SKIPPY PEANUT BUTTER
====================
Up until now, when I've written about words or phrases that end up
being popularized through comic strips, the stories behind them have
been fairly simple. They generally haven't involved trademark
infringement, FBI and IRS investigations, (alleged) staged suicide
attempts, and (alleged) false imprisonment, but this one (allegedly)
involves all of those, and more.
And all because of peanut butter.
Researching and writing about this has been an odd experience,
partially because I've never really thought peanut butter could have
such an effect on someone's life, but mostly because Percy Crosby's
story is incredibly tragic. There are certain facts that are in
dispute, but where he ended up and how it affected his family are
not, and it's awful to think about. At times I found myself laughing
due to the absurdity of all of this stemming from a peanut butter
dispute, but I had to continually remind myself of the ultimate
result, which is not at all funny.
I've written about Percy Crosby and the comic strip Skippy very
briefly before when I shared a Christmas themed comic strip during
December. In the course of searching for a bit of information I could
share along with the comic, I discovered a website created by Joan
Crosby Tibbetts, the daughter of Percy Crosby and his second wife,
Dale. On it, she includes a biography of her father, the history of
the comic strip, as well as a fairly detailed account of the
decades-long legal battle between her father, his estate, and the
Skippy peanut butter brand. At the time I bookmarked it and decided
to revisit it at a later date. More recently though, while reading an
interview in The Comics Journal with Milt Caniff, I saw him mention
Crosby and his apparent mental illness (though he phrased it in a
much less sensitive way), a detail of his story that I hadn't been
aware of previously. This caused me to want to revisit the story,
given that it seemed to be much more complex than I originally
anticipated. Little did I know just how complex it would get.
Percy Crosby's character Skippy first appeared as a feature in Life
Magazine in 1923. Crosby had been drawing comic strips and panels for
many years prior to that, working at the New York World, for the
McClure Syndicate, and even as a staff editorial cartoonist at the
socialist newspaper The Call, but none of his characters or strips
had been a big hit.He seemed to be drawn to writing gags involving
kids and their views of the world, especially those who lived in
urban New York, and had moderate success with strips along those
lines such as Toddles, Beany And The Gang, and The Clancy Kids. Life
Magazine had published quite a few of the single panel gag comics he
had submitted to them in the past, even very early on in his career,
so when he approached them about doing an ongoing strip about a group
of kids, they accepted. Skippy ran for 3 years in the pages of Life,
becoming quite popular and gaining a wide following. This caught the
attention of the small Johnson Features Syndicate, who offered to run
Skippy in newspapers nationwide. Crosby jumped at the chance for
wider exposure, and in 1925 the daily Skippy comic strip debuted in
newspapers. A year later, in 1926, King Features would pick up Skippy
as well, as a Sunday feature. Crosby's contract with Johnson Features
would end in 1930, at which point King Features also began running
the daily strip.
Crosby's contract with Johnson Features allowed him to retain the
copyright to the strip and its characters, which was not a very
common occurrence at the time. The only notable previous example of
this was Bud Fisher, who only gained full copyright of his creation
Mutt and Jeff after a protracted legal battle. Amazingly, Crosby
continued to retain copyright even after moving to King Features, and
over the next few years would take further steps to ensure that only
he could utilize the Skippy copyright and trademark. While still
under contract with Johnson Features, in 1927, he hired Fred A. Wish
to manage Skippy license arrangements, and in 1932, at Wish's
suggestion, he created the company Skippy, Inc. to further protect
the brand. At that time, it was becoming more and more necessary to
do so, as the popularity of the strip had skyrocketed. The strip had
been adapted into a very successful movie in 1931, and the number of
licensed Skippy products had increased dramatically. These included
everything from dolls and toys to food and flatware, and as you may
be able to guess, as the number of licensed Skippy products
increased, the number of unlicensed products also increased. The
manufacturers of these were always taken to court by Crosby's
lawyers, Lord, Day, & Lord, and due to the protections Crosby had put
in place for his trademark, the courts always ruled in his favor.
That was until Joseph Rosefield got involved, and in order to talk
about Rosefield, we must for a moment take a detour and talk about
the history of peanut butter itself.
Pastes made of ground up peanuts have been made in South America and
West Africa for many a century, and so-called modern peanut butter
has been a thing since the late 1800s. It was originally what people
these days would call "natural" peanut butter, which requires one to
stir together the oil and the peanut mash in order to eat it. If left
out, the two would eventually separate. In 1921, Joseph Rosefield
patented non-separating, hydrogenated peanut butter, the type that is
most widely available today. This innovation not only made it so it
was unnecessary to stir it up, but also dramatically increased the
shelf life and removed the need for refrigeration, something that was
quite a luxury in those days. This allowed the product to be shipped
over much longer distances and thus into the mouths of a greater
number of customers. Hydrogenation basically made possible the peanut
butter landscape as we know it. Rosefield was not the first to file a
patent for the process of hydrogenating peanut butter; that honor
goes to Frank Stockton, who did so three weeks earlier than Rosefield
did. Stockton's patent was granted at the end of 1921, and first
licensed to the H.J. Heinz company in 1923. Due to Rosefield's
process and Stockton's process being slightly different, both men
were issued patents in the same year, though Rosefield went on to
gain more notoriety for the invention. Interestingly, the Stockton
process is the one used in making all hydrogenated peanut butter
these days, though those associated with the Skippy brand will
bristle when this fact is mentioned.
Initially, Rosefield licensed the patent out to the E.K. Pond Company
(a subsidiary of Swift & Company) in 1923, who unsuccessfully
marketed their peanut butter in 1924 under the name of either Dainty
or Delicia (sources are not clear on what it was actually called).
They would later reintroduce it to the world as the much better known
Peter Pan peanut butter in 1928. Due to a disagreement over how
Rosefield would be compensated by the E.K. Pond company for his
patent license, he severed ties with them in 1932 and decided to go
into business for himself the next year.
And this is where the stories converge.
Perhaps inspired by the E.K. Pond Company, who had taken the name
Peter Pan for their product without compensating James Barrie, the
creator of the character, Rosefield decided to cash in on the
popularity of the Skippy comic strip and use the name for his new
product. Crosby's lawyers promptly sued him for trademark
infringement, not simply because of the name, but also the packaging.
There had been a long running motif in the comic strip of characters
having conversations either in front of or while leaning on a fence.
Sometimes characters would also sloppily paint words on said fence to
get their messages across more loudly and clearly. This fence motif
had even been used on the packaging of certain licensed Skippy
products, so there had been a well known connection made between the
fence and the comic character. Rosefield obviously recognized this
connection, and thought his customers would as well, because the
earliest Skippy peanut butter tins feature the Skippy name painted on
a fence. This was a clear case of trademark infringement, and the
court decided in Crosby's favor. The court ordered Rosefield to cease
and desist selling his product under the Skippy brand.
=>
https://blog.arkholt.com/media/2024/Photo601055o.jpg The Original
Skippy Peanut Butter tin
Normally, that would have been the end of it, as it had been for a
number of unlicensed Skippy products who got the same treatment from
Crosby's lawyers. However, Joseph Rosefield was nothing if not
persistent. Rosefield had employed trademark expert Lee W. Mida as a
consultant on the licensing issue, who had advised him to simply
ignore the result of the case and continue using the Skippy trademark
anyway. Rosefield not only did so, but in the next few years would
expand his peanut butter operations significantly. Rosefield Packing
Company, which manufactured Skippy peanut butter, partnered with
other companies to distribute it in more and more markets in several
states. Around 1935 or thereabouts, they introduced the first chunky
peanut butter, which became one of their more popular items and made
them stand out from other peanut butter brands. The brand was
originally sold in metal tins, but during this period was also the
first to be sold in wide mouth glass jars, an innovation brought
about by necessity due to metal shortages during World War II. By
1942, Rosefield Packing Company had gone from manufacturing several
brands of mustard, relish, pickles, tapioca, and peanut butter to
turning a profit by manufacturing only peanut butter under a single
brand, Skippy.
Rosefield was not shy about advertising his product as Skippy,
either. Not only did he continue to use imagery on the packaging that
was reminiscent of the comic strip, but he decided to directly
compete with Crosby's Skippy in some of his own arenas. From 1932 to
1935, the comic strip had been adapted into a popular radio show,
sponsored by Wheaties cereal. In 1941, Rosefield decided to start his
own Skippy radio show, Skippy Hollywood Theater, to promote his
peanut butter. The show was notable for being pre-recorded, and was
wildly successful not only as a radio show, but as an advertisement
for the peanut butter. It ran until 1951.
It's odd, then, that during this time there was no legal action taken
against Rosefield by Crosby, his lawyers, or Skippy, Inc. There could
be several reasons for this, the most likely being that Crosby was so
preoccupied with all of the other things going on in his life that he
either didn't notice the rise of Skippy peanut butter, or didn't feel
he could pay it the adequate attention that it required. During the
30s and 40s, Crosby had become increasingly politically active,
writing several books and essays on various political subjects and
inserting political commentary into his Skippy strips. Most of these
were, to put it mildly, not well received, though some were more well
received than others. In 1930, Crosby wrote a 3 month sequence
lampooning Al Capone and the Racketeers, depicting him as a
neighborhood bully named Spumone who headed a gang called the
Jacketeers. This was received fairly well, and bolstered Crosby's
confidence in his ability to send political messages. He wrote
several articles decrying organized crime generally and Al Capone
specifically, though newspapers refused to print them. Undeterred,
Crosby used his own money to pay for ad space so the articles would
run anyway. He used this same tactic again several times when
newspapers refused to print his screeds against President Franklin
Roosevelt and his various policies. When publishing houses refused to
publish some of his political books, he similarly published them
himself with his own money. This may not have been as much of an
issue if he kept all of this out of the comic strip, but he was much
too passionate about his political opinions to do so. Over time,
Crosby inserted overt political messages into more and more strips,
until they began to be more common than anything else. There was
quite a bit of public outcry, and the popularity of the strip lowered
significantly. Eventually, the public, as well as King Features
Syndicate, had enough. The syndicate canceled the strip in 1945.
His strip ending wasn't the only thing on Crosby's mind at this time,
however. Besides his main source of income being taken away from him,
and feeling increasingly that he was being censored and silenced
unfairly due to newspapers and publishers refusing to print his
articles and books, his family and personal life were also in
shambles. His first marriage had ended years earlier due to his
alcoholism, prompting him to give up alcohol altogether when he
married a second time. As things in his work and political life got
worse, however, he returned to alcohol and with it came all of the
problems he had with it previously. In 1939, after an altercation
with his second wife, Dale, with whom he had 4 children, he traveled
to Florida for two weeks, during which time Dale filed for divorce.
He was ordered to pay $14,500 a year in alimony and barred from
seeing his children. He remarried in 1940, but the divorce had a
devastating effect on him, both psychologically and financially.
Those weren't his only financial problems, either. As far back as
1934, Crosby and Skippy, Inc had been investigated by the IRS for tax
evasion. In addition to being an outspoken opponent of Franklin
Roosevelt himself, he was also openly antagonistic towards
Roosevelt's tax policies, refusing to pay taxes as long as Roosevelt
was in office. While in the process of investigating William Randolph
Hearst, owner of Skippy's publisher King Features Syndicate,
Roosevelt decided to also send the IRS after Crosby. Due to the many
articles Crosby had written against him, Roosevelt saw Crosby as a
bit of a political opponent, and utilized the IRS to send him a
message. By the 1940s, due to his mounting tax obligations, alimony
payments, and legal fees relating these various issues, his financial
situation was quite dire.
It seems reasonable to assume that, given all of this, he may not
have been interested in going after a peanut butter manufacturer over
a trademark dispute, and by the time it became a big enough issue, he
may not have had enough money to do so.
And this is where things get a bit murky.
Up until this point, none of the facts that I've laid out are really
in dispute. There are still some questions, but there are reasonable
assumptions that one can make to answer them. What happened next, and
why it happened, isn't so cut and dried.
Joseph Rosefield legally obtained the Skippy trademark for his peanut
butter brand in 1948. How this happened was, depending on who you
ask, either due to an opportunist taking advantage of a serendipitous
confluence of unrelated events, or due to a criminal conspiracy
perpetrated by Rosefield, Crosby's turncoat lawyers, and to a lesser
extent Crosby's third wife. The latter seems quite far-fetched to me,
but the former is also quite astounding to think about. When King
Features canceled Skippy in 1945, the Skippy trademark also expired.
Despite Crosby's attempts to revive the strip, all public goodwill
towards him and his creation was gone, and no publisher wanted to
touch it. A combination of his lack of ability to revive his
creation, his financial struggles, his family issues, and his
continuing alcoholism led him to attempt to kill himself in December
of 1948. After recovering in a hospital, he was diagnosed with
paranoid schizophrenia and transferred to a mental institution, where
he would be forced to spend the rest of his life. Meanwhile, two
years earlier, the US Congress had passed a new trademark law, the
Lanham Act, which would go into effect in 1947. Rosefield, taking
advantage of the changes in trademark law imposed by the act, as well
as the fact that Crosby's trademark had expired, filed for the
trademark himself at the end of 1948. Crosby, now in a mental
institution and unable to challenge this in court, would never gain
the trademark back. Skippy would, beyond this point, be forever
connected with peanut butter, and only peanut butter as far as the
general public was concerned.
Which is where we circle back to Joan Crosby Tibbetts.
Joan was the third child of Crosby's second wife, Dale. After his
divorce with Dale was finalized, Crosby was not allowed to contact
her or his children due to orders from the court. Not only did Joan
and her siblings never hear from him again, but they were not
contacted by anyone upon his death, and only learned about it from an
obituary in the newspaper. She was appointed the administrator of the
Crosby estate in 1965, a position she took extremely seriously. For
the remainder of her life, she made it her personal mission to uphold
the legacy of her father, and to do this she felt it necessary to try
and take the Skippy trademark back from the Skippy peanut butter
brand's parent companies, Best Foods, Corn Products Refining Company,
and eventually Unilever. Over the course of several decades she filed
multiple lawsuits and petitioned the courts many times to cancel the
Skippy peanut butter trademark. While unsuccessful at her stated
goal, these efforts still had the effect of helping to keep the comic
strip Skippy in the public consciousness, at least as much as it
could be. She endlessly championed her father's work, doing more than
anyone else to preserve its history in reprint books and on the
Internet. I dare say most of what is still known about the comic
strip and about Percy Crosby is due to her tireless efforts. Those
efforts would continue until her death in 2019.
In 1998, she created the website skippy.com, which not only served to
relay information regarding the history of the comic strip, ongoing
efforts to preserve it, and her ongoing legal efforts, but also as a
place for her to chronicle the life of her father as well as her
various theories regarding how and why things ended up the way they
did.
Her theories are not entirely without evidence, but it isn't
extremely convincing. Given the timing of certain events, especially
the trademark being granted not too long after Crosby was committed,
it makes sense that she would be a bit suspicious. Also, given her
experiences fighting against food companies and how badly
representatives from said companies treated her over the years, it
seems reasonable that she would blame them for much of what happened.
That doesn't mean that all of what she believed is true, but it makes
sense that she would think that. This also isn't to say that none of
it is true. While the evidence is thin, it doesn't seem entirely
implausible that some of what she thought happened did happen.
It's also very difficult to summarize neatly and tidily, but I'll do
my best.
Joan basically connected everyone and everything that Crosby had
spoken out against, as well as certain people in his life that she
didn't like, to what she believed was a conspiracy against him.
Franklin Roosevelt, the IRS, Al Capone, the FBI, Crosby's lawyers,
Crosby's third wife, Best Foods, and Corn Products Corporation (or
CPC) were all connected to it somehow, and the main thing connecting
them was Joseph Rosefield. Franklin Roosevelt had passed the National
Industrial Recovery Act (or NRA) in 1933, which she claimed Rosefield
would eventually take advantage of in order to sell his peanut butter
the way he did. She claimed Rosefield's lawyer Lee Mida not only
advised him to continue using the Skippy trademark after he had been
ordered not to, but also to report Crosby to the IRS in order to take
attention away from what they were doing, knowing Roosevelt's
penchant for using the IRS to silence his political opponents. This,
she claims, is the sole reason he ended up getting in trouble with
the IRS. In 1934, Crosby believed he had received threats against his
life and was being followed by some unknown assailant, which he
reported to the FBI. Joan claims that this was soon after the court
had ordered Rosefield to cease using the Skippy trademark, implying
Rosefield was trying to obtain it from Crosby by force. She claims he
was unfairly maligned in the press following his divorce from Dale.
She characterizes his third wife, Carolyn, as someone with "little
education or business experience," and who "Crosby's friends and
colleagues saw... as an opportunist." While she believed Rosefield
was the one that reported Crosby to the IRS, she seems to imply that
Crosby's lawyers Lord, Day, & Lord were the ones responsible for
misreporting taxes paid. She claims that Crosby was committed to the
mental institution by order of Carolyn's uncle, and that the attorney
Carolyn hired to defend Crosby in the tax evasion case, Rose Lehman
Stein, was "an agent for Rosefield." She claims Stein was responsible
for keeping Crosby in the institution, reporting to the court that he
was "too dangerous to release." Stein would later become president of
Skippy, Inc, and Joan claims that further action was not taken
against Skippy peanut butter after this due to Stein's supposed
connection to Rosefield. She claims that although Crosby tried to
write to his friends and family while in the institution, his letters
were either censored or not delivered at all, and that he was told
false information about his family and his children. She claims he
was told his children had received money from Skippy peanut butter
and did not want to speak to him. She claims a former attorney of
Crosby's became US Attorney General but did nothing to help him in
order to "protect his political interests," and returned to Lord,
Day, & Lord just in time to oversee the merger between Corn Products
Corporation and Best Foods. Rosefield had sold Skippy peanut butter
to Best Foods in 1954, and the two companies merged in 1958.
Therefore, in essence, Rosefield took advantage of policies enacted
by Crosby's least favorite president in order to strengthen his
position, stalked Crosby in order to frighten him, got him in trouble
with the IRS by not only reporting him but conspiring with Crosby's
lawyers to make his taxes look awful, took advantage of Crosby's
third wife by convincing her uncle to commit Crosby and convincing
her to hire one of Rosefield's own attorneys, have that attorney make
sure that Crosby could never get out of the mental institution, then
have that same attorney take over Skippy, Inc. so Rosefield no longer
had to deal with the trademark dispute, intercept all of Crosby's
mail and alter it to give him and his family a false impression of
what was going on, and have lawyers who had worked closely with
Crosby in the past put together a new food company to further
strengthen his position against Skippy, Inc.
No claim of hers, however, is as bold as the one relating to his
suicide attempt and his subsequent committal to the mental
institution. Joan not only claims that police reported they did not
find which weapon Crosby used in the attempt, but also implies that
the attempt was faked by someone hired by Rosefield. She doesn't say
so explicitly, but she makes sure to not only point out the lack of a
weapon, but also the fact that it was only 5 days after the attempt
that Rosefield was granted the Skippy peanut butter trademark. She
clearly wants anyone reading it to read between the lines.
Joan has always maintained that her father was not mentally ill and
should not have been locked away in the mental institution. I don't
think anyone will dispute that Crosby should not have been treated
the way he was, but it's difficult to know whether the diagnosis was
correct or not. He was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, the
evidence for this being that he seemed to have an overwhelming
anxiety about being targeted by people like Franklin Roosevelt, Al
Capone, the IRS, and the FBI. Most average people these days who
claimed that all of these people and groups were after them would
probably be treated similarly. Most people don't have to worry about
the president, government agencies, and crime lords all being after
them at the same time.
The problem is that most people aren't Percy Crosby. Franklin
Roosevelt did actually send the IRS after him, as well as the FBI
when Crosby had implied he wanted to harm the president in one of his
articles. Crosby had spoken out against organized crime many times,
and it was very likely they weren't too fond of him and may have
wanted to do him in. These paranoias didn't just come out of nowhere;
they came out of his actual lived experience. That said, it still
isn't as cut and dried as that. Crosby biographer Jared Gardner has
stated that his political writings leading up to his committal are
evidence enough of his mental illness, given how increasingly
paranoid they became. Further, he postulates that his bouts with
alcoholism may have exacerbated the issue or were a coping mechanism
for said issues, or both. In the end, it's difficult to say with
certainty what really was going on in Crosby's mind.
However much of Joan's theories are true or false can perhaps be
debated, but when reading what she wrote on the website one must
admit how passionate she felt about them. Each page of her biography
of her father has this quote from James Madison at the top: "Since
the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more
instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual
and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden
usurpations." She routinely refers to Rosefield, Best Foods, and CPC
as a crime syndicate, a criminal enterprise,and as food pirates. She
speaks as glowingly about her father and his work as she does
derisively about Rosefield and his compatriots. Her intense passion
for this cause can't be understated.
That's why I felt a need to discuss it, and what immediately caught
my eye when I came across it years ago. Percy Crosby was a
complicated man, and while he did great work, it's incredibly uneven.
Skippy the comic strip was very popular in its day, and was a major
influence on subsequent comic strips about kids and their lives. His
life had a tragic end, and his legacy may sadly only be remembered in
the name of a brand of peanut butter that stole its name from him.
However, I'm glad that there were, and hopefully still are, people
who want to preserve a better memory of his life and work than just
that. That kind of thing is really the whole point of this blog,
after all.
But if you want even more information than I was able to cover here,
please see:
=>
http://skippy.com/index.html Skippy.com, to read everything Joan
wrote about the strip and her father
=>
http://www.skippy.com/skippy1.html Joan's Percy Crosby biography
=>
https://libraryofamericancomics.com/product/skippy-vol-1-complete-dail
ies-1925-1927/ Percy Crosby's Skippy, Complete Dailies Collection,
with invaluable introductory biographical material by Jared Gardner
=>
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/467519.Skippy_and_Percy_Crosby
Skippy and Percy Crosby, biography by Jerry Robinson
=>
https://www.amazon.com/Creamy-Crunchy-All-American-Traditions-Perspect
ives-ebook/dp/B00A0WE90K Creamy and Crunchy, An Informal History of
Peanut Butter, the All-American Food, for more than you ever wanted
to know about peanut butter
=>
https://youtu.be/FEUluB2fwdA?si=HjmC36YvhVbPpFd3 Noah Van Sciver's
interview with Jared Gardner about Percy Crosby and the most recent
set of reprint books
=>
https://www.toonopedia.com/skippy.htm Skippy at Don Markstein's
Toonopedia
=>
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/c/crosby_p.htm Percy Crosby at
Lambiek Comiclopedia
=>
https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2019/12/29/joan-crosby-tibbe
tts-rip/ Joan Crosby Tibbetts obituary at The Daily Cartoonist
=>
https://web.archive.org/web/20040708124902/http://alternet.org/story/1
254/ Stealing Skippy, article by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
=>
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/skippy-v-skippy-the-great-peanut-but
te-43632/ Skippy vs Skippy: The Great Peanut Butter Trademark Wars,
article at JDSUPRA blog
=>
https://www.peanutbutterpleasure.com/skippy-peanut-butter-the-history-
of-an-empire/ Skippy Peanut Butter: The History of An Empire, at
Peanut Butter Pleasure blog
=>
https://www.printmag.com/design-books/crime-corruption-copyright-and-a
-kids-comic-skippy/ Crime, Corruption, Copyright, and a Kids' Comic:
Skippy, article at Print Magazine
=>
https://shrineodreams.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/a-comic-strip-crime-and
-peanut-butter/ A Comic Strip, Crime, and Peanut Butter, at Shrine O
Dreams blog
=>
https://www.cbr.com/comic-book-legends-revealed-198/ Comic Book
Legends Revealed #198, on Crosby and Skippy, at Comic Book Resources
=>
https://www.mashed.com/1086608/skippy-peanut-butter-the-story-behind-t
he-lunchbox-staple/ Skippy Peanut Butter: The Story Behind The
Lunchbox Staple, at Mashed blog
=>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1979/03/15/cartoonists-da
ughter-hopes-dads-skippy-will-be-born-again/c2272360-075f-4058-9436-07
dd71ddf9ec/ Washington Post article from 1970 regarding Joan's
litigation efforts
=>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1980/03/19/the-name-skipp
y-at-stake-peanut-butter-or-comic-strip/61d5a43a-2498-4aad-87d2-7f502f
7ce542/?itid=sr_1 Washington Post article from 1980 regarding Joan's
litigation efforts
=>
https://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2010/06/news-of-yore-1937-tea-part
y-would-love.html News of Yore 1937: Tea Party Would Love Crosby,
archived article from 1937 at The Stripper's Guide
=>
https://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2006/04/cartoonists-in-news.html
Cartoonist Crosby's Wife Wins Divorce, archived article from 1939 at
The Stripper's Guide
=>
https://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2022/11/firsts-and-lasts-final-ski
ppy-sunday.html Final Skippy Sunday comic, at The Stripper's Guide
=>
https://web.archive.org/web/20040613113428/http://www.skippy-scam.org/
The Original Skippy Scam website, which stopped being updated in 2000
=>
https://web.archive.org/web/20070103180614/http://piug.derwent.co.uk/p
iugl2000/1238.html Mailing list archive discussion regarding Unilever
trademark info
=>
https://web.archive.org/web/20020701014834/http://www.peanutbutter.com
/history.asp Official Skippy Peanut Butter history website as of
2002, which included an image of the original packaging
=>
https://web.archive.org/web/20120518112003/http://www.peanutbutter.com
/article/detail/115166/skippy-peanut-butter-history Official Skippy
Peanut Butter history website as of 2012, which removed the image of
the original packaging.
=>
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=163095 Plaque at the site of the
former Rosefield Packing Company, with an image of the original
Skippy peanut butter logo. The plaque was last photographed in 2020,
and as of July 2023 it has been removed.
=>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skippy_(radio_series) Skippy Radio
Series based on the comic strip
=>
https://archive.org/details/skippy-hollywood-theater-strange-courtship
_19470815 Rosefield's Skippy Hollywood Theater radio show
=>
https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/12/food-labels-peanut-bu
tter-hearings/ The Momentous Peanut Butter Hearings, article about
the Congressional hearings on peanut butter in the 1960s. Only
tangentially related, but information brought out in those hearings
was used by Joan in her litigation.
