Snuffy Smith is a newspaper comic about a hillbilly community. It originally began in 1919 as
Barney Google about a diminutive sportsman involved primarily in horse races (The strip reached mainstream popularity in
The Roaring Twenties with the introduction of Barney's horse Spark Plug, with "Sparky" becoming a popular nickname at the time), but once the Smith clan was introduced in the mid-1930's, Barney was eventually written out in favor of the more-popular Smith around 1954. The official name of the strip remains
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, even though the former character hasn't been a regular character for about 60 years.
The Smith clan is:
- Snuffy, the patriarch. A thieving moonshiner.
- Loweezy, the matriarch. Is the actual caretaker.
- Jughaid, the oldest son. Usually seen in a coonskin cap.
- Tater, the baby.
Has the distinction of
being the oldest currently-running daily comic in newspaper print in the U.S., as
The Katzenjammer Kids (running from 1897) runs only on Sundays, while
Gasoline Alley (begun in 1918) ran originally as a Sunday-only panel.
Tropes featured include:
- Anachronism Stew: The characters are usually seen listening to 1930's-era "cathedral shaped" radios.
- Artifact Title: Barney Google and Snuffy Smith has been all-Snuffy, no-Barney for six decades.
- Commuting On A Bus: Barney puts in a very occasional reappearance though. He appeared for a week in 2012, after not appearing for fifteen years, being lampshaded by the sheriff asking him if he was an Internet entrepreneur.
- Genre Shift: The strip originally centered on Barney's sporting endeavors, turning to a hillbilly comedy after a couple of decades.
- Literal-Minded: In one comic, Snuffy lands a Precision F-Strike when asked to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, then lampshades this trope after being reprimanded:
Snuffy:
Consarn it, Judge, you're the one who told me to swear!
- Name and Name: Officially, at least...
- Shout Out: Google was mentioned when Barney reappeared in 2012, as noted above.
- World War II: Snuffy was featured serving in the Army during the conflict, being a turning point as Barney became more and more of a secondary character.
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