A Scoutmaster's Blog

In the last blog post I wrote about Snoopy, the Beagle Scout. I think it is great to see Scouting in this type of media. Innocent, yet very entertaining. Charles Schulz did a great job of touching our funny bone with this favorite Peanuts character. But it was not the only time Scouting has been a part of a major comic strip.

There was once a young boy named Calvin. His best friend was a tiger by the name of Hobbes. For a short time Calvin decided to join a Cub Scout pack and go out for an overnight hike. Calvin quickly discovered that Scouting was not his favorite type of activity. Why, there was no place to plug in the microwave he had brought along. Nope, Calvin and Hobbes would rather spend their days exploring strange new worlds, or playing a rough and tumble game of Calvinball. You can see some of the Calvin the Cub Scout comics here!

The picture I used for this post is Mickey Mouse dressed in a Boy Scout-like uniform. I do not remember where I collected this picture from. I do not know the story behind it. I did a quick search in Google for “boy scout mickey mouse” and did not come up with much. Drop me a line if you know the story behind the picture.

Then, of course, there is Garfield. In 2000-2001 Garfield’s creator allowed the fat cat to be used to help promote Cub Scouting. I have not heard anything about how well the promotion went, but I do have my patches of Garfield the Cub Scout that I received at the 2001 National Jamboree.

Well, that wraps up what I currently know about Scouting showing up in popular comic strips here in the USA. I am sure there are other cases of this occurring, but I can not think of any other at the moment.

**Drawing update – So far only two people have entered the drawing for the dvd of Scouting promotional films. If you wish to qualify for the drawing then look back for a previous post about the rules.

I have a scrapbook that few people have seen. In fact, I seldom take it out to look at it myself. It contains some old Scouting mementos. It has my BSA membership cards, merit badge cards, and Totin’ Chip card from when I was a Boy Scout. It’s pages include over twenty years of BSA cards from my stint as an assistant scoutmaster and scoutmaster of Troop 68. It also contains pictures from my elementary school years, a couple report cards, and my high school graduation program. All these things are interesting to look at once in a while, but the book also contains something that is really fun to read, or look at, depending on your point of view.

The scrap book contains fifteen comic strips that I cut from a newspaper when I was a teenager. These strips feature that wonderful dog we all know and love, Snoopy! What makes these strips so special to me is that they are the ones that feature Snoopy as a Boy Scout.

The strip begin with Snoopy as a Tenderpaw. Lucy teases him about being such a low rank to which Snoopy replies that he will work and work to reach the top and become a… Beagle Scout! As the story line continues we watch as the lovable beagle go out for a hike, and then becomes hopelessly lost. He is finally rescued by a Girl Scout selling cookies. Of course, Lucy is true to form and has to tell Snoopy how disappointed she is to see a Beagle Scout rescued by a Girl Scout.

The strip then goes on and we see Snoopy as the “Scout Leader” of a “patrol” that contains Woodstock and his friends. Did you know Woodstock’s friends were named Conrad, Oliver, and Bill? I like the strips when Snoopy talks about first aid and the evening meal with his troop.

I discovered, after a quick search on the internet, that Snoopy first appeared as a Scout on May 13, 1974. I was thirteen years old at the time. Wow, I did not realize that these newspaper strips were that old. You can see this first strip here and read about Lucy criticizing Snoopy on his new identity. The strip is found at the bottom of the page.

I also discovered that there are a couple Beagle Scout Snoopy toys available on Amazon.com. One plush Snoopy seems to come with a little book containing the Scouting comic strips. Hmmm… how much credit do I have left on my card? Oh boy! Looks like I have enough to buy two of them!