Garfield, Meet Mr. Potato Head.

• Author: Kaelble, Steve
• Position: Brief Article

The latest from the Muncie-based cartoonist

A couple of years ago, the toy makers at Hasbro Inc. decided to teach an old potato some new tricks. So they called a master of the funny pages: Indiana's Jim Davis.

"They saw that the familiarity of Mr. Potato Head was very high. More than a toy, it's an icon, and not just for kids," says Davis, best known as the creator of the "Garfield" comic strip. "They thought maybe a comic strip would be good."

Who better to call than Davis, whose fat cat lounges around more papers than any other comic character? Davis bounced the idea around with Brett Koth, a longtime collaborator on the "Garfield" strip. "Brett, as it turns out, is a Mr. Potato Head freak," Davis says.

Both Koth and Davis recall their childhood days when Mr. Potato I-lead, born in 1952, made use of a real potato. "My poor father still bears the battle scars on the soles of his feet from uncounted trips to the bathroom in the wee hours, my Mr. Potato Head parts scattered across his path in the darkness-points up," Koth recalls.

Though they're not in the habit of creating comic strips for hire, Davis and Koth found the idea of developing the Mr. Potato Head character intriguing. "Everybody knew what he was, but nobody knew who he was," Davis says. Though "Toy Story" viewers were introduced to a Mr. Potato Head character voiced by Don Rickles, Davis says the character wasn't onscreen enough to be developed in depth.

Creating that depth became a two-year task for Davis and Koth, who will share billing on the "Mr. Potato Head" strip when it debuts July 16. "As compared to the movie," Davis says, "he's more of a family man, less of a toy."

As a family man, of course...