Holy smokes! Hellzapoppin' down at the old firehouse, and Smokey Stover, perhaps the nuttiest fireman in comics history, is on the job. Spewing out puns both visual and verbal as if from a firehose, cartoonist Bill Holman's creation stands as one of the most surreal newspaper strips ever. Holman, along with cartoonists Rube Goldberg and Milt Gross, was one of the major players in the 1930's "Screwball Comics" craze. He also is credited with introducing the term foo ("if the foo fits, wear it", "merci beau foo", doctor of Foolosophy) to the western world. "Foo" fever swept the U.S., finding its way into popular songs and generating over 500 "Foo Clubs". The fad left "foo" references embedded in popular culture but with their origins rapidly forgotten. "Foo" resurfaced in 1944-45, via the term "foo fighters" (used by radar operators for the kind of mysterious trace that would later be called a UFO and in 1995 as the name of a rock band). Look for Smokey Stover reprints in Four Color and Popular comics. Notary Sojac!