Archy and Mehitabel
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 |
 |
- Green Aesop what the ants are saying
- 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 |
|
- 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