The coincidental juxtaposition of two things: yesterday’s Zippy strip about the drink Yoo-hoo; and the annual occasion, today, of Teddy Bear’s Picnic Day. Yes, one thing leads to the other, and the crucial link is the American baseball player Yogi Berra.
(#1) Zippy goes to his Kelvinator, and it calls “Yoo-hoo” to him
Background: Kelvinator. From Wikipedia:
Kelvinator was a United States home appliance manufacturer and the namesake of the company, although as a company it is now defunct, the name still exists as a brand name owned by Electrolux AB. It takes its name from William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, who developed the concept of absolute zero and for whom the Kelvin temperature scale is named. The name was thought appropriate for a company that manufactured ice-boxes and domestic refrigerators.
(#2) A 1940s KelvinatorKelvinator was founded on September 18, 1914, in Detroit, Michigan, United States, by engineer Nathaniel B. Wales who introduced his idea for a practical electric refrigeration unit for the home to Edmund Copeland and Arnold Goss.
The Kelvinator brand joins such other colorfully named American refrigerator brands as Crosley Shelvador (shelves in the door!) and Frigidaire.
Yoo-hoo. In my 12/15/18 posting “Yoo-hoo, Aargau!”, material on the bottled American chocolate drink Yoo-hoo, the exclamation yoo-hoo!, and more:
(#3)
Yogi Berra. In the fourth panel, the chocolatey Yoo-hoo calls to Zippy and connects him to the American baseball player Yogi Berra — because of Berra’s 1950s ads for the drink, like this one:
(#4)
About Berra, and his famous malapropisms: in my 10/3/15 posting “Yogi-isms”.
Yogi Bear. The baseball player’s name was then riffed on for the name of a bear in a Hanna-Barbera animated cartoon: Yogi Bear. From my 8/1/17 posting “Zippy and Griffy on the Hanna-Barbera diner tour”:
(#5) Yogi and his crewThe plot of most of Yogi’s cartoons centered on his antics in the fictional Jellystone Park, a variant of the real Yellowstone National Park. Yogi, accompanied by his constant companion Boo-Boo Bear, would often try to steal picnic baskets from campers in the park, much to the displeasure of Park Ranger Smith. Yogi’s girlfriend, Cindy Bear, sometimes appeared and usually disapproved of Yogi’s antics. (from Wikipedia)
Teddy bears. And then from one kind of fictional bear to another — to the stuffed bear as a toy, and the musical enshrinement of teddy bears in the song “The Teddy Bears Picnic”. From my 7/25/10 posting “Bear music”:
On my iTunes, there’s “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic” …, which is older than you might think, with a melody from 1907 and words [by Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy] from 1932.
Then from my 11/17/18 posting “Teddy Bears’ Picnic Day”, we get a gay connection:
(#6) “[Thanks to the bear as a gay male type, the] song has been used as a theme for … gay-tinged performances [– for example] the “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” (adult comedy) performance piece at the 2017 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.”
(Yes, he’s a naked bear.) Now, there‘s a performance for today.
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