What the heck does Jughead wear?

["Skeet" McD]

From the Land of Archie and Jughead...

I live next door to Haverhill, MA...which is where Archie and Jughead is set; the cartoonist started the strip, apparently, when he was a student at the local High School...and the school in the strip is HHS.

But all of that is ancillary...my father was born in 1919 (still alive) and when I was about 5 (in 1958) made me one of the hats under discussion here...I shiver to think out of what. According to him, such headgear should be decorated with bottle caps, and that's how we decorated mine (I don't have any idea what happened to it, sadly): at that time, bottle caps had a seal made of cork on the inside. You carefully removed the cork, positioned the metal crown cap on the outside of the felt, and then secured it by pressing the cork back in place from inside the crown of the cap (oh boy...too many caps and crowns in this description!). For what it's worth, he grew up in Providence RI: I don't know if the bottle-caps are a local, New England thing, or more widespread. But that's the tradition I grew up with, for what it's worth.

"Skeet"

 

[Michaelshane]

We did bottle caps in the southwest too....on caps and t-shirts.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

My dad told me he had one when he was a kid. That's something I would love to see! Dad's now a body-builder and I can't picture him wearing one!

 

[reetpleat]

What I am noticing is that while they were popular with kids, they were also popular with teens including juvenile delinquents. I love the idea of some 17 year old tough kid in one. Seems like their origins are amongst youngish working men.

 

["Skeet" McD]

What I am noticing is that while they were popular with kids, they were also popular with teens including juvenile delinquents. I love the idea of some 17 year old tough kid in one. Seems like their origins are amongst youngish working men.

I think you are dead-on, RP. Young kids always like to "be older"...and children tend to be very, very conservative, in that they keep on doing things long after others give up...childhood is the ultimate bastion of folklore and folk practice.

"Skeet"

 

[Goose.]

My goodness. Some thread somewhere, it was asked when one started to wear a hat.
Until I saw this thread I'd forgotten that my first hat was a blue and white felt beanie that my elementary school sold as a fundraiser. Guess it was back in 1963/4 as I was in the first grade. While not like Jughead's, seem to recall it may be more more like the propeller head hat in "Beany and Cecil" w/o the propeller.
It was the cool thing to have then. But I can't recall if it had a brim curled up (like Goober's) or simply a beanie.
Nonetheless, thanks to those in this thread for jogging this old boy's memory about my "first hat".

Somewhere I recall seeing a pic of me wearing it. Hope I can find it. Might make a decent, or frightening, avatar.

 

["Skeet" McD]

Until I saw this thread I'd forgotten that my first hat was a blue and white felt beanie that my elementary school sold as a fundraiser. Guess it was back in 1963/4 as I was in the first grade. While not like Jughead's, seem ro recall it may be more more like the propeller head hat in "Beany and Cecil" w/o the propeller. It was the cool thing to have then.

Hey, Goose...I think you just added a strengthening point to the issue raised by ReetPleat: I'm guessing your beanie was exactly that: a beanie, no brim. Once upon a decade...back before WWII....such headgear was the distinguishing feature of college freshmen. I doubt they were worn much after the GI bill, etc...but....gradeschoolers....there you have it, I think.

I DO hope you find that picture!

"Skeet"

 

[Goose.]

[QUOTE="Skeet" McD]Hey, Goose...

I DO hope you find that picture!

"Skeet"[/QUOTE]
LOL Skeet...maybe now you'll regret hoping for that. I do
But, here ya go. And I was correct...1964. That little guy in the Flintstones T-shirt, I used to pick on him all the time until he beat the crud out of me when I was 18...my little brother Year's of anger pent up.

But, turns out, I guess it wasn't my first hat. Maybe something our ambassador in Japan, DaizawaGuy, can relate to was...

TOO MUCH CROWN!!! LOL

.

So, it was a beanie. Apologize for the wild "goose" chase However, again, thanks for jarring my memory as the impetus for me to find these pics

 

[KenS]

Fun Stuff

What fun to remember wearing one in the late 50's / early 60's.
Ken.
Thinking he probably couldn't pull it off anymore.

 

[Caity Lynn]

I remeber one comic where his hat got lost or died or something and some girl made him a new one (I don't think it was one of the main girls)

one thing I could sceam about, my mother...selling her FOUR FOOT TALL pile of archies before I was born:eusa_doh:

 

[Absinthe_1900]

An original Whoopee cap from the the 1940s:

Some of the buttons found with the cap, I also have a 1940s propeller beanie that needs some propeller repair work.


Some info on Benay-Albee Co:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,933842,00.html

 

["Skeet" McD]

An original Whoopee cap from the the 1940s:

YOW! It might be the Holy Grail of a very limited Arthurian mythos...but YOW! I think you've got the Holy Grail of Whoopee caps. What's the size? Child or Adult?

Congratulations. I'm sure we'll all look forward to seeing your other beanie, when it's airworthy....

"Skeet"

PS: all you serious hat collectors out there just discovered where a lot of the ones that got away...got to.

 

[Martinis at 8]

worthlesswithoutpics

I mean really, let's see some actual examples boys!

It seems to be worthless even with pictures! lol

 

[Absinthe_1900]

It's a child's sized cap handed down from a family member, I wore it when I was about five years old, along with the propeller beanie one. Being obsessed with all things that remotely resembled helicopters.

About the same time I got a Mattel Beany 'Copter hat from the old Beany & Cecil Show, it used to launch the propeller up in the air, and on the roof of the house.....causing a lot of swearing by my Dad when he had to get the ladder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxhzahiQshQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUUS63kkH-Y

 

["Skeet" McD]

Distant ancestor....or just random similarity?

One of my other interests is 19C history...and Irish history looms large for me. Seeing as I've now found probably the only other people interested in Whoopee caps...I'll lay this on yez all:

During the period of the Repeal movement, a group of bien-pensants in Dublin decided they needed to reform Irish dress while they were working on the whole self-determination thing One of the things they came up with was the so-called "Milesian Crown" allegedly based on early Irish dress (not): a fancy version in green velvet with gold embroidery and passementerie was made for O'Connell himself; the on-the-streets version was of grey shoddy. They had the beanie-shape and pinked edge we know from the whoopee cap...except these are from the 1840s, not the 1930s:
http://gallery.me.com/finiancircle#100014/MilesianCrown-O-Connell
http://gallery.me.com/finiancircle#100014/MilesianCrowns-Thornbush&bgcolor=black

Might just be chance...they never achieved mass popularity in the 1840s...but children are the ultimate repositories of traditions their elders have given up on long since....and the urban slums where Whoopee caps seem to have gotten their start were...full of Irish immigrants and Irish Americans whose grandparents would have been alive and aware during the Milesian Crown's brief moment of....well, of whatever. Existence.

For what it's worth....which is probably not much, but...stranger things have happened...

"Skeet"

 

[Warbaby]

I wore one of those beanies almost constantly when I was a kid back in the 40s. Mine was maroon and had smaller points on the turn-up than those pictured - more like something done with oversize pinking shears. Thoroughly decorated with pins and things I found that my grandmother would sew on.

BTW, I still have it!

 

[The Wolf]

Reading this thread makes me want get another Jughead hat. Now I'd put a Coca-Cola bottle cap as the red circle. maybe a cigar band as the white rectangle. I think those were put on the caps in the golden age also.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[The Wolf]

http://www.archiecomics.com/riverdale_high_school/3Dpapercrafts/jugs_crown/crown_directions.html

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[Shanghailander]

What I am noticing is that while they were popular with kids, they were also popular with teens including juvenile delinquents. I love the idea of some 17 year old tough kid in one. Seems like their origins are amongst youngish working men.

I think Jack Nicholson's character wears one in The Postman Always Rings Twice

 

["Skeet" McD]

THE BLACK LEGION....a forest of whoopee-caps

Hello all,
Taped THE BLACK LEGION on TCM and sat down to watch it last night; imagine my surprise to see a WHOLE LOT of these caps on the heads of machine shop workers. It looks like the whole film is up on YouTube--and it's a good film on it's own merits--but check out the cap-interest in the first 5 minutes. The interest starts at 1:23 and ends at 4:21, with good shots at 2:11 and 3:00:

[YOUTUBE]<object width="660" height="525"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/EN87jWEUN8E&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/EN87jWEUN8E&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="660" height="525"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]

Bogart is wearing a sort of floppy number; some have the iconic pie-crust dagging, some not...many have slits (some horizontal, some vertical). While this may be "just a fashion fad" it rather looks from this film like we're seeing a practical cap to keep the (oiled) hair clean from dust and dirt while working, like the traditional printer's paper cap. Interesting in this respect to consider Gomer Pyle's character, who wore one as well, if I remember correctly...and who was a car mechanic.

FWIW: enjoy!

"Skeet"