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he float was also politically relevant as the temperance movement was in full swing with prohibition and the eighteenth amendment just a few years in the future a boy man with a large head and exaggerated ears could be seen perched at the back of the water wagon wait what is that alfred e neuman fifty years before mad magazine mad magazine borrowed its enigmatic red haired mascot from a postcard in the 1950s the postcard in turn descended from a long line of precursors all of which stole directly from harry stuff s 1914 poster the eternal optimist which also bore the caption me worry a precursor to alfred e neuman s catch phrase and a reflection of the i should worry craze that swept the united states for several years beginning in about 1910 harry stuff s poster may have been inspired by a decades old advertising image usually used to promote painless dentistry those advertising images all trace their origin to a playbill for the 1895 stage play the new boy like harry stuff s poster and alfred e neuman the poster featured a two part noncommital catch phrase what s the good of anything nothing suggesting perhaps that stuff may have been familiar with the original based on an image from nypl digital archive for a more comprehensive history of the alfred e neuman image see my earlier post the real alfred e if harry stuff s me worry caption was influenced by the original it was also influenced by the popular slang phrase of the day i should worry meaning more or less that the speaker has nothing to worry about for more on the i should worry craze see my earlier post i should worry ish ka bibble and alfred e neuman surprisingly perhaps harry stuff s poster was not the first new boy like image with a worry related caption it was beaten to the punch by three years by a mock irish pagan idol wurra wurra whose name is a pun conflating the ancient irish expression of grief wirra wirra sometimes spelled wurra wurra with worry worry as spoken with an irish accent wirra wirra is believed to be gaelic for mary mary eugene o growney simple lessons in irish dublin gaelic league part ii page 16 1897 it s not an exact match the ears are too big and it s missing the gap toothed smile but its similarity combined with its worry related catch phrase make it an interesting cousin of alfred e neuman if not a direct ancestor but regardless of its relation to the new boy and the painless dentistry ads wurra wurra was also a direct knock off of an earlier more successful mock god the billiken the billiken et al in 1908 florence pretz of kansas city created a small statuette she called the billiken she also developed a mock religion based on worship of lucky billiken idols with billiken as the god of things as they ought to be billiken caught the fancy of the public and she and her business partners sold millions of the idols and separate display stands proof positive that billiken was a bringer of good luck good luck maybe but not for long to miss pretz they mean 30 a month royalty while thousands go to the bank accounts of the men who have involved the designer in a maze of technically worded contracts and agreements not understood when she signed them iron county register oronton missouri december 2 1909 page 7 although the fad has long since passed the church of good luck and museum of good luck still preach the gospel of billiken online from their home base in illinois see their website for billiken images billiken lore and billiken history http churchofgoodluck com the success of the billiken inspired imitators in paris france someone created a billiken of wilbur wright wilkes barre times leader wilkes barre pennsylvania december 2 1908 page 2 in london england the american artist mrs bert longworth whose replica of the sphinx was praised by rodin created and marketed a statuette of solomon solomon is newest billiken solomon latest freak succeeds billiken craze american woman sculptor chisels odd statuette which offers many phases seeming to exude wisdom from all angles london jan 21 the reign of the teddy bear is over and gone in london billiken that pestiferous little reminder of things as they are and his brother whose apelike grimace is supposed to suggest the god of things as they ought to be are alike hurled from the precarious pedestal of public favor another american freak solomon has taken their place every paper has printed his picture every bric a brac shop and every department store is crowded with his haunting shape so far as londoners achieve a rage solomon has become the rage of the present the indianapolis star january 22 1911 page 15 solomon the star press muncie indiana january 22 1911 page 24 in st louis missouri someone came up with a bad luck idol jinx based on a newspaper cartoon strip of the same name kinda like a top hatted homer simpson jinx has taken his place beside billiken the little god of things as they ought not to be has been done in plaster by a st louis sculptor and for a very moderate price any st louisan can now have jinx on his desk or his parlor mantle or in his garage st louis post dispatch august 29 1911 page 3 in 1916 someone tried to recreate the billiken craze with a new and improved deity will nock wood succeed billikin and kewpie dolls in popular favor copyrights on the designs have been applied for dealers assert that the ideas of the flowery kingdoms will prevail this season in images and good luck emblems nock wood is the latest of the heathen good luck deities to be invented he is carved out of wood and sits in a posture much like that of the chinese buddhas his left hand is to his head in a position of rapping it the idea of the inventor seems to be that the old superstition of knocking wood to prevent ill luck is one worthy of being revived with his invention all one needs to do is to set nock wood up on one s mantel and let him take care of all the bad luck that is coming one s way dayton daily news dayton ohio march 26 1916 page 33 and in new york city an irish american publishing house created a new mythological pagan idol intended to ease one s worries the idol took its name from a long standing phonetic representation of worry worry as spoken with an irish accent for example yis yis yer anner what ll i do och wurra wurra me husband s tuk bad sir wid the fayver and i m afeerd i ll lose him yes yes your honor what ll i do oh worry worry my husband has taken ill sir with the fever and i am afraid that i will lose him the brooklyn daily eagle march 13 1849 page 1 wurra wurra in march 1911 desmond fitz gerald published the book wurra wurra a legend of saint patrick at tara the wurra wurra of the title referred to the name of the supposed last pagan idol destroyed by st patrick during the christianization of ireland the booked appears to have been designed to imbue the wurra wurra idol with some vague mystical significance as was the case with the billiken instead of bringing good luck however the wurra wurra like jesus suffering for our sins was said to ease worries by taking them on himself presumably fitz gerald intended for the book to create a market for his billiken like statuette of wurra wurra the statuette bore an inscription on its base let wurra worry the ears teeth and proportions appear similar to the head riding at the back of the water wagon in honolulu in 1911 it s not a perfect match the eyes seem different is it a wurra wurra that differs slightly from the illustrations or something else entirely perhaps it was an old yellow kid a newspaper cartoon character who enjoyed a period of overwhelming popularity a decade earlier melbirnkrant com l ike a mad magazine movie parody wurra wurra a legend of saint patrick at tara is a send up of a pre existing story in this case the legend of st patrick in ireland as the book opens st patrick destroys cromm cruach and the twelve smaller idols but whereas irish legend holds that crom cruach was the last pagan idol in ireland the destruction of which cleared the way for christianity this story imagines like star wars episode v that there is another although this time more yoda than leia wurra wurra let wurra worry t he face and figure of the idol an his wide opin ears foriver listenin themselves told the whole story not only that it was his business to bear all the worries and troubles of the world but that he liked the job in the aftermath of the destruction of cromm cruach according to the new story keth one of st patrick s christian enforcers is dismayed to learn that one of st patrick s seamstresses finola of the white shoulders was an adherent of the cult of wurra wurra he asks her about it she confides in him he falls in love with her and they go off to see the wurra wurra to make a short story even shorter st patrick decides that the idol should be saved but word reaches keth after he destroyed the idol all but one of its ears during a confrontation with a wizard to prevent finola and other worshipers from discovering the destruction and taking their anger out on him he places his head on the pedestal where wurra wurra s head should be miraculously fooling them into confessing their worries to him as a result he inadvertently learns that finola returns his feelings of love they get married and live happily ever after i should worry wurra wurra may have been inspired by the billiken but it also capitalized on the then current slang phrase craze i should worry the earliest unambiguous example i could find in print is from an advertisement for a comedian in 1910 although it is unclear whether he popularized the expression or merely reflected a trend that was already underway the expression may have been current before it was incorporated into peterson s act but searches are complicated by the fact that people routinely used should worry in its conventional literal sense if you find any earlier examples please let me know i should worry shows up in print a few times in 1911 and exploded into a full blown craze by 1912 it was still going strong in 1913 i should worry i should fret i should marry a suffraget i should worry and lose my goat but nevertheless we re getting the vote evansville press indiana june 28 1913 page 2 although many people were already getting annoyed i m a peace loving diffident mild little guy but rage stirs my system and wrath sweeps me o er a frenzy of fury doth set me afire i chew all my nails oh i m terribly sore and in fact i m consumed with considerable ire when some ivory beaned boob with a mental snow flurry pulls that odious sickening phrase i should worry the daily missoulian missoua montana may 24 1913 page 10 today alfred e neuman is the only reminder of the new boy of 1895 the st louis university billikens are the last holdouts of the billiken craze of the 1900s and what me worry is the last vestige of the i should worry craze of the 1910s note updated june 16 2022 to add the item about nock wood posted by peter jensen brown at 10 52 am 1 comment email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest monday may 9 2016 the original real alfred e in my earlier post the real alfred e i traced the history of alfred e neuman s image back to a poster for the stage play the new boy by arthur law and directed by gustave frohmann which debuted at the standard theater in new york city on september 17 1894 after a successful run in london in that post i was only able to provide black and white images from newspaper advertisements a black and white parody of the original poster and a severely faded image of the poster for a later touring company i was unable to find any images of the original poster here in living color is the original full color poster from gustave frohmann s 1894 production of the new boy courtesy of the new york public library digital collections and anthony balducci s journal with a slight bit of reconstructive surgery to restore the gap in his two front teeth which is missing from the original archived image the new boy original new york production poster before reconstructive surgery poster for bert coote s touring company no earlier than 1895 new boy ad los angeles herald december 2 1894 political cartoon the evening telegram new york september 22 1894 james t powers as the new boy james t powers as the new boy posted by peter jensen brown at 4 41 pm 2 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest wednesday december 16 2015 a two minute history of alfred e neuman s image for a two minute history of mad magazine s alfred e neuman character from new boy to neuman click here if you re strapped for time try this shorter version click here posted by peter jensen brown at 1 17 pm 1 comment email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest monday march 18 2013 alfred e neuman in drag willis searle looks like a girl as i noted in my first post willis searle is one of the original alfred e neumans he was the first actor to play the role of archibald rennick in the new boy in the united states the image of archibald rennick on the advertising poster for the new boy is the original alfred e neuman like image willis searle was also the punch line in a poem about a cross dressing soldier before his debut in the new boy the guard s story we were on picket sir he and i under the blue of a midnight sky in the wilderness where the night bird s song gives back an echo all night long where the silver stars as they come and pass leave stars of dew on the tangled grass and the rivers sing in the silent hours their sweetest songs to the list ning flowers he d a slender form and a girlish face that seemed in the army out of place though he smiled as i told him to that day aye smiled and flushed in a girlish way that minded me of a face i knew in a distant village neath the blue when our armies marched at the meadow bars she met and kissed me neath the stars before us the river silent ran and we d been placed to guard the ford a dangerous place and we d jump and start whenever a leaf by the wind was stirred behind us the army lay encamped their camp fires burned into the night like bonfires built upon the hills and set by demon hands alight somehow whenever i looked that way i seemed to see her face again kind o hazy like as you ve seen a star a peepin out through a misty rain and once believe as i thought of her i thought aloud and called him bess when he started quick and smiling said you dream of some one at home i guess twas just in the flush of morning light we stopped for a chat at the end of our beat when a rifle flashed at the river s bank and bathed in blood he sank at my feet all of a sudden i knew her then and kneeling i kissed the girlish face and raised her head from the tangled grass to find on my breast its resting place when the corporal came to change the guard at six in the morning he found me there with bessie s dead form clasped in my arms and hid in my heart her dying prayer they buried her under the moaning pines and neve...