How much is there to say about Scrappy neckties like the ones shown above, all of which are preserved in the formalwear wing of the Scrappyland archives? Quite a bit, actually.
For instance, here’s a brief story from the invaluable Scrappyana chronicler The Film Daily noting the deal which made the ties possible.
(The reference to Scrappy mufflers — I assume we’re talking about scarfs — is intriguing. I’ve never seen one myself.)
Here’s a Columbia publicity photo showing one of the ties being worn by Dickie Walters, who was — rather briefly — one of the studio’s kid stars. We also get to see what the display looked like, and to marvel at the tagline “for ‘He’ Boys.”
Between the three examples from the Scrappyland collection and the six shown in the Columbia photo, we know of at least six different Scrappy tie designs — though two feature the same art, with and without a “Howdy folks!” (I have a theory that the one at the right in the picture of our collection, showing Scrappy swinging a baseball bat, might be a later style — it shows a slicked-up version of the character who is, in this depiction, a blonde.)
The back of the Columbia picture is also worth a peek.
It shows that the photo was prepared for distribution in January of 1935 and was taken by William A. Fraker — father of the distinguished cinematographer of the same name — and had been approved by the Hays office, whose infamous moral code apparently applied to publicity materials as well as movies. (Let’s hope that it had no trouble passing.)
And here’s a vintage photo of a kid wearing a Scrappy tie — the same style shown at the left in the selection at the top of this post.
I don’t know who this lad is, but he must have liked his Scrappy tie — after all, he chose to wear it in a formal portrait. Which means that he was a man of good taste and a kindred soul of anyone who’s interested enough in Scrappy to have read this entire post.
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