"September Scrimmage"

So, the Eagles' annual tradition of getting fans' hopes up and then dashing them when it matters continues without a hitch. Always the bridesmaid; that's us. You might have thought that the new quarterback situation would have changed this, for better or worse, but you would be wrong. It's clearly some sort of bizarre team pathology.
At any rate, to "celebrate" this dubious tradition, here we have 1957's "September Scrimmage." Hey! I hear you shouting. Why aren't you running this in September? To which I reply: because it seems unlikely that there'll even be an NFL season in 2011. To which you reply in turn: maybe, but in that case you could run this comic to fill the gap! To which I say: look, shut up. You're being obnoxious. You are entirely free to put off reading this entry until September if it makes you feel better.

This story is the most throwaway-y of throwaway efforts. It was originally published in something called Mickey Mouse Annual, which included a four-page story for each month plus a whole bunch of lame word games and things. It's certainly the only time Barks made an effort to write about football, which I suppose gives it some interest.



...and this may have had something to do with the fact that he appears not to have totally understood the game. I can't help noting that fullback is an offensive position, for one. That may actually make sense, however, given that both teams appear to have their offenses on the field. Finally, on this subject, being behind by six hardly seems to indicate that the Barkers are an unstoppable juggernaut--the defense was apparently able to hold them to field goals.

Also, look at how Scrooge's line plays merry hell with any idea of continuity. "Webfoot Tech?" A good part of Scrooge's aura is that he's entirely a self-made man with no formal education (just like college football players--zing!). It is rather no wonder that Rosa ignored this goofiness in the L&T. Here is a highly baroque effort by some dude named Rob Klein to fit this line into some sort of coherent timeline. I remain skeptical.



...with plays like the above, of course, this game seems like it could quickly get out of hand. Louie gets injured and Scrooge has to step in. I've always said that football games would be more exciting if teams would draft random volunteers from the stands in case of injury--this is putting that concept into action!



...those players who at first glance appear to be nephews but then aren't are certainly funny-looking, I must say.



Scrooge just standin' there, lookin' like the cat who ate the canary--highly amusing. I was going to say "the extra point? Pft--so? That's a formality! Big deal!" But then some quick googling revealed that back in the day, extra points were far from automatic. Interesting--I can't help thinking that it would add some good strategy to the game if new rules were instituted to return it to this state.



In spite of this, the "attach a piece of corn on a string to the ball and get a trained pigeon to fly over the goal" seems a bit like overkill. I can't object too strenuously, however--maybe with that stratagem, Akers would've made those #$%$ field goals.



...regrettably, the story just peters out like this. Can't blame Barks for that; he only had four pages to work with--still, if it had been longer, it might have developed into something more substantial. Oh well!

Anyway, the moral of this story is, football was way cooler in 1870.