In Remembrance of Newspaper Comic Strips: Mr. Potato Head

This isn’t exactly the same Mr. Potato Head who appears in Toy Story movies. Nor is he the facially flexible tuber who appeared in either the 1986 Potato Head Kids or 1998 Mister Potato Head animated series. However, like all of the above, he was licensed from Hasbro, the manufacturer of the perennial toy. Indeed, the newspaper comic strip Mr. Potato Head had an impressive lineage, because it was created by Garfield cartoonist Jim Davis and his longtime collaborator, Brett Koth. This is one of those licensed comic strips that are now hard to believe existed, but it did indeed premiere on this day in 2001.

Basically, Mr. Potato Head and his patient wife were a lot like Blondie and Dagwood or Hi and Lois, but they could also remove their limbs and facial features. When the strip started, Mr. Potato Head had the great good fortune to be promoted to a do-nothing Vice President position at his toy company. However, his executive assistant, Lucille, a disembodied intercom voice, does even less.

Frankly, Mr. Potato Head works plenty hard just trying to keep the peace between his teenaged daughter Julienne and his younger son Chip. He has very Ralph Kramden-esque shortcomings but he deeply loves his wife and he isn’t afraid to show it. His persona is closer to Tim Allen’s Home Improvement alter-ego (Mr. Potato Head also digs his tools) than the abrasive Don Rickles voiceovers in the Pixar films.

Mostly, Davis’s gag-a-day jokes are derived from workplace situations and highly relatable family dynamics. However, they often have a subtlety macabre overtone, because they often involve dislodged eyeballs or other stray detachable body parts.

Alas, Mr. Potato Head ended a few weeks short of its two-year anniversary. However, it had one published collection, Unplugged, which though out-of-print, can be purchased cheaply secondhand. Obviously, it never matched the success of Garfield, but it is rather impressive Davis took on a second strip (with Koth) at that point of his career. The jokes are not exactly laugh-out-loud hilarious, but they are quietly amusing. Honestly, this was a highly likable strip, thanks to Mr. Potato Head’s relationship with his wife. Years from now, it should burnish rather than diminish Davis’s reputation, because it showed he could still launch an entertaining new strip.

It is amazing how many licensed strips were launched around this time. Even though it is a very different Mr. Potato Head, the 11-year gap between the 2^nd and 3^rd Toy Story movies probably didn’t help. Regardless, Mr. Potato Head is recommended as a nostalgic curiosity while Toy Story 5 is still in theaters.