End of the Line

As a young newspaper cartoonist in the early 1900s, Fontaine Fox took a streetcar ride that changed the course of his life. On the way to a friend's house in Pelham Manor, near New York City, Fox rode a ramshackle suburban streetcar with a cheery Irish conductor who greeted every passenger by name, chatted about their families, and even waited for passengers who were not at their regular corners on time. When Fox asked for directions to his friend's house, the conductor stopped the car, got out, walked to the top of a nearby hill, and pointing, said: "That the fellow who moved in a couple of months ago? He lives over there." Fox not only found the house; he also got the idea for the Toonerville Trolley, and made it the basis of one of the best-known syndicated U.S. comic strips. Since he launched the trolley on its rickety way in 1916, it has become synonymous with broken-down transportation everywhere, earned Cartoonist Fox close to $2,000,000.

Last week Cartoonist Fox, 70, who likes to wear a cap like the trolley's Skipper, drove his streetcar with its stovepipe mast to the end of the line. He drew his final panel and retired.

The Skipper deserves a rest. For 36 years his trolley, which was off the track as much as on, has done much more than erratically "meet all trains." It has been the community center for a full cast of Toonerville characters, including derby-wearing Mickey ("Himself") McGuire, who, says Cartoonist Fox, "is not merely a bully but a juvenile terror"; Terrible Tempered Mr. Bang, the local thunderer; Aunt Eppie Hog, the fattest woman in three counties; "Whisky Bill" Wortle; the Powerful Katrinka and dozens of other caricatures of small-town life in the U.S. Mickey McGuire became so well known as an impish tough guy that a child actor named Joe Yule Jr. changed his name to Mickey McGuire when he started out in Hollywood. He abandoned it and became Mickey Rooney, after Fontaine Fox proved in court that he owned a copyright on the character. Two years ago, with trolleys disappearing in the U.S., Cartoonist Fox shattered the car in a wrenching accident and salvaged its parts for a new Toonerville Bus. But three months ago Proprietor Fox put the old Toonerville Trolley back on the track again, ready for its final trip.

Fontaine Fox has no intention of letting anyone else carry on the strip after his retirement. Says he: "I don't think anyone can really carry on something that another person has created and worked on all his life."

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