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Blondie's Maiden Name


Interesting in this, the first Blondie movie, we see Blondie's mother, Mrs. Miller, and sister, Dot Miller.

In the comic strip, Blondie was originally a flapper girl, much like Betty Boop, who crossed paths with the young high society lad, Dagwood Bumstead.

If Dagwood continued pursuing the wild Blondie, then his rich family would disinherit him.

Like Wallis Simpson and Prince Edward, love conquered all.

Dagwood married Blondie and his family cut all financial ties to him.

Their loss. Dagwood continues today in the comics and they also did the mvoies, of course, and endless tv appearances.

But Blondie's maiden name wasn't Miller.

She was Blondie Boopadoop.

Domesticity worked more for the former Miss Boopadoop than it did for Betty Boop of course, who never saw her fame go as high as it was when she was her old racy self.

A third party girl of the comic strips was Fritzi Ritz.

Fritzi would have her neice, Nancy, visit her once and Nancy literally took off with the strip, much like a sailor named Popeye would do with the brother and sister strip involving Olive Oyl and Castor Oyl.

Nancy would later be joined by her buddy, Sluggo, and on the rarest occassion, we would glimpse her Aunt Fritzi.



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Nice show of your vintage comic strip knowledge, Richard! I happen to be aware of all the info you posted but it's nice to know I'm not the only one around here who loves the old-time "funnies!"

I think the filmmakers chose wisely to NOT use the newspaper strip version of Blondie's maiden name. It's much too close to Betty Boop's surname. In fact, the fanboy "continuity cop" in me wants to say that Boopadoop wasn't Blondie's REAL maiden name even in the original strip! It was an alias she used because her Miller folks didn't approve of her party-girl lifestyle so she changed it to spare them any further embarrassment!

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I imagine Penny Singleton's Blondie was nowhere near the flapper version when she was originally named Boopadoop, but still, your theory is plausible as well.

No idea why I was being such a know-it-all.

Of course, we also have the Wilma Pebble of the Flintstones becoming Wilma Slaghoople to Liz Taylor's Pearl Slaghoople.

I guess that cartoon episode was the only time Wilma's maiden name was ever mentioned.

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That's good research. I also had been under the impression that Blondie's maiden name is Miller because of this initial film although I heard an announcer report that it was Blondie Oot or something to that effect.

True, most sources today cite Blondie Boopadoop Bumstead as her name.

But in the film chapter Blondie for Victory (1942), the continuity breaks yet once again, as she is referenced as having yet a different maiden name.

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I recall a movie "Blondie Goes to College" or something like that, where Blondie and Dagwood go to college pretending they are single. As I recall, Blondie used the name Blondie Smith, which I would assume would be her maiden name, but perhaps in the movie it was just a pseudonym.

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I saw that one. Lloyd Bridges played a college student suiting after her. To Dagwood's consternation.

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What do I get?!

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