#do-nuts

The Do-nut Queen has spoken, people: It’s always Do-nut time!

Well, HAVE you?

Sheet music for "Don't Forget the Salvation Army (My Doughnut Girl)" (1919)

And a performance of the song by Arthur Fields.

Post swim donut

So…Fred Allen was a radio comedian. One of the most popular in the U.S. in the '30s and '40s. His shows pioneered comedy news à la SNL's Weekend Update and the use of a regular ensemble of players. His radio "feud" with Jack Benny, who was also a radio comedian, ran for a decade, and everyone followed it.

Allen was known for a very dry, acerbic, intellectual, sometimes-surreal style of humor. An example is his "Old Joke Graveyard," a backdrop that he hired comic-strip artist Martin Branner to paint and that hung from the theater curtain preceding his arrival on stage. The audience would be warmed up just by reading these jokes that were so old, they died. Note: A few jokes that would not pass muster today are contained in the graphic below:

All that said, do-nuts. So, it looks like Allen struck a deal with the Doughnut Corporation of America to endorse a book of do-nut cartoons in 1946 as a way to promote these toroid treats.

The DCA was a producer of prepared do-nut mixture, likely the biggest in the U.S. Its founder, Adolph Levitt, a Bulgarian refugee, developed the first automatic do-nut machine.

So, take a moment today to thank Adolph Levitt for his efforts to popularize one of the great handheld meals of our time, the do-nut. The DCA, his company, also featured one of the creepier "seals" of the mid-century, which I've discussed earlier this year:

Beware the Do-Nut Cyclopes!