This Ink Pen rerun from February 2010 just happened to appear on New Year’s Day 2024. I can recognize the cartoon sources for all of the names mentioned by Hamhock, but I can identify only one of Ralston’s examples (the last one: “Goolagong“). I assume that most of the rest would yield relatively quickly to a concerted Internet search, but that’s not what I want to know. Is this a “geezer” and/or “millennial” issue? How many of those twelve names in the first three panels are obvious to the rest of you?
Comics I Don't Understand 
Fuzzy is presumably Fuzzy Zoeller, a golfer; Picabo also rings a bell as maybe a tennis player or a footballer (non-American type football).
I imagine Muggsy is a form of Muggs?
Cricketers have a habit of adding a Y to the surnames of players if they have one-syllable names: Straussy, Cooky, Rooty, Broady, Finny. Then there was an Australian cricketer really called Michael Hussey whose nickname, of course, was Huss or The Huss (also, he was called Mr Cricket for his encyclopaedic knowledge of the game).
I know all of the cartoon references, and I knew who Goolagong referred to without Kilby’s help. Of the 6 athletes in the first three panels, I know 3 for sure: Muggsy, Mookie, and Picabo (and I know that one is pronounced Peekaboo). The other 3 feel familiar, but I can’t place them.
After looking, Spud and Fuzzy were names I knew, but from sports I pay little to no attention to. The last guy, I know I’ve heard of, but his career was after I moved to Germany and stopped following his sport.
Who the heck is Goolagong? I know most of the others except Fuzzy and Muggsy.
In a big win, you remembered to write 2024 for the date. Oh, wait …
I am not a sports person, but I recognize Mookie Wilson, who hit the grounder that went between Bill Buckner’s legs in the 1986 World Series, and Picabo Street, Olympic gold medalist downhill skiier.
Goolagong was a tennis player as I recall. And Picabo was a skiier.
Fuzzy could also be Fuzzy Thurston of the 1960’s Green Bay Packers.
I got all the other sports names right:
Muggsy Bogues, Spud Webb (both pro BB players under 5’6″, btw)
Fuzzy Thurston/Zoeller, Mookie Wilson
Picabo Street
Plaxico Burress
Evonne Goolagong (Aussie aboriginal champion tennis player)
I got all the cartoon names too, but this crowd’s all over that already. Go figure.
Switching to the Ink Pen characters: Hamhock for a pig is easy to understand, but is there some wordplay in the rabbit’s name being Ralston?
So, Spud is from *Wallace the Great*, and Fuzzy is obviously from *Get Fuzzy*…
Or am I playing it wrong?
(Why, why, WHY must they continue to fiddle and fix something that isn’t broken?? For years we’ve been using this site just fine, but <i>now</i>, suddenly, that infernal mark-down that they had stops working, just when I’ve taught myself to use it; this is to say nothing of the pointless “upgrade” that has now made this site unusable for commenting on my favorite (older) browser. I’m continuing to read the site on my preferred browser because it’s on my preferred computer, and I can’t upgrade it, but THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY THIS SITE SHOULDN’T CONTINUE TO WORK THERE! It worked before, and nothing major has changed! So, Good Work wORD pREss, you’ve driven me away from commenting because you’ve made it such a pig pain in the neck, all for no good reason. Brilliant.)
“Ralston Rabbit” is just for alliteration, he’s basically a boring and straitlaced take on Bugs Bunny.
(And I suppose “Ralston” sounds stuffy and snooty, in keeping with the characterization.)
Evonne Goolagong was the only name I knew without thinking – big tennis cheese in the 70s and early 80s, and the first mother to win the singles title at Wimbledon in 66 years. From an Australian Aboriginal family, which explains her surname (and makes her achievements in a predominantly white sport all the more remarkable, especially then).
“Goolagong went on to win 14 Grand Slam tournament titles: seven in singles (four at the Australian Open, two at Wimbledon and one at the French Open), six in women’s doubles, and one in mixed doubles,” says Wikipedia. No. 12 on the all-time list of women’s Grand Slam singles winnners.
As a sports fan, I was able to get all those. The comic/cartoon ones were pretty straightforward. I don’t know if Bugs ever appeared in comic strips.
I’m more into music than sports, so I recognized Muggsy as Muggsy Spanier, the jazz cornet player. Possibly musicians have funnier names than athletes: Wingy, Yo-Yo, Lady, Lang Lang (a pianist, not a panda), Bix, Bing.
@MiB, I recall a short story where somebody recalls a childhood fear of a creature or monster called Big Spider Becky. Then turns out they had been overhearing adults who were jazz fans discussing Bix Beiderbecke.
It says a lot that several people remember Mookie Wilson, a decent Mets outfielder from the 1980s, but nobody thought of Mookie Betts, 2018 AL MVP & 2023 NL MVP runner up.I knew all the names on both lists, but neither is all that weird compared to what you’ll find browsing a recent FBS roster, like OU QBs Spencer Rattler & General Booty.
I assume that “Ralston” is from Ralston Purina, makers of rabbit chow.
Or: Hut-Sut Rawlson on the rillerah and a brawla, brawla sooit.
Downpuppy: Never heard of Mookie Wilson. Betts was the one I was thinking.
@Mitch4: And I heard about a guy trying to buy a ticket to a show that was recommended to him. He couldn’t remember the title, but it was about a guy who had a name like a heavy bird. Fat Swallow. The show was “Ain’t Misbehavin'”.
@Mitch4: And there is a musician named Spider: Spider John Koerner. I don’t know if he ever teamed up with Jimmy Webb or The Weavers.
@ DNH (4) – The reason that I identified the comic as being a 2010 re-run is that I initially made the same mistake as larK (8), thinking that “Spud” might be the character from “Wallace the Brave”. (Which is also why “Mookie” has to be “Wilson” and not “Betts”.)
P.S. @ Brian (14) – Bugs Bunny qualifies because Hamhock used the generic term “cartoon characters”, which applies to both media.
P.P.S. Thanks to Padraig @7 for the sporting names; here’s the cartoon list:
Bugs (Bunny), Odie (Garfield), Ziggy (no pants), Zippy (Pinhead), Sluggo (Nancy), Bluto (Popeye)
P.P.P.S. … and a great big “THANKS!” to larK @10 for identifying a massive piece of wordpress stupidity that is causing me a lot of problems, too. The WP idiot who thought that readers should be forced to use a block-wise editor for normal comments needs his head examined.
The problem with Ralston’s list is the first six names are first names or nicknames. Goolagong is a family name. Seems a little cruel to make fun of an aboriginal name.
Another musician: Ziggy Elman. You might think his real name was Siegfried Elman, but actually it was Harry Aaron Finkelman.
I was thinking of basketball player Mookie Blaylock, the person after whom Pearl Jam originally planned to name their band.
By the way, yes, there was a Bugs Bunny comic strip, although I assume that Bugs was included here due to his popularity in animated cartoons rather than in comic strips.
LarK – While I don’t have a problem with this site, I do hate to lose old software. This laptop is Win 10 as I needed to get same due to the annually changing tax software I need to use. My desktop computer is Win 7. But even that is too recent for some software I like to use. So each of my two computers has an Windows XP “side” in it. (Yes, XP).
I REALLY like Lotus Organizer and my Palm Centro. With the XP I can still use and even sync the Centro with the Organizer. While I don’t schlep the Lotus around while out of the house, I do carry it around in the house (along with my other cell phones*) as I prefer it to my Android calendar/to do. (I have a VERY UNDERSTANDING husband.)
Have to go make him pudding, which I forgot to do.