#BUSTER BROWN AND MARY JANE FULL#
#BUSTER BROWN AND MARY JANE SERIES#

The poor girl’s deluded, completely insane, She’s begging and pleading and crying again, We’ve asked her and asked her to try and explain,īut she wants to go home, we may have to restrain, In England in 1924, Alan Alexander Milne (1882-1956), author of Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House At Pooh Corner (1928), latched onto the name and published a set of poems in ‘When we were young’ and a rather mischievous girl called Mary Jane emerged in ‘Rice Pudding’. Miller named a popular bite-size candy made from peanut butter and molasses after his favourite aunt, Mary Jane. Popularity of the name peaked in 1923, when it became the 444th most popular girls’ name in the US. The rider stuck in the air is brought back to the ground safely after offering an imaginary payment of grandiose proportions.Īs girls’ names go, throughout the 20th century, the most popular was Mary and because it was so common for so long it sprouted a whole family of spliced names, including Mary Jane. “Buster, Buster, Buster Brown, what will you give me if I let you down?” One rider would stop the seesaw with the other rider in the air and chanted, “Buster Brown | Went to town | With his pants | On upside down.”Ī seesaw game was also popular. Children played Buster Brown playground games, including skipping to Buster Brown rhymes

#BUSTER BROWN AND MARY JANE SERIES#

A Buster Brown radio series with new characters began with Smilin’ Ed McConnell on the West Coast NBC Radio Network. for Universal Pictures produced a series of live-action two-reelers (movies). In 1905, a Broadway production of a Buster Brown Musical Comedy starred a 21-year-old adult little person actor called Master Gabriel (Gabriel Weigel), and continued to play and tour the country for many years afterwards. Buster brown shows were held in department stores, theatres and shoe stores. Adult little people were hired to play the characters in shows that toured around the United States from 1904 until 1930.

The Buster Brown name was used to promote the brand. The Buster Brown comic strip was as well known in the US in the early 1900s, as Homer Simpson is today, and little boys and girls clambered to be dressed in Buster Brown suits and Mary Jane Shoes. Tige is thought to be the first talking pet to appear in the comics, and, like that of many of his successors, his speech goes unnoticed by adults. Buster’s childhood sweetheart Mary Jane, was named after the artist’s wife, Mary Jane Martin, based on his daughter.

#BUSTER BROWN AND MARY JANE FULL#

Despite his apparent angelic innocence he was a practical joker full of mischief, which often wrong and young Buster usually got spanked by his mother. He was dressed, typically in the style of Little Lord Fauntleroy with pageboy haircut, who lived in a city with his well-off parents. According to Outcault, the character was not based on anyone in particular but the name “Buster” came from Buster Keaton, then a vaudeville child actor. The comic strip was first published in the New York Herald in 1902. Soon the image of Buster Brown and his dog were appearing inside each pair of Brown’s children’s shoes. Buster Brown had a sweetheart named Mary Jane, so the Brown Shoe Company also bought licensing rights for “Mary Jane” for their line of girls’ strap shoes. Bush recognised the marketing potential of using the Buster Brown characters and paid Outcault $200 for licensing rights to use the Buster Brown name and image on children’s shoes. Louis in 1904, he met Richard Fenton Outcault, selling licensing rights to his latest characters, Buster Brown, his sweetheart Mary Jane, and his dog Tige, an American Pit Bull Terrier. John Bush was employed to promote the company’s children’s shoes, and when the World’s Fair was held in St.

Buster brown and mary jane