Editing Toonerville Folks

{{Short description|American comic strip by Fontaine Fox}}
{{italic title}}
{{Infobox comic strip
|title      = Toonerville Folks
|image      = Toonervillecolor021531.jpg
|caption    = [[Fontaine Fox]]'s ''Toonerville Folks'' (February 15, 1931).
|author     = [[Fontaine Fox]]
|illustrator = 
|url        =
|status     = Concluded daily & Sunday gag panel
|first      = 1908, syndicated beginning in 1913
|last       = Feb 12, 1955
|syndicate  = [[Wheeler Syndicate]] (1913–1916)<br />[[Bell Syndicate]] (1916–c. 1930)<br />[[McNaught Syndicate]] (c. 1930–1955)
|publisher  =  [[All-American Publications]]<br />[[Eastern Color Printing]]
| altnames = ''The Toonerville Trolley That Meets All the Trains''
|genre      = Humor
}}
'''''Toonerville Folks''''' ({{aka}} '''''The Toonerville Trolley That Meets All the Trains''''') is a [[newspaper]] comic strip feature by [[Fontaine Fox]], which ran from 1908 to 1955. It began in 1908 in the ''Chicago Post'', and by 1913, it was syndicated nationally by the [[John Neville Wheeler#Wheeler Syndicate|Wheeler Syndicate]]. From the 1930s on, it was distributed by the [[McNaught Syndicate]].<ref>[http://www.toonopedia.com/toonrvil.htm Markstein, Don. Toonopedia: ''Toonerville Folks'']</ref>

==Characters and story==
The single-panel gag cartoon (with longer-form comics on Sunday) is a daily look at Toonerville, situated in what are now called the suburbs. Central to the strip is the rickety little trolley called the "Toonerville Trolley that meets all the trains", driven in a frenzy by the grizzly old Skipper to meet each commuter train as it arrives in town. The many richly-formed characters include Suitcase Simpson, Mickey McGuire, the Powerful Katrinka, the Terrible Tempered Mr. Bang, Aunt Eppie Hogg, Little Woo-Woo Wortle, The Little Scorpions, and "Stinky" Davis.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/82240731/are-you-following-the-doings-of-toonervi/ |title=Are you following the doings of Toonerville Folks? |newspaper=[[Fort Worth Star-Telegram]] |page=17 |date=August 14, 1925 |accessdate=July 26, 2021 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/09/03/archives/fontaine-foxs-toonerville-trolley-compiled-by-herb-galewitz-and-don.html |title=Fontaine Fox's Toonerville Trolley |first=Sherwin D. |last=Smith |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |page=BR–15 |date=September 3, 1972 |accessdate=July 26, 2021 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://pressofatlanticcity.com/life/antiques-collectibles-toonerville-town-cutout-sheet-was-a-popular-premium/article_065996b9-7668-51cb-897b-48b30ee5119a.html |title=Antiques & Collectibles: Toonerville Town Cutout Sheet was a popular premium |first=Alyce Hand |last=Benham |website=[[The Press of Atlantic City]] |date=January 17, 2015 |accessdate=July 26, 2021}}</ref>

==Origin==
Fox described the inspiration for the cartoon series in an article he wrote for ''The Saturday Evening Post'' titled "A Queer Way to Make a Living" (February 11, 1928, page six):
<blockquote>After years of gestation, the idea for the ''Toonerville Trolley'' was born one day up in Westchester County when my wife and I had left New York City to visit [[Charles Voight|Charlie Voight]], the cartoonist, in the [[Pelham, New York|Pelhams]]. At the station, we saw a rattletrap of a streetcar, which had as its crew and skipper a wistful old codger with an [[Airedale Terrier|Airedale beard]]. He showed as much concern in the performance of his job as you might expect from [[SS Leviathan|Captain Hartley when docking the Leviathan]].</blockquote>

==Films==
Between 1920 and 1922, 17 ''Toonerville'' silent film comedy adaptations were scripted by Fox for Philadelphia's Betzwood Film Company. These starred [[Dan Mason]] as the Skipper with [[Wilna Hervey]] as Katrinka. Only seven of those 17 shorts survive today. Four are preserved in the Betzwood Film Archive at Montgomery County Community College, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.<ref>[http://faculty.mc3.edu/jeckhard/betzwood.htm The Surviving Betzwood Films]</ref>
[[File:Toonerville Trolley lobby card.jpg|thumb|right|280px|''Toonerville Trolley'' with Wilna Hervey, 1920.]]
'''1920'''
*	''The Toonerville Trolley''
'''1921'''
*	''The Skipper's Treasure Scheme''
*	''Skipper's Flirtation''
*	''Toonerville Tangle''
*	''The Skipper Strikes It Rich''
*	''Toonerville Tactics''
*	''The Skipper's Narrow Escape''
*	''The Skipper Has His Fling''
*	''The Skipper's Scheme''
*	''Toonerville's 'Boozem' Friends''
*	''Toonerville Follies''
*	''Toonerville's Fire Brigade''
*	''The Skipper's Treasure Garden''
'''1922'''
*	''The Skipper's Sermon''
*	''Toonerville Topics''
*	''Toonerville Blues''
*	''Toonerville Trials''
*	''The Skipper's Policy''

[[Mickey Rooney]] starred as Mickey McGuire in more than [[Mickey McGuire (film series)|55 comedy shorts]] filmed between 1927 and 1936. Rooney (né Joe Yule, Jr.) adopted the professional name Mickey McGuire for a time before finally settling on the last name Rooney.

Three ''Toonerville'' cartoons were produced by [[Van Beuren Studios]] in 1936 as part of the ''[[Rainbow Parade]]'' series. Distributed by [[RKO Pictures|RKO Radio Pictures]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |pages=127–128}}</ref>  Katrinka was animated by [[Joseph Barbera]].<ref name="barbera">Joseph Barbera: ''My Life in 'Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century'', Turner Pub, Nashville 1995, {{ISBN|978-1-57036-042-8}}, p 44</ref>
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Release date
! Title
|-
| style="text-align:right;"| January 17, 1936 || ''Toonerville Trolley''
|-
| style="text-align:right;"| July 3, 1936 || ''Trolley Ahoy''
|-
| style="text-align:right;"| October 2, 1936 || ''Toonerville Picnic''
|}

A ''Toonerville Trolley'' cartoon, "Lost and Found", was included in ''Simple Gifts'', a Christmas collection of six animated shorts shown on PBS TV in 1977.

Over the years, various ''Toonerville'' characters acted as spokesmen for popular products of the day. Skipper, Flem Proddy and Katrinka appeared throughout the decades in advertisements for [[Drano]], [[Kellogg's]] cereals and [[Chef Boyardee]] foods.<ref>[http://graphic-design.tjs-labs.com/gallery-view?keyword=TOONERVILLE Toonerville characters as product spokesmen.]</ref>

==Reprints==
[[Image:Toonerville1917.gif|200px|right|thumb|[[Fontaine Fox]]'s ''Toonerville Folks'' (1917).]]
Between 1934 and 1940, comic book reprints of the panel appeared in many issues of ''[[All-American Comics]]'', ''[[Famous Funnies]]'', and ''Popular Comics''. In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the [[Comic Strip Classics]] series of commemorative [[United States]] postage stamps.

In 1972, Herb Galewitz and Don Winslow compiled ''Fontaine Fox's Toonerville Trolley'', a 184-page book of daily panels, for Weathervane Books, an imprint of [[Charles Scribner's Sons]].


==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wiktionary|Toonerville Trolley}}
{{commons category}}
*[http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/lilly/mss/html/fox.html Fontaine Fox mss. at Indiana University]
*[http://www.toonopedia.com/toonrvil.htm Toonopedia]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20081210133053/http://www.comicsaccess.com/index.php Strickler, Dave. ''Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924–1995: The Complete Index''. Cambria, California: Comics Access, 1995.] {{ISBN|0-9700077-0-1}}

[[Category:American comic strips]]
[[Category:1908 comics debuts]]
[[Category:Gag-a-day comics]]
[[Category:Fictional American people]]
[[Category:American comics characters]]
[[Category:Male characters in comics]]
[[Category:Comics characters introduced in 1908]]
[[Category:1955 comics endings]]
[[Category:American comics adapted into films]]
[[Category:Comics adapted into animated series]]
[[Category:Fiction about rail transport]]
[[Category:Van Beuren Studios]]
[[Category:Comedy franchises]]