"More than 50 years ago, America was taken by storm when Al Capp introduced the Shmoo in his comic strip Li'l Abner - where Sadie Hawkins Day also first appeared. In the words of Life magazine, the nation was "Shmoo-struck." The adorable squash-shaped character was so popular that it immediately spawned a massive merchandising craze: there were Shmoo dolls, Shmoo watches - even Shmoo ashtrays and Shmoo fishing lures. Shmoo clubs sprang up around the country - including a "Society for the Advancement of the Shmoo" - and inflatable Shmoos managed to reach German soil as part of the Berlin Air Lift. It was, as a reviewer in The New York Times commented, "a cultural event of enormous significance.""--BOOK JACKET.