Page "Al Capp" Paragraph 32

Following his close friend Milton Caniff's lead ( with Steve Canyon ), Capp had recently fought a successful battle with the syndicate to gain complete ownership of his feature when the Shmoos debuted.

As a result, he reaped enormous financial rewards from the unexpected ( and almost unprecedented ) merchandising phenomenon that followed.

As in the strip, Shmoos suddenly appeared to be everywhere in 1949 and 1950 — including a Time cover story.

A paperback collection of the original sequence, The Life and Times of the Shmoo, became a bestseller for Simon & Schuster.

Shmoo dolls, clocks, watches, jewelry, earmuffs, wallpaper, fishing lures, air fresheners, soap, ice cream, balloons, ashtrays, comic books, records, sheet music, toys, games, Halloween masks, salt and pepper shakers, decals, pinbacks, tumblers, coin banks, greeting cards, planters, neckties, suspenders, belts, curtains, fountain pens, and other shmoo paraphernalia were produced.

A garment factory in Baltimore turned out a whole line of shmoo apparel, including " Shmooveralls.

" The original sequence and its 1959 sequel, The Return of the Shmoo, have been collected in print many times since, most recently in 2011, always to high sales figures.

The Shmoos would later have their own animated TV series.