Archy and Mehitabel

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archy and mehitabel
were a cockroach and a cat
archy had the soul
of a vers libre poet
and laboriously composed
by jumping on the keys
of don marquis s typewriter at night
while mehitabel supposedly
had the soul of Cleopatra

his output was published
in the new york evening sun
starting in 1916
and later in the tribune
at first as Filler
when marquis couldn t produce his column

in it archy told
marquis of his and
mehitabel s adventures
toujours gai toujours gai
the poems were
a satire of
urban life in
the 1920s

it is probably most famous
for the unusual typography
because archy couldn t
operate the shift key
consequently
the poems themselves
are underrated
and dismissed as gimmicky

books

• Archy and Mehitabel, 1927
• Archys Life of Mehitabel, 1933
• Archy Does his Part, 1935
• The Lives and Times of Archy and Mehitabel, 1940
• Archyology, 1996 (posthumous)
• Achyology II, 1998
• The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel, 2006

plays

Mel Brooks co-wrote a musical, Shinbone Alley, based on the poems in 1957

western animation

An animated film of the Brooks play was made in 1971.

tropes

• Aerith and Bob pretty self explanatory
• All Lowercase Letters THOUGH A COUPLE OF THE COLUMNS WERE IN ALL CAPS
• Carnivore Confusion mehitabel ate cockroaches and from time to time tried to eat archy
• Gratuitous French

there s a dance in the old dame yet toujours gai toujours gai

• Green Aesop what the ants are saying
• Hand Wave see mst3k mantra below
• Heroic Sacrifice freddy the rat
• Literary Agent Hypothesis the poems were supposedly typed by archy at night and marquis would find them the next morning
• MST3K Mantra

boss i am disappointed in some of your readers they are always asking how does archy work the shift so as to get a new line or how does archy do this or do that they are always interested in technical details when the main question is whether the stuff is literature or not

• No Punctuation Period for the same reason as the lack of capitals
• Painting the Medium
• Reincarnation both archy and mehitabel had human souls he a vers libre poet and she cleopatra and many others freddy the rat was a poet before and then there was the suicide club of bugs whose previous human selves had taken their own lives
• talking animals well a typing animal at least