Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jun 8, 2024 | 3 comments

Sha-what?

By WALT GROGAN

One of the champions of comicdom, C.C. Beck, was born 114 years ago! Beck is best known for being the co-creator and primary artist of the greatest superhero ever to appear on the four-color page! That’s right… the Big Red Cheese… the World’s Mightiest Mortal… the one and only original Captain Marvel! Well, at least in this humble writer’s opinion!

But Beck, born June 8, 1910, also drew the adventures of another captain, one, who while less well-known, represented a product that is still sold in stores and is an infamous Halloween treat. That treat is the Tootsie Roll and that hero is Captain Tootsie!

Walt’s story was so effective that I went out and bought a bag of Tootsie Pops today. — Dan

Beck and writer Rod Reed created the character in 1943 and Captain Tootsie appeared regularly in ads until 1955. They were typically one-page, adventure-focused advertisements that hawked the candy by boasting that it would provide a burst of quick energy to anyone who ate it!

Captain Tootsie was often aided by a kid gang, the Secret Legion. The group — consisting of Rollo, Fisty, and Fatso — was similar to many of the kid gang comics of the time. And depending on who needed some energy, Tootsie would produce a handful of the soft, chewy candy.

Beck was joined by his inker, Pete Costanza, on art and after a few advertisements, the credit of Rod Reed and C.C. Beck changed to C.C. Beck and Pete Costanza.

Tootsie even proved popular enough to headline a two-issue comic book published by Toby in 1950!

Captain Tootsie also appears, semi-regularly, in Erik Larsen’s Image comic Savage Dragon, starting in #199.

Marvel’s Doc Samson wears a uniform that appears to be patterned after Captain Tootsie’s togs.

So, without further ado, grab a fistful of Tootsie Rolls (my favorites are cherry and vanilla) and check out these 13 CAPTAIN TOOTSIE ADS by Beck and Costanza!

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MORE

— 13 MARVELOUS ILLUSTRATIONS: A C.C. BECK Birthday Celebration. Click here.

— The Lost C.C. Beck SHAZAM! Cover from 1973 — NOW IN LIVING COLOR. Click here.

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A 10-year-old Walt Grogan fell in love with the Big Red Cheese thanks to essays written by Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson in the paperback edition of All in Color for a Dime, released in 1970 and bought for him by his father off a paperback spinner rack in a liquor store on the South Side of Chicago. Walt runs The Marvel Family Web Facebook page devoted to all incarnations of the Fawcett/DC Captain Marvel and blogs about Captain Marvel at shazamshistorama.com.