Tales From The Quarter Bin--His Dog Isn't Named "Tyke"??!!??

You learn something new every day, and most days that teacher is the Quarter Bin.

Buster Brown was a comic strip created by Richard Outcault in 1902. It proved pretty popular, and Buster went on to star in movies, Broadway shows, radio, and television.

Buster was a pampered rich boy with a talking dog, who was always getting into trouble.

Just to prove that quickly selling out isn't a new phenomenon, by 1904 Outcault had licensed off Buster to more than 200 different companies for various types of merchandise.

Most significantly--and probably the only reason someone in 2018 would remember the character--the Brown Shoe Company made Buster Brown their official "mascot."

The Buster Brown logo was stamped inside of every shoe, and they made that a big advertising focus.

Now, in the days of my youth, it seemed as if the airwaves were inundated with Buster Brown Shoe commercials. And the jingle I remember best is:

He's Buster Brown
He lives in a shoe
Here's his dog Tyke
He lives in there, too!

At least, that's what I thought it was.

See, I had never read a Buster Brown strip, or seen him in any other media, as that aspect of his popularity had pretty much faded away by then. But I heard them damned jingle 10,000 times on radio and TV. And I would have sworn to you on a stack of Fantastic Fours that the dog's name was "Tyke."

Until I found this in the Quarter Bin this week:

"Tige"? Who the hell names a dog Tige? You mean I've been wrong for the past 40+ years?!?!?!

By the way, that's a real shoe store, there, and it still exists (although they've rebuilt the street a couple of times over the decades, and so it has a new street address, and now a couple of other locations). Brown Shoes would commission comics, print them up, and stamp the name of affiliates on the front.

Of course the book is chock full of advertising...

The inside was competent but forgettable comic antics. In this case, Buster and Tyke Tige wandering around a fictional and heavily-stereotyped Arab county. Still, this bit made me laugh, as a con man and his servant try to out-scheme each other for possession of a flying carpet:

"Hey, your shoe's untied" jokes are always funny.

Anyway, now that my childhood has been destroyed by learning that the dog's name was Tige, I should point out that Buster's girlfriend was named Mary Jane, and now there's nothing in the world I would love to see more than an olde tyme comic strippe with Mary Jane telling the dog, "Face it, Tige, you just hit the jackpot!"

This is why I'm not allowed to write 1900-era comic strips.

My Dog Tige is from 1957