August 2005
Bad news: The National Scrappy Gallery’s holdings don’t include a single actual Scrappy theatrical poster. Not yet, anyhow. So we’ve been forced to borrow these images from Bruce Hershenson’s wonderful book Cartoon Movie Posters (1995).
If there’s one classic Scrappy poster, this is probably it. Mysteriously, everybody is off-model except Margy…who looks great. (The poster continues the Mintz tradition of being vague on the exact names of the characters: “Margie,” “Oopie,” and “Yippie” are better known as Margy, Oopy, and Yippy.)
Another stock poster. Scrappy, atypically, is wearing a striped long-sleeved shirt. And striped tights.
On December 12th, 1932, Columbia released The Wolf at the Door. Scrappy and Oopy were mounties. (We were about to accuse them of ripping off Nelson Eddy, but Rose-Marie didn’t come out until 1936–maybe Nelson was ripping off Scrappy.)
We’re not sure how frequently Columbia used “The Mischief Kid of the Screen ” as Scrappy’s tagline, but we like it.
The same artist was clearly responsible for the poster for The False Alarm , which was released on April 22nd, 1933. Scrappy may look brave here, but Etcheverry and Friedwald say that he’s “unbelievably inept” in the cartoon itself.
Finally, the poster for Doctor Bluebird, released on February 5th, 1936 in the Color Rhapsody series. We haven’t seen this short, but we’re inclined to believe it’s second-rate Scrappy based on the poster alone.
I remember, but yet I don’t! Chris Sperle.