Barney Google

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith
Bunky and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (July 26, 1942)
Author(s)	Billy DeBeck
Current status / schedule	Running
Launch date	June 17, 1919
Syndicate(s)	King Features Syndicate
Publisher(s)	Cupples & Leon, Hyperion Press, Kitchen Sink Press, IDW Publishing
Genre(s)	Humor

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, originally Take Barney Google, F'rinstance, is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Billy DeBeck. Since its debut on June 17, 1919, the strip has gained a huge international readership, appearing in 900 newspapers in 21 countries. The initial appeal of the strip led to its adaptation to film, animation, popular song and television. It added several terms and phrases to the English language and inspired the 1923 hit tune "Barney Google (with the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes)" with lyrics by Billy Rose, as well as the 1923 record, "Come On, Spark Plug!"

Barney Google himself, once the star of the strip and a very popular character in his own right, has been almost entirely phased out of the feature. An increasingly peripheral player in his own strip beginning in the late 1930s, Google was officially "written out" in 1954, although he would occasionally return for cameo appearances. These cameos were often years apart—from a period between 1997 and 2012, Barney Google wasn't seen in the strip at all. Google was reintroduced to the strip in 2012, and has been seen very occasionally since, making several week-long appearances.

Snuffy Smith, who was initially introduced as a supporting player in 1934, has now been the comic strip's central character for over 60 years. Nevertheless, the feature is still titled Barney Google and Snuffy Smith.

Like Mutt and Jeff, Barney Google started out on the sports page. First appearing as a daily strip in the sports sections of the Chicago Herald and Examiner in 1919, it was originally titled Take Barney Google, F'rinstance. The title character, a little fellow (although he would shrink in stature even more after the first year) with big "banjo" eyes, was an avid sportsman and ne'er-do-well involved in poker, horse racing and prize fights.

The "goggle-eyed, moustached, gloved and top-hatted, bulbous-nosed, cigar-chomping shrimp" (according to comics historian Bill Blackbeard) was relentlessly henpecked by "a wife three times his size" (as the song lyric goes). The formidable Mrs. Lizzie Google, a.k.a. "the sweet woman", sued Barney for divorce and thereafter virtually disappeared from the strip. By October 1919, the strip was distributed by King Features Syndicate and was published in newspapers across the country.