![]() Well into the 60s Buster Brown, Red Goose, and Poll Parrot battled for the hearts and minds of American children using giveaway trinkets, comic books, radio shows, and television sponsorships. ![]() The other shoe brand you mention, and the third major player in the early-to-midcentury kids’ shoe biz, was actually called Poll Parrot – a play on the name of its parent company, Paul Parrot Shoes. (Some claim that “Gieseke” was German slang for “goose,” but that’s not the case it’s likely that the goose logo was simply a visual pun on the Gieseke name.) Enterprising stockboys painted the goose red on crates being shipped over to the fair, and the owners liked the response so much they changed the company’s name. Originally named Gieseke-D’Oench-Hayes, the company stamped its crates with a picture of a goose. ![]() (With prominent breweries like Anheuser-Busch and a thriving brothel and music scene that attracted the likes of Scott Joplin, the city was known nationwide for its “booze, blues, and shoes.”) Another local brand that took off as a result of the World’s Fair was Red Goose Shoes. Through much of the 19th and 20th centuries Saint Louis was the center of the American shoe industry. ![]() Though no longer a Brown trademark, Mary Janes are still popular with hipsters, Harajuku Lolitas, and other women looking for fun style in their shoes.īrown wasn’t the only shoe company in Saint Louis, Missouri. Not wanting to leave the girls’ market untapped, they also licensed the name of Buster’s sister, Mary Jane, for their line of strap shoes like those the character wore in the strip. Brown took off running, sending actors dressed as Buster to plug the brand in theaters and outside shoe stores. It’s said that he signed 200 licensing deals in all, but the one that lasted the longest was the one with Brown Shoes, which saw the coincidence of the names as too good to pass up. (The young Keaton was thrown around the stage by his father while his mother played the saxophone.)īuster Brown quickly acquired a national following, and in 1904 Outcault went to the Saint Louis World’s Fair to market his hot new strip. Outcault most likely named him after arguably the greatest acrobatic comedian ever, Buster Keaton, who even as a boy was a big star on the vaudeville circuit. Buster pulled pranks, got into fights, and was regularly whaled to within an inch of his life by his mom, just like any boy of his day. Imagine Calvin & Hobbes, only with Hobbes prone to biting and Calvin dressed in a Little Lord Fauntleroy getup that was as liable to get him beat up a century ago as it would be now. Instead of terrorizing the mean streets of a New York City slum, as the Kid did, Buster and Tige raised hell on Park Avenue. Outcault’s follow-up to his breakthrough strip, Hogan’s Alley, starring the Yellow Kid. Making its first appearance in 1902, Buster Brown was Richard F. Scholl’s should be just the ticket.Īnd second, the dog’s name was Tige, as in “tiger.” Doesn’t anybody remember their turn-of-the-20th-century comic strips anymore? Time for a little review. Seeing as how you’re old enough to remember Captain Video, a pair of Dr. The Brown Shoe Company is still one of the largest shoe concerns in the world, with annual sales of $2.5 billion, and I’m sure they’d be happy to sell you something by one of their other fine brands. Johnįirst of all, Buster Brown shoes never went away – you just stopped fitting into them. I think Buster Brown was advertised on The Howdy Doody Show and Paul Parrot was advertised on Captain Video and his Video Rangers, but I can’t be absolutely sure of these recollections. 1949) it was considered the essence of coolness if you could show everybody that you had Buster Brown or Paul Parrot shoes. Dear Straight Dope: Whatever happened to Buster Brown shoes? You know, with the label inside showing Buster and his dog, Tide? For that matter, whatever happened to Paul Parrot shoes? When I was in the first grade (ca.
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