Shmoo
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- This article is about the cartoon creature. For other uses, see Shmoo (disambiguation)
A shmoo (plural shmoon, also shmoos) is a fictional cartoon creature. It first appeared in Al Capp's newspaper comic strip Li'l Abner, on August 31, 1948.
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[edit] Description
A shmoo is shaped like a plump bowling pin with legs but no arms. It has smooth skin, eyebrows, and a sparse moustache, but no ears. Its feet are short and round but dextrous, as the shmoo's cartoon adventures make clear. It has a rich gamut of facial expressions, and expresses love by exuding hearts over its heads.
Capp ascribed to the shmoo the following curious characteristics. His satirical intent should be evident:
- They reproduce asexually and are very prolific. They require no sustenance other than air.
- Naturally gentle, they require minimal care, and are ideal playmates for young children.
- Shmoon are delicious to eat, and are so eager to be eaten. If a human looks at one with hunger, they will gladly immolate themselves, either by jumping into a frying pan, after which they taste like chicken, or into a roasting pan, after which they taste like beef. (Raw, they taste like oysters on the half-shell.) They also produce eggs, milk, and butter (no churning required.) Their fresh pelt is a perfect boot leather or house timber, depending on how thick it has been cut. Their eyes are ideal suspender buttons, and their whiskers are perfect toothpicks. In short, they are simply the perfect ideal of a subsistence agricultural herd animal.
- The frolicking of shmoon is so entertaining (such as their staged "shmoosical comedies") that people watching them feel no need to go to the movies or to watch television.
- A substantial colony of shmoon live in the Valley of the Shmoon (a play on The Valley of the Moon) near Dogpatch. There is no literature-based evidence of shmoon trying to "escape": however, Li'l Abner stumbled into the Valley of the Shmoon and brought several hundred shmoon out with him to help the citizens of poverty-stricken Dogpatch. The corporate workers hated shmoon, and therefore they started rumors of "havoc" and destruction of society. Hence, the shmoon were almost destroyed. However, two of them returned to the Valley where they continued to live happily with thousands of fellow shmoon, never to be asked to help humans again. They had no need to escape, and no shmoo ever caused physical harm to anyone or anything. After the shmoon were destroyed in Dogpatch, they were never heard from again.
[edit] Analysis
Al Capp invented the shmoo to satirize political debates about how the rise of the welfare state supposedly reduced economic incentives. According to the Li'l Abner storyline, the leaders of government and big business worked hard to exterminate the shmoo as a menace to civilization as we know it: the shmoo was simply too "nirvana-like" to be tolerated. In Li'l Abner's words, "Shmoos haint make believe. The hull (whole) earth is one."
The Online Etymology Dictionary claims "Shmoo" is derived from the Yiddish word "schmoe", itself a euphemism for "schmuck".[1]
The shmoo's uncanny resemblance to budding yeast, combined with its near-limitless usefulness to human beings, led to the character's adoption as a mascot of sorts for scientists studying yeast as a model organism for genetics and cell biology. In fact, the cellular bulge that is produced by an haploid yeast cell as a response to a pheromone from the opposite mating type (a or alpha) is referred to as a shmoo, because cells that are undergoing mating and present this particular structure resemble the cartoon character.
The shmoo has also been used in discussion of socioeconomics. If shmoon really existed, they would be a "free good." Erik Olin Wright uses the "parable of the shmoo" to introduce discussion of class structure and economics.[2]
[edit] Later appearances outside of Capp's work
The Shmoo gained its own animated series in the late 1970s, as part of the animated series Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo (which consisted of reruns of The New Fred and Barney Show mixed with the Shmoo's own cartoons; the two pairs of characters didn't actually "meet"). The two pairs of characters did meet, however, in the early 1980s Flintstones spinoff The Flintstone Comedy Show. The Shmoo appeared in the segment Bedrock Cops as a police officer alongside part-time officers Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble; however, this Shmoo had little relationship to the L'il Abner character other than appearance.
In 1979, another Hanna-Barbera venture featured the Shmoo as a title character, The New Shmoo, where he is the helpful, shape-shifting mascot of Mighty Mysteries Comics, a group of teens who solve Scooby-doo-like mysteries. In this series, the Shmoo could morph into any shape. Neither of these attempts to revive a venerable character was successful to any large degree. Even in the External Links below, you will find that some reporters even spell the name incorrectly by adding a "c" to the name; hence, schmoo. The proper spelling omits the "c."
The 1989 Nintendo Game A Boy and His Blob features a character similar in appearance and versatility to the Shmoo.
[edit] Where mentioned
- In the movie Lucky Number Slevin, Morgan Freeman's character, "The Boss", refers to the Shmoo, recounting its original features as a source of plenty.
- French artists Etienne Chambaud and David Jourdan have written "Economie de l'abondance ou La courte vie et les jours heureux" a new adventure of Jacques le fataliste et son maître from Diderot, based on the discovery by Jacques of the Shmoo.
- In the game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, there are small flying monsters named Schmoos that drop ramen noodles or the Crissaegrim--arguably the best sword in the game--when you kill them.
- Artist and professional skateboarder Mark Gonzales often uses shmoon in his artwork.
- In the M*A*S*H episode "Who Knew?", Colonel Potter displays in his office an inflatable Shmoo toy that he purchased for his grandson.
- In Larry Niven's Known Space stories, an alien species known as the Bandersnatch are described as being "Smooth as a Shmoo."
- In the novel The Forge of God by Greg Bear, Shmoo is the name people give to the race of robots that visits the Earth (due to their shape).
- The Flurries from the version of Super Mario Bros. 2 that was available outside of Japan and in Doki Doki Panic look a lot like a Shmoo without whiskers or mouths.
- Frank Sinatra has a line in On the Town about cops "multiplyin' like shmoos."
- In the 1990 movie Book of Love, the character Crutch wins a stuffed Shmoo at a carnival.
- In the commentary for End of Evangelion, Amanda Winn Lee comments that the Mass Production Evas look like the Shmoo.
[edit] References
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Shmoo skeleton.
- Page listing the "Biggest events in comic strips", including the debut of the shmoo.
- Shmoo Animated History.
