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By Joe Gulick
Avalanche-Journal
Dirk West borrowed from both William Shakespeare and Walt Disney for this cartoon.
The first two lines of the witch’s chant are straight out of Act 4 of “Macbeth,” and her appearance obviously was inspired by the witch who poisoned Snow White with an apple in Disney’s classic 1937 movie. The witch’s cat resembles Lucifer, the evil stepmother’s feline, in Disney’s “Cinderella.”
Texas Tech, which was 1-6 when this cartoon was printed on Oct. 27, 1981, had just been defeated by the 18th-ranked Washington Huskies 14-7 before a home crowd of only 36,335.
The Mustang lamented its 9-7 loss to sixth-ranked Texas at home, but that was SMU’s only 1981 loss. The Ponies finished 10-1 and ranked fifth in the nation. The NCAA had handed them two years’ probation on June 10, 1981, for 29 recruiting violations and did not allow SMU to play in a bowl game.
Dirk used Halloween and Thanksgiving as themes for cartoons almost every year. The Boo Bird’s costume choice was the University of Houston coach, who was in his 20th year of a 25-year career at Houston.
The witch flying in the background warned, “Muggsy may come to your house” as a trick-or-treater. Muggsy was Dirk’s nickname for his grandson, David Martinez, who was 19 months old at the time. Dirk worked the nickname in various places into many of his cartoons.
Previous Dirk West Cartoons
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