After our heartfelt cry for help in the post below, sometime guest-Quizler Scott leaps to our aid with a from-the-hip puzzle to while away your afternoon.
"Like Remington Steele, he was initially a convenient fiction, but six years after his debut as a fictional construct, an orphan stepped into the role, and eventually got so much mail that he needed his own zip code."
To whom does Scott refer?
First correct answer posted to comments wins a copy of this amazingly-titled book. No Googling or making goo-goo eyes. One guess per comment, please, though you may comment as frequently as the spirit moves you. Scott will, of course, adjudicate the winner.
Posted by BT at October 28, 2005 12:09 PMNote: art has already (in the thread below) guessed "Baby Huey" while boxjam contributed "Buster Brown".
Posted by: BT on October 28, 2005 12:10 PMno, no, and happy anniversary
Posted by: Scott on October 28, 2005 01:35 PMWas it the Dutch Boy?
Posted by: BT on October 28, 2005 03:33 PMWhat would you write to the Dutch Boy?
The he in question appeared on an unprecedented U.S. postage stamp.
Posted by: Scott on October 28, 2005 03:37 PMSmokey the Bear.
Posted by: boxjam on October 28, 2005 03:58 PMOnly Boxjam can prevent this quiz from an ignominious slide into weekend apathy.
Smokey the Bear is it. Gentlemen, you may smoke. But carefully.
Smokey was the first individual animal to be pictured on a postage stamp. The stamp showed him both in his scarred, clinging to a scorched-tree non-anthropomorphic form and -- in the background somewhat wispily, like the Great Spirit -- his pants-wearing, ring-a-ding-dinging with Woodsy the Owl personification.
In 1944, the Park Service (unless it was the Forest Service) got permission to use Bambi in a fire safety poster, and the response was strong. So they made up their own animal spokes-uhhr. . . being. In 1950, the orphaned cub originally known as Hotfot Teddy stepped into the role, with a new home and eventually a zip code at the National Zoo.
Previous fire safety posters included a demonic black-faced Japanese who might have, in the name of the Axis, torched our forests. (Which apparently had some precedent in an oil-field fire.) Though this did not, apparently, have the same effect as Smokey's empowering one-man-one-broken-match message.
Posted by: Scott on October 28, 2005 04:13 PMGreat quiz, Scott. Sorry it was asked for so late in the game. But great that you had it handy.
Anyone want to volunteer for next week?
Posted by: BT on October 28, 2005 10:18 PM