Chuck Jones: Deck the Halls With Boston Charlie

The original artwork for Chuck Jones's 1976 Warner Brothers Christmas card was sold on October 20 by Heritage Auctions.

Chuck Jones's signature

"Deck The Halls With Boston Charlie" is a decidedly lame take on Walt Kelly's brilliant "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie" carol from his Pogo comic strip, as it reverts back in part to the correct lyrics we all know. Nevertheless, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are in fine form at the piano, or at least Bugs is, in their musical roles from "Bugs and Daffy's Carnival of the Animals," a 1976 TV special featuring the music of Camille Saint-Saëns.

Songs of the Pogo is a songbook and album (1956) which includes the number "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie." The classic Christmas carol amended with wildly inventive lyrics returned to the strip in different versions over the years.

Chuck Jones
Heritage Auctions listing of October 20, 2025

https://comics.ha.com/itm/animation-art/illustration/original-bugs-bunny-and-daffy-duck-christmas-card-artwork-by-chuck-jones-warner-bros-1976-this-superb-original-il/a/7403-19393.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Auction-Open-MyTrackedLots-101116

Chuck Jones
Heritage Auctions item description

Hammer price

https://www.musicfestnews.com/2024/12/walt-kelly-pogo-deck-us-all-with-boston-charlie/

"Deck Us All With Boston Charley"

"Bugs and Daffy's Carnival of the Animals" (1976)

05156

Walt Kelly's Pogo: After the Moonshot

"Today the moon, tomorrow the stars!" After America's first two successful space flights to the moon in 1969, Howland Owl realizes that the next obvious destination is the sun. He tells Churchy LaFemme he's invented a new kind of space suit. But has he?

The comic strip, of course, is Walt Kelly's Pogo and it dates from January 25, 1970, when everything was still rosy some three months before the nearly disastrous voyage of Apollo 13. The original art was sold on eBay in 2013 and your faithful blogger has been sitting on it all this time waiting for the right moment. Maybe this is it. 

Walt Kelly
eBay listing ended October 9, 2013

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pogo-Sunday-Original-by-Walt-Kelly-Howland-Churchy-1970-/111182042033?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19e2f753b1&nma=true&si=UB68sj2DvLx%252F9kdb54zXrlCgzYs%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Walt Kelly
eBay item description

04737

Walt Kelly: From the Collection of Paul P. Goldberg

Paul P. Goldberg wrote to a great many prominent cartoonists from the 1950s to the 1970s, amassing a collection of autograph drawings generously sent to him on self-addressed postcards. The cartoons are numerous enough to overwhelm just about anyone trying to follow them as they make their way through eBay—including, one assumes, potential buyers, the seller, and a certain less-than-diligent blogger. One of the more desirable postcards has Walt Kelly's drawing of his popular comic strip character Pogo.

"Here's to Paul—
with thanks
—Walt Kelly"

"Here's to Paul—
with thanks
—Walt Kelly"

Walt Kelly
eBay listing ended January 9, 2024

https://www.ebay.com/itm/176150062956

Walt Kelly
eBay item description

Walt Kelly
eBay bid history
The drawing goes to the last bidder—by three seconds!

04612

Walt Kelly's Pogo: J. Edgar Hoover, Bulldog

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was investigating Pogo cartoonist Walt Kelly around the time Kelly depicted him as a bulldog in this Sunday strip from 1969. The unnamed bulldog is from the FYI and he's looking into stolen dog furs. 

Walt Kelly
Pogo, original Sunday comic strip art
September 21, 1969

Walt Kelly

eBay Listing Ended September 19, 2013

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pogo-Sunday-Original-by-Walt-Kelly-J-Edgar-Hoover-9-21-1969-/111168504828?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19e228c3fc&nma=true&si=UB68sj2DvLx%252F9kdb54zXrlCgzYs%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Walt Kelly

eBay Item Description

[End of eBay Listing]

Newspapers could reconfigure the panels from three to four rows in order to have the strip occupy a full page rather than a half page.

Walt Kelly
Pogo
September 21, 1969

https://freemasonry.bcy.ca/fiction/Pogo_1969-09-21_100.jpg

Published final panel

https://freemasonry.bcy.ca/fiction/pogo.html

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Walt Kelly

Original Comic Strip Art

J. Edgar Hoover

Attempted Bloggery's Beer and Skittles Index

03345

Frances's Copy of The World of John Lardner

Sports writer John Lardner (1912-1960) wrote for the New York Herald Tribune, Newsweek, the New Yorker, and other leading publications. After his death, Roger Kahn (1927-2020) collected much of his work in The World of John Lardner (1961). Walt Kelly (1913-1973), of Pogo fame, provided the cover illustration in a straightforward journalistic style and wrote the preface as well. 

Tom Bloom provides us with a look at a very nice copy signed by both Roger Kahn and Walt Kelly in 1962. Frances, the lucky recipient, may have been a journalism student judging from Kahn's inscription. Underneath those words, Kelly just might have something to say about Kahn's handwriting.

Walt Kelly
The World of John Lardner edited by Roger Kahn
1961

Photo by Tom Bloom

Signed by Roger Kahn and Walt Kelley

Photo by Tom Bloom

Meanwhile, the good folks who edit Wikipedia have been unable to find a citation to verify Kelly's involvement with this project. Why such a citation is needed for information clearly visible on the book's cover is anybody's guess. So right now, having seen a beautiful copy of the book, you know more than Wikipedia's readers do.

From the Wikipedia Entry for John Lardner (sports writer)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lardner_(sports_writer)

Note:  My thanks to Tom Bloom for the superb photos. This is Tom's tenth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.

Roger Kahn, author of The Boys of Summer, passed away on February 6.

If anyone knows how to insert a proper citation in a Wikipedia entry, feel free.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Walt Kelly

Tom Bloom

Signed Books with Drawings

Attempted Bloggery's Pulitzer Prize-Winning Index^{[citation needed]}

03191