The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo

the long version

"More than 50 years ago, America was taken by storm when Al Capp introduced the Shmoo in his comic strip Li'l Abner - where Sadie Hawkins Day also first appeared. In the words of Life magazine, the nation was "Shmoo-struck." The adorable squash-shaped character was so popular that it immediately spawned a massive merchandising craze: there were Shmoo dolls, Shmoo watches - even Shmoo ashtrays and Shmoo fishing lures. Shmoo clubs sprang up around the country - including a "Society for the Advancement of the Shmoo" - and inflatable Shmoos managed to reach German soil as part of the Berlin Air Lift. It was, as a reviewer in The New York Times commented, "a cultural event of enormous significance.""--BOOK JACKET.