Palooka is a guy. I know you love this name. Noel Hammond. Ham Fisher.

[Ben Bowlin]

Ham Fisher.

[Noel Brown]

Ham Fisher.

[Ben Bowlin]

It's good. I think I said off there. That was one of the most like 30s, 40s names ever. It's me, Ham Fisher. I can just imagine him like roasting a bean to train yard.

[Noel Brown]

I'm picturing. Yeah, I love it with a stick. And bendle. I'm also picturing like the. The weirdest job in a foregone age. I'm a fisherman of hams.

[Ben Bowlin]

A fisher of hams.

[Noel Brown]

Yes. This was my father, my father's father before him.

[Ben Bowlin]

Where the rivers overflow with steamed hams.

[Noel Brown]

Yes, steamed hams. Al Cap is the guy who beefs up with Ham Fisher. Al Cap created the comics. Oh, beefs up. I didn't.

[Ben Bowlin]

Yeah, Al Cap beefs up with ham. Beefing up with ham. That should be the name of the book about.

[Noel Brown]

There should be a book. Al Cap is the creator of another comic strip called Lil Abner.

[Ben Bowlin]

You've heard of that one? I mean, that is a lot of times used as a general stand in. What's that term, Ben? For old timey comic strip.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like metotomy for it, right? That's right, exactly. So we know that at the peak of their careers in the 1950s, these guys are legit superstars. Al Capp is read by 90 million readers. He makes US$500,000 a year. Can we do an inflation calculator on that?

[Ben Bowlin]

We must. That's a beep right there. And a boop. And a boob.

[Noel Brown]

So $500,000 in the 1950s is equivalent to US$4 million today. Inflation is just crazy, man.

[Ben Bowlin]

This guy is a serious artist. He is known, his work, at least. This may not well have been the age of, like, celebrity creators quite as much. You know, he probably wasn't as known, but his characters certainly were.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Now, how about our buddy the hamman?

[Ben Bowlin]

Yes, Ham Fisher, that's right. Well, you know what? Let's just hear from an expert, R.C. harvey of the Comics Journal, who tells the delightful meet cute story. One version of it, anyway. We're gonna get to that here. How the two met was a story they both agreed on. Cap swung his left leg out sideways, almost dragging it forward for each step, and his stride had a practiced rhythm, a rolling gait punctuated by a profound dip every time he transferred his weight to his left leg. The wooden one.

[Noel Brown]

This just got interesting, by the way. That's a 10% all right.

[Ben Bowlin]

Yeah, it is a little bit of a pimp walk. And you want to keep one. Keep it. Keep it rolling.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. But it wasn't the lurch that attracted the attention of the man in the limousine so much as it was the sheaf of paper in a blue wrapper that the tautarine stroller had tucked under his arm.

[Ben Bowlin]

This is good stuff. The man in his limousine was a cartoonist, and he thought he recognized the blue wrapping paper. It was, he believed, the paper his syndicate used to wrap rejected artwork in when returning it to hapless supplicants.

[Noel Brown]

Pull up alongside that fellow, the man said to his chauffeur, and he turned to the woman seated next to him and said, I bet that guy's a cartoonist.

[Ben Bowlin]

The subject of this wager, the young man rolling along the sidewalk on 8th Avenue near Columbus Circle was a somewhat shabby specimen who, despite the chill of the spring day, was hatless and nearly coatless. But he didn't need a hat. He had a shaggy mop of thick black hair.

[Noel Brown]

He had only been in New York for a few weeks, and the $6 he'd arrived with had long since evaporated. If it had not been for the kindness of his landlady, whose boundless FAI in her tenant's artistic skill prompted her to stake him to his assault on the citadels of the mass media, he would have been back in his native Boston. Basically paraphrasing, his landlord let him stay in her attic without paying rent. And sometimes she would give him some pocket money so he could eat 100%.

[Ben Bowlin]

And this is such beautiful language, but it goes on A bit. So why don't we just kind of sum up what happened? This is essentially a somewhat hyperbolic kind of myth making kind of stuff. In this particular version of the story, Ham Fisher is kind of painted as the savior of young Al Cap and offers him a job.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not known as Al Capp yet. This kid is Alfred G. Kaplan. And when this fancy pants dude says, hey, like a guy stops his limousine and says, I bet my sister. You're a cartoonist, are you?

[Ben Bowlin]

Hello, boy. What day is it? It's Christmas Day, sir.

[Noel Brown]

Exactly. Fish me. The finest ham in all of Harlem.

[Ben Bowlin]

Yes.

[Noel Brown]

So, yes, he had sold a few cartoons, our buddy Alfred, in New York and Boston, but he wasn't doing it full time. It was kind of catch as catch can where you still have to have a day job.

[Ben Bowlin]

Ben, can I just say, you got pretty close nailing the neighborhood. We're in the Upper west side, which is, you know, a little past Harlem, so. Well done, sir.

[Noel Brown]

Thank you, sir. We know that a year prior to this. I love what you said about it being a meet cute. A year prior to this moment, Al had been in New York and he was. He got one of the golden geese of a cartoonist at the time, a syndicated cartoon feature. And it's about a pompous young jerk, a blowhard, but. But he didn't love it.

[Ben Bowlin]

A real galoot. A real palooka.

[Noel Brown]

A real palooka, yeah. So he gave it up and he went back to Boston. And it's a good thing he did because he had just gotten married. And that's not the ideal long distance relationship, is it?

[Ben Bowlin]

That's right. So six months later, he gets back to the Big Apple to give it another go. At this point, we are squarely in the midst of the Great Depression. They didn't call it that at the time. As you point out often, Ben Franklin, 14 million folks were out of work in New York City. There were breadlines. Nearly a million jobless, with 29 New Yorkers potentially dying of starvation every single year. But this fancy pants, this highfalutin character riding around isolated from the horrors of New York City life behind the, you know, the protective glass of his limo, offered this hapless young fellow $10 to do some drawings for him. And Kaplan, or Al Cap, he would later sign himself. Agreed?

[Noel Brown]

Of course. Yeah. I mean, that's such a flex. Hello from my limousine. You poor cartoonist. Here's a tenor.

[Ben Bowlin]

But it was a big deal when he realized who it was, because this was a guy that was known to my point earlier the average comic strip reader might not have known who this guy was, but this dude is a comic writer, artist. He knows who the big players are. And when he realizes this, it's a big revelation for him.

[Noel Brown]

100%. Yeah. So initially they have a pretty good relationship. You could even say mentor, mentee. But by the 1950s, they have been feuding for quite some time. They had their own versions of their meeting story. And these two versions began to increasingly diverge. Maclean's magazine was very interested in this. And on April 1, 1950, they published both cartoonist version of the story.

[Ben Bowlin]

Yeah, they sure do. The version that we have recounted thus far is a little bit of a combo deal, right?

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. So Ham says from his account, Ham Fisher says, exactly what we had described earlier. He agrees with the loose order of operations. But he also says he also embellishes a bit on his own behalf. He says, look, I invited him for lunch in my limo. I didn't tell him my name. I asked him, what's your favorite comic strip? And he said, joe Palooka. And then eventually, when they went back to his place for lunch, Cap sees a portrait inscribed to Ham and he goes, why, it's you. You're Ham Fisher. He begged me for a job. I had an assistant. I didn't know if I could afford another one.

[Ben Bowlin]

It's all very self aggrandizing, isn't it? Not easy.

[Noel Brown]

Come on, give us just like a few more details on this.

[Ben Bowlin]

This guy seems to think quite highly of himself. Let's see, I took pity on him and gave him a job lettering and inking. Many months later, I was going on a week's vacation. Cap came up just as I was leaving and demanded a. A $50 a week raise. I sneered that I wouldn't be able to go away if he refused to work. I blew up. I fired him and took the work with me.

[Noel Brown]

And then he says, you know, he gets back from vacation. And he says, and Cap just kept calling me, begging for his job back. I got him a job with the United Feature Syndicate and he started some kind of hillbilly strip called Lil Abner. It was so similar to the hillbillies I created in Joe Palup. I protested to the syndicate, Cap apologized and said he would change it. And he never did. Basically.

[Ben Bowlin]

I mean, to be fair, you can't really own hillbillies as a concept.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ben Bowlin]

I mean, and you give the people what they want. If the hillbillies trips are doing well, you give them hillbillies.

[Noel Brown]

And so we go to again it's wild that this is published at the same time in the same magazine.

[Ben Bowlin]

It's confusing though too because like later we see another statement from Fisher where he kind of contradicts what was purported to be a statement from him in the first place. Like it wasn't it him meant to have said that he took six weeks vacation. I'm confused because then he later, it has him saying, I never took six weeks vacation in my life.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, it's like that. Oh gosh, it's like that interview with Rick James in the Chappelle show where he says he never messed with the couch and then he immediately says, yeah, messed up his couch. I had to keep him lying. Yeah, there is some self contradiction. Absolutely. Cap fires back and he says, look, Cam, Fisher's story about picking me up in his car after accosting me in New York street is truthy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What else?

[Ben Bowlin]

Yeah, yeah. He is absolutely galled by the implication that he was hired as a lecherer because that was. Was considered, I think, a more lowly position or like an entry level position. And he said, no, I was hired as an artist. I was just as skilled as anyone else, you know, working for the publication and that is what I was brought in to do. He then gets real personal saying that Fisher is himself a fraud. He's not an artist at all. He's an idea man. He cannot draw at all, except for a few simple chalk talk, which I love that tricks. So when he says he took the drawings with him, it's a pathetic claim. I never told him Joe Palooka was my favorite strip. It's the kind of strip I deplore. A glorification of punches and brutishness. Wow, what a beef.

[Noel Brown]

They're so bad. Hi, Zoe Saldana.

[Ben Bowlin]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bowlin]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bowlin]

Record straight on that too.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, $22 a week while I was working for Fisher. And he says, I drew all of his Sunday pages. I created all of the characters, I wrote every line. And that time he told you guys he went on a vacation. He wasn't gone for one week, he was gone for six. He didn't leave me any money. We had to live on what my wife was making. And so I whipped up Lil Abner with my free time. Basically, I sold the cartoon to United Features Syndicate. And that part where he says he got me a job with United is the part I am most bitter about. When he found out I was with United, he threatened to sue for three years. He tried everything to get me fired. These guys hate each other.

[Ben Bowlin]

They really do at this point. Yeah, it's kind of a. I mean, RIP by the way, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, who I think we all love and respect and admire everything he brought to music production, you know, songwriting. An absolute legend of an individual who beefed openly with Mike Love of the Beach Boys who claimed that they wrote a lot of those songs together. They sued each other. It was a very similar rivalry with a lot of, he said, he said, potential, you know, revisionist history. There I am, team Brian Wilson all the way. Mike Love I find to be insufferable. Even when he was asked about Brian's passing, he made it about him and immediately said, all these brilliant songs we co created. No thanks.

[Noel Brown]

I mean, Brian Wilson just was a prophet in the world of teen opera music.

[Ben Bowlin]

Out of the universe. I mean, changed it. Yeah. Unbelievable.

[Noel Brown]

Especially with the harmony. We should do an episode on Brian.

[Ben Bowlin]

You're absolutely right. And there is. I don't typically like biopics, but there is a film called I Believe Love and Mercy that is about Brian Wilson and it shows two eras of his life. It's played by John Cusack and the older and, oh, gosh, the kid who plays the preacher and There Will Be Blood, whose name is totally escaping me.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, Paul Dano.

[Ben Bowlin]

Paul Dano plays the younger Brian Wilson. And I really love it. It's very Artist and not just like kind of a glaze fest like some of these other biopics.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Speaking of glaze fest and being wankish. Being wankish, Fisher fires back and says, I've never had six weeks vacation in my life.

[Ben Bowlin]

Yeah, that's the weirdest part, because he. The way it's attributed in the publication, it made it sound like he was saying, while I was away on vacation, this stuff transpired. So it may well be some creative license on the part of the folks recounting these stories as well, I think is what we're getting at.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, yeah. And so Ham is saying, look, when this Al guy worked for me, I never had more than a week of vacation. He says, I'm amazed at Cap's effrontery. His entire statement is false. And he says he's grossly exaggerating this stuff, saying that I sued him, I made a complaint because he was spreading this lie that he created some of the Joe Palooka sequences. And he says, ultimately that company apologized to him when he lodged that complaint. And, Noel, we were talking a little bit about this offline. There's a lot of back and forth. We've given you sort of the broad strokes of what happens. But speaking of strokes, there's a saucy anecdote that we just have to share.

[Ben Bowlin]

True scandal, I think, is a real good way to al cap this one off. Yeah, yeah. It involves. I don't know, man. It reminds me of, or at least in the conspiracy angle of what we're going to get to in the discussion of what actually happened. Those rogue Disney artists that snuck penises into Little Mermaid art. And some of those things that are real, by the way, they have been removed from a lot of the reissue versions, streaming versions. But there definitely were some naughty bits hidden in some Disney animations. And this story involves some very naughty bits printed in the Li' l Abner cartoon.

[Noel Brown]

That Disney stuff is an excellent comparison. All right. You need to know that these guys are taking shots at each other in their work. They are mocking each other through the characters that they create and through the situations those characters find themselves in. So they are, again, like, doing really petty stuff.

[Ben Bowlin]

It's getting hardcore, dude. It's escalating.

[Noel Brown]

Fisher gets plastic surgery, and so Cap makes fun of him in his comic. And they're constantly just. Just taking shots at the bow of each other. And Fisher will not stop talking trash. This is where we go to an excellent observation by Morris Weiss or Weiss, who is interview in the comic journal we mentioned earlier.

[Ben Bowlin]

Fisher won't stop going on about the potential plagiarism. The idea that Cap stole his characters. He just got real personal and mudslingy and raving about, according to Weiss, Capps being a sex maniac.

[Noel Brown]

Right.

[Ben Bowlin]

And this notion he put out there into the public. That he was hiding pornographic images in plain sight in his Li' l Abner cartoons. And so now we've got a full blown, like, censorship witch hunt. Right? I mean, truly a moral panic, which.

[Noel Brown]

Wouldn'T you say, to a degree, a hundred percent. Man. This is the. He is trying so hard to come off as the wronged party, but he sounds increasingly deluded. Yeah, right. Yeah. He's saying great things are happening to me. Now, the detective that Al Capp had following me to get dirt on me. Well, that detective is now working for me. What?

[Ben Bowlin]

And there's a cover story in Time magazine that blows the lid off of this whole thing. They said that Fisher had certain panels of Li Abner enlarged and zoomed in on circled graphic details in red that he believed were hidden or believed whatever. Or was just being a crazy person. Pornographic, subliminal messages. I'm not this stuff. Oh, my God. It's just.

[Noel Brown]

He's. He's like, look at the nose. Really think about the nose.

[Ben Bowlin]

Think about what else looks like a nose, y' all. And he distributed it to editors of the newspapers that were carrying the strips. Like he is on a slash and burn, scorched earth campaign against this dude. And he is saying that there's subliminal pornography designed to undermine the youth of the nation. And urges the newspaper editors to drop Cap's cartoon entirely.

[Noel Brown]

And keep in mind, even though he may be behaving a bit irrationally, he is a big deal himself. He's not just some guy writing to these papers. And in the strip examples that he provides and disseminates, he says, quote, this insane pornography is from Little Abner. Yes, this is what Al Cap has perpetrated for 15 years. Are the unsuspecting editors of American newspapers. Now, normally, Right. In an attempt to create a moral panic, people will generally ignore a lot of this stuff. But because we're in the dawn of McCarthyism and the Red Scare. And because. Because comic books are increasingly targets of criticism and as you said, the safety of the children. This problem is assigned to the Joint Committee on Comics. They're the folks who decide whether or not to censor comics. And so now the idea is that Ham Fisher has escalated this palooka argument. So much so that he's not just Attacking his former protege, Al Capped. He may have consequences for the entire industry of comics.

[Ben Bowlin]

Well, I mean, there's a committee assembled, a joint committee from, I believe, the Cartoonist Society, that investigates this stuff and determines that the images that were being submitted to them had been doctored, or it's implied. It's very much. It says here in the findings of the report from Raymond Alex Raymond, the president at the time of the Cartoonist Society. I am convinced, after seeing the photo stats reproduced in the report of the joint committee, compared with the original drawings of Lil Abner from which the photostats were made, that someone distorted, cropped, faked, wrongfully emphasized and twisted your material during the process of reproduction to make it appear pornographic. Such machinations could cause the work of any contemporary artist to appear erotic. But Fisher never copped to it, so make of that what you will, but it sure seems like this dude was getting increasingly unhinged and bitter. And it's exactly the kind of thing someone would do in that state.

[Noel Brown]

Right, Right, exactly. And this is where we see, you know, we see echoes even now today with famous celebrity beefs. Right. And the. The stories goes on. We know that Fisher never admits to doctoring the illustrations, even though everybody else thinks he did.

[Ben Bowlin]

He won't let it die either. He keeps bringing it back up, and then eventually there's some consequences for the guy.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Because Cap has always denied that he had drawn these offensive examples of what we call it subliminal pornography. So he still became somewhat toxic in this environment. Right. He wasn't able to work with people in his ordinarily routine ways. And he kept appealing over and over again to that thing we just mentioned, the Cartoonist Society, to say, hey, this Fisher guy is crazy. He is.

[Ben Bowlin]

He's trying to ruin me.

[Noel Brown]

Please do something. Take it to the Ethics Committee, which is a real thing the cartoonist had there. And they said, all right, we're going to call Fisher to account for his behavior. We cannot prove that he made the forgeries, but we definitely know he circulated them. We also, we think he's up to something hinky because they found handwritten comments in the borders of these alleged pornographic depictions. And it was definitely Ham Fisher's handwriting. So he gets his. He gets yelled at, essentially. Right. The cartoonist. The society's Board of Governors censures him, more or less. There we go. That's the right word.

[Ben Bowlin]

However, again, maybe because he wouldn't let it go, it keeps coming back up. And then there are more investigations that look into it and do ultimately rule that he doctored These.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. And this doesn't have the happiest of endings. We're on a real strange journey from just falling in love with the word palooka. But I would argue. No. That there is a possibility of mental instability that may have launched him on this strange crusade.

[Ben Bowlin]

Absolutely right. Yeah, yeah. Crusade. I mean, that's a great way of putting it. And on January 24, 1955, Fisher gets summoned to a special meeting of the Society, the Cartoon Society's Board of Governors, to hear charges presented by the ethics committee who charged Fisher with doctoring the drawings and circulating the forgeries in a blatant attempt to discredit and ruin Cap acts which were determined to endanger the creative well being of not only Cap, but every cartoon. This is stuff that has farther reaching implications. It has to be nipped in the bud here or else someone else could use these same tactics to ruin others in the industry just because they have a personal vendetta.

[Noel Brown]

It's kind of like deep fakes at the time.

[Ben Bowlin]

Absolutely.

[Noel Brown]

Yes. And they're also saying, look, don't make us appear to be a bunch of perved out James Joyces. That's it. I promise it's not. So here is why we think there may have been some sort of mental issues involved. On December 27, 1955, Hammond ham fisher purposely overdoses on pills and he dies as a result. And this is the only time this is how the feud ends, because Fisher takes it to his grave. The story of Joe Palooka continues a little bit afterwards. For four years after Fisher expired, one of his assistants, Mo left, drew the strip and he had been doing the cartoonist version of ghost writing since the late 1930s.

[Ben Bowlin]

Well, let's also recall that Fisher was accused not really being able to draw that well in the first place.

[Noel Brown]

And that is the strange, fascinating and disturbing story behind the Great Palooka Feud.

[Ben Bowlin]

It really went some places, man.

[Noel Brown]

Unexpected.

[Ben Bowlin]

Yeah, very much so. Like Pulp Fiction, no doubt. It really does have similar intersecting kind of threads there. So huge thanks to research associate extraordinaire Andrea for this one. This was a real hoot.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Big, big thanks to our super producer, Max Palooka Williams. Big thanks to AJ Bahamas Jacobs and of course, Jonathan Strickland. I was going to do a joke, AKA the Quizter, but I'm not, I'm not.

[Ben Bowlin]

He's a bit of a palooka. No, no, he's not big enough to be a pooluch.

[Noel Brown]

There we go. He's a gazookas. He's a gazooka.

[Ben Bowlin]

Definitely a gazookas. Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

Big thanks to the rude dudes of Ridiculous Crime. Thank you folks so much for tuning in. Join us in the future. We have, as always, some fresh baked ridiculous history coming to you now. Noel, can we bring back the phrase palooka? Do you think we can just start deploying it in like work calls and stuff?

[Ben Bowlin]

I think we should. We'll see you next time folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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[Ben Bowlin]

Free formula enhanced with inactive ingredients like flaxseed oil and antioxidants. This formula supports all three tear film layers and provides advanced hydration to instantly.

[Noel Brown]

Moisturize and soothe dry eyes.

[Ben Bowlin]

Refresh Optive Mega 3 is safe to use as often as needed so you.

[Noel Brown]

Can make it part of your wellness routine.

[Ben Bowlin]

Find Refresh online or in the Eye Drop section at all major retailers, FSA and HSA.

[Noel Brown]

Elliot, are you still quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide and every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now it pays to Discover. Learn [e-mail] Credit Card Card based on the February2024 Nielsen report.

[Ben Bowlin]

This is an iHeart podcast.