Ever since I was 12 years old I have wanted to see the Bazooka Joe comic strip make it to the silver screen. It’s no secret that there is a plethora of bubble gum comic strips fit to make the leap from wax paper to big screen. However, Bazooka Joe is probably the best written comic strip marketing campaign since Dubble Bubble introduced “Fleer Funnies starring Pud.” It would be absolutely brilliant to see his heartwarming misadventures, and anecdotal stories about the pain and joy of growing up, realized in a film version.
If you’re not familiar with Bazooka Joe, he is the loveable protagonist of the “Bazooka Joe and his gang” comic strip series that accompanied every piece of Bazooka Bubblegum. However these comics were more than child friendly jokes. They were allegories for our basic human emotions. Bazooka Joe dealt with real-life problems including heartache, adventure, tragedy, revenge, temptation, sacrifice, and discovery.
An example of this can be seen in the classic strip starring Bazooka Joe and his friend Mort. Mort is collecting yarn for his mother so she can work on a knitting project. As Mort eyes the amount of yarn he has retrieved, he looks over at Bazooka Joe with a hesitant look. “Is this enough for three socks?” asks Mort to Bazooka Joe. “Three socks?” Bazooka Joe exclaims with confusion. “My mom wants to knit socks for my brother in the army” says Mort. “Why three socks?” asks Bazooka Joe, his burning curiosity beginning to get the better of him. “He wrote in his letter” says Mort, “two weeks in the army and I’ve grown another foot!”
This strip is a perfect example of the everyday issues that Bazooka Joe confronts in his comics. Mort, who has had a serious disability ever since an accident left him mentally retarded, has taken his brother’s news literally. He believes that his brother has actually grown another foot, when in reality his brother had just grown another foot taller in height.
Bazooka Joe shows compassion, understanding and patience while selflessly volunteering to help the less fortunate Mort complete the simple yet meaningful gesture of getting yarn for his Mom. This is an example we could all afford to follow. Upon further reading of the material, one can also recognize the many poignant truths it holds about living in America, the stress of having a loved one in the military, and the archaic practice of using Imperial measurement units.
I can understand that some people may not be as excited as I am for the Bazooka Joe movie. They could say that the Bazooka Joe comic was just a promotional device with no real depth or meaning except to get kids to buy magic zodiac key chains, secret compartment decoder rings, and more bubblegum. They could also say that making a movie about Bazooka Joe would be equally asinine and degrading as making a movie about the Phillie Phanatic. And they could continue to say that since there is literally no plot, back story, or character relationships to follow, this movie will just become a brutally mindless piece of cinema, and in turn rape Bazooka Joe of any real nostalgia or charm it still has.
Pffftttt! I think the movie’s producer, and former Disney CEO, Michael Eisner knows what he is doing. I’m just going to cross my fingers and hope he picks one of my top three actors to play Bazooka Joe: Nick Jonas, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Corey Feldman. Unfortunately they are still a long way from casting so I will have to wait and see. In the meantime, I’ll be reading “Marmaduke’s Greatest Hits”
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