LEGENDARY HEROES #35

HOP HARRIGAN

Hop Harrigan was the creation of Jon L. Blummer and appeared in the April 1939 issue of All-American Comics #1, a title published by the All-American Publications comic book company owned by Max Gaines.  Gaines is often credited with being the creator of comic books, publishing the first mass market book in 1934 called Famous Funnies.  All-American Publications was sort of a subsidiary of Detective Comics, and ownership in both companies had some crossover.  Even characters created by All-American would also appear in DC comics like The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Doctor Mid-Nite, The Atom, and Wonder Woman.  Gaines had a partner Jack Liebowitz who was also part owner at DC, and Gaines sold out to him in 1944 so that he could start his own company Educational Comics.  When Max died in a boating accident his son William Gaines took over EC comics and created some of the greatest comic books in the history of the industry, including Mad magazine.  As to Liebowitz, he merged All-American and DC into National Periodical Publications to become the biggest comic publisher in the United States.

Hop Harrigan becomes an orphan when his father, a legendary pilot, disappears on a flight to South America.  Hop's story begins with him being raised by a neighbor, a cruel farmer named Silas Crane.  Crane gets legal guardianship of Hop in order to obtain Hop's inheritance.  When Hop becomes a teenager he takes off in a bi-plane that once belonged to his father leaving the cruel Silas Crane forever.  He lands at an airport where he befriends a mechanic, Tank Tinker, who gives Hop his nickname after a rough landing, saying, "Some hop, Harrigan".  Hop, Tank, another aviator named Prop Wash, and an heiress who becomes Hop's girlfriend go together to form the All-American Aviation Company and they have a variety of exciting adventures.  During WWII  most of the stories dealt with the war as Hop, Tank, and Prop joined the US Army Air Corps.  Hop's adventures ran in All-American Comics until issue #99 in July 1948.

Like many successful comic book characters Hop Harrigan made a crossover into newspaper comic strips beginning May 11, 1942.  The strip was distributed by the George Matthew Adams Service, a small syndicate (I never heard of them) and Hop's tenure in newspapers was short, coming to an end on December 31, 1942.  But Hop's crossover to radio was much more successful.  The Hop Harrigan radio show began on ABC on August 31, 1942 and ran until August 2, 1946.  Then it was picked up by the Mutual Broadcasting System and was aired from October 2, 1946 until February 6, 1948.  General Foods became a sponsor on October 2, 1944, and one of the early writers on the show was David Goodis who went on to become a great novelist, his best-known work being "Dark Passage" that was filmed with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.  Most of the shows had Hop doing battle with the Axis powers during WWII, and at age 18 Hop wasn't much older than the show's target audience of young listeners.  The program was produced in cooperation with the Air Training Corps of America and was endorsed by the Office of the Adjutant General of the Army.  In the show's second month the staff received 124,264 letters from listeners who were sending in for premiums being offered on the air.  Most of the premiums were aviation pins, and patches with the motto "Keep 'Em Flying" that, coincidentally, was also a slogan used in war posters to promote productivity at war plants.  The radio show offered listeners two organizations to join - the All-American Flying Club and the American Observation Corps.

In 1946 Columbia pictures released a 15-chapter serial of Hop Harrigan that starred William Bakewell as Hop and Sumner Getchell as Tank Tinker.  The hero of Hop Harrigan probably isn't remembered much today, but during World War II he was a genuine hero who thrilled radio listeners and comic book readers alike.