One of the reasons Scrappyland exists is to document the amazing world of Scrappy merchandise and promotion — something which is even more obscure than the Scrappy cartoons themselves. Basically, nobody has written about or otherwise acknowledged it, ever.
Or so I thought. Actually, The Film Daily — the Variety-like publication which Archive.org offers in full-searchable scanned form — did a really good job of reporting on Columbia’s licensing and marketing efforts. It covered new products as the studio signed deals, wrote about the many and varied Scrappy-related publicity schemes and even noted the existence of the wonderfully-named Scrappy Franchise Department, headquartered in New York and run by one Eli Gottlieb.
Here are just some of the Scrappy items which the Daily published in 1935 — including mentions of both Scrappy products in the Scrappyland collection and ones I’ve never seen (airplanes!). There’s even a mention of Uncle Miltie and his Scrappy connection. Sadly, the paper never illustrated any of these entertaining news alerts with photographs…but they’ve still got plenty of color.
August 19, 1935:
September 10, 1935:
September 16, 1935:
October 16, 1935:
November 11, 1935:
November 14, 1935 (one day after my father was born):
December 3, 1935:
December 12, 1935:
December 13, 1935:
December 23, 1935:
December 24, 1935
