Hazel (comics)

Hazel is a single-panel cartoon series by Ted Key about a live-in maid who works for a middle-class family. The character of Hazel came to Key in 1943 during a dream that he drew the next morning and sent to The Saturday Evening Post, where it quickly became a popular series.

In 2008, the cartoonist's son, Peter Key, talked about the origin of the character, "Like a lot of creative people, he kept a notepad near his bedside. He had a dream about a maid who took a message, but she screwed it up completely. When he looked at the idea the next day, he thought it was good and sold it to The Post."

Shortly afterward, the wry and bossy household maid was given the name Hazel, along with employment at the Baxter household. Peter Key recalled, "He picked the name Hazel out of the air, but there was an editor at The Post who had a sister named Hazel. She thought her brother came up with the name, and she didn’t speak to him for two years."

Hazel ran weekly in the The Saturday Evening Post until the magazine ceased publication in 1969, after which the cartoon was picked up for daily newspaper syndication by King Features Syndicate. Key continued to draw Hazel until his retirement in 1993. Ted Key died in May 2008.

Key's cartoons were reprinted in a series of books, including Here's Hazel and All Hazel. The first in the series, Hazel, was published by E. P. Dutton in 1946, and sold 500,000 copies. Kirkus Reviews commented:

In 2008, King Features was reprinting Hazel panels in more than 50 newspapers.

Key adapted his cartoon series into the television show Hazel (TV series), starring Shirley Booth, who won two Emmy Awards portraying the titular maid. It ran from 1961 to 1965 on NBC; for its final 1965-66 season, the show switched to CBS.

Key won the National Cartoonists Society's Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award for 1977 for Hazel.

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