6 Months After Its Debut, ‘Beetle Bailey’ Made the Change That Saved the Military Comic

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Published Oct 15, 2026, 11:22 PM EDT

Collier Jennings is an entertainment journalist with extensive experience. Collier, or "CJ" to his friends and family, is a dedicated fan of genre films - particularly science fiction, fantasy, and comic book adaptations, not to mention all forms of animation. This stems from a close bond with his father, who introduced him to these genres via copies of X-Men comics and reruns of the original Ultraman series. With his near-encyclopedic knowledge and bottomless love of genre, he's tackled a wide variety of articles.

The best comic strips have premises that keep them going for years. Peanuts chronicles Charlie Brown's misadventures and misfortunes. Garfield sees its titular feline scarfing lasagna, despising Mondays, and delivering a stream of pithy put-downs to owner Jon Arbuckle. With Beetle Bailey, most of the fun is watching the title character struggle to make it in the Army while his fellow soldiers deal with his chronic laziness. However, Beetle Bailey had an entirely different premise when it first started, and it almost got canceled as a result.

When Beetle Bailey first started in 1950, creator Mort Walker had Beetle going to college. Back then, Beetle only had to worry about keeping his track scholarship and sorting out the mess that was his dating life. This premise lasted for six months, and it wasn't a hit. In fact, things got so bad that parent company King Features Syndicate considered dropping the strip from publication. Everything changed around the time of the Korean War, leading to Beetle Bailey's evolution into its current form. Walker didn't know this shift would lead to an explosion in popularity and a milestone few comics could match.

'Beetle Bailey’ Made a Genre Shift, and Became a Pop Culture Icon in the Process

The Korean War convinced Mort Walker to shift Beetle Bailey from a slice-of-life story about college to a story about the army, as Beetle dropped out of college and joined the army. Walker also drew on his real-life experiences, as he was drafted by the Army in 1943. As a result, Beetle Bailey is full ofsupporting characters that gave it a new creative energy. Beetle frequently gets on the bad side of his commanding officer, Sgt. Snorkel, leading to full-on fistfights. He also tries to dodge Snorkel's anthropomorphic dog, Otto, and eventually romances the lovely Miss Buxley, secretary to the perpetually frustrated General Halfrack.

Though Beetle Bailey got a second chance at life thanks to its genre shift, that shift also brought more scrutiny to the script, particularly when it came to the real-life military. Some officers weren't happy to see Beetle being portrayed as a constant slacker, or officers like Halfrack being depicted as anything less than professional. Perhaps the biggest obstacle came when the strip introduced its first Black character, Lt. Jackson Flap. Like Franklin in Peanuts, Flap's presence met pushback until readers loudly voiced their concerns and the strip allowed strips featuring him to be published. Mort Walker's son Brian said in an interview that this controversy ironically led to Beetle Bailey's surge in popularity.

“The syndicate really played it up. There was all this publicity about whether the military had a sense of humor. That’s when the strip really took off.”

Adding to the irony, Mort Walker would actually receive Army awards for his work on Beetle Bailey, most notably theDistinguished Civilian Service Award and a Certificate of Appreciation for Patriotic Civilian Service. The latter was given to him because his "ingenuity in portraying Army members in a humorous manner has contributed significantly to the morale of our soldiers as they provide for our national security," proving that even the Army has a sense of humor—or understands how humor can help in certain situations.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Netflix Character Would Be Your Best Friend? Dustin · Emily · Wednesday · Gi-hun

Some friends drag you out of the house. Some sit with you on the worst night of your life. Netflix has written both, plus the one who tells you the truth you have been avoiding all week. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually do friendship, and find out which of them was always going to end up in your corner.

🧢Dustin(Stranger Things)

🗼Emily(Emily in Paris)

🕷️Wednesday(Wednesday)

🟢Gi-hun(Squid Game)

FIND YOUR BEST FRIEND →

How do you usually end up making a new friend? The origin story says a lot about the friendship that follows it.

AWe got loud about the same obsession and never stopped. BThey invited me somewhere before we had properly met. CWe bonded over disliking exactly the same thing. DThey noticed I was struggling and stayed with me.

NEXT QUESTION →

What is a perfect Saturday with your best friend? Friendship is mostly built out of very ordinary hours.

AA ridiculous plan neither of us should attempt. BSomewhere new, photographed heavily, ending very late. CSomewhere quiet, few people, zero small talk. DSomething simple, and a conversation that actually matters.

NEXT QUESTION →

You call them at two in the morning. What happens? This is the real test of a friendship, and everybody knows it.

AThey are already putting their shoes on. BThey answer instantly and turn it into a plan. CThey answer and say something unflattering and true. DThey listen for an hour and never check the time.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do you want from them when you are clearly wrong? The best friendships are the ones that survive being corrected.

ASupport first. We can review the mistake later. BA relentlessly positive reframe of the entire disaster. CThe blunt version. Do not soften it for me. DPatience, and no judgment about how I got here.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do your friends actually value about you? The friend you attract says something about the friend you are.

AI am all in, always, about everything. BI can turn almost any situation into a good time. CI say the thing nobody else in the room will. DI look after whoever is having the worst day.

NEXT QUESTION →

You have a falling out. How does it go? How a friendship repairs itself matters more than how it breaks.

ALoudly, briefly, then back to normal by Tuesday. BThey apologise first, enthusiastically, with a gift. CCold silence, then one dry joke that fixes everything. DWe talk until we both understand what actually happened.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do you actually need a best friend for? Everybody is missing something. The right friend fills that gap.

ATo make my life bigger than it would be alone. BTo push me out of the house and into my own life. CTo catch me when I start lying to myself. DTo be the person who never gave up on me.

NEXT QUESTION →

Ten years from now, what keeps the two of you close? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who you get.

AWe would still drop everything for each other, instantly. BWe still make plans, and we still actually go. CWe still cut through each other's nonsense in one sentence. DThey stood by me once when it cost them something.

REVEAL MY BEST FRIEND →

The Group Chat Has Spoken Your Best Friend Is…

Four Netflix characters, four completely different ways of showing up for somebody. This is the one who fits how you actually do friendship, and what having them in your life would be like.

Dustin Henderson

You do not do friendship at half volume, and neither does he. What you want is somebody who says yes to the plan before you have finished describing the plan.

Dustin is the friend the entire show runs on: loyal past the point of sense, enthusiastic about everything, and incapable of leaving anybody behind.
You have the same instinct. Your friendships are loud, specific and slightly ridiculous, and they last for decades because of it.
He is also the one person who would take your strangest interest completely seriously, which is far rarer than it sounds.
You would have a group chat. It would never once be quiet.

Emily Cooper

You are the friend who makes things happen, and so is she. Together you would be mildly exhausting to everyone around you and completely delighted with yourselves.

Emily treats an ordinary Tuesday as something that could be turned into an occasion, which is either the best or the worst quality in a friend depending on your energy levels.
You share her refusal to sit still. Neither of you has ever accepted a night in when something was happening somewhere else.
She is far more loyal than people give her credit for. She defends her friends loudly, publicly, and occasionally before checking the facts.
She would post the photo without asking. You would forgive her, because it is a very good photo.

Wednesday Addams

You have no patience for pleasant lies, and she has no ability to tell them. What looks like coldness from the outside is the most reliable friendship on this list.

Wednesday never says a kind thing she does not mean, which makes the rare ones count for an enormous amount.
You would rather be told the truth than be made comfortable. She is constitutionally incapable of offering you anything else.
Underneath all of it she is ferociously protective. She simply refuses to make a performance out of caring.
Do not expect a birthday message. Do expect her to ruin anyone who wrongs you.

Seong Gi-hun

You look after whoever is having the worst day. So does he. It is the least strategic way to move through the world and the best possible quality in a friend.

Gi-hun is not the strongest player in Squid Game, or the cleverest. He is the one who keeps choosing to protect somebody else, over and over, at genuine cost to himself.
You have the same instinct. You notice who is struggling and you stay with them, long after anybody would blame you for leaving.
He is a flawed friend, and that is part of why it lands. He lets people down, then comes back and tries again, which is more than most manage.
He would give you his last chance and never once mention that he had done it.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

75 Years Later, ‘Beetle Bailey’ Continues To Thrive

Beetle Bailey is still going strong, 75 years after its creation. Though Mort Walker passed away in 2018, his sons Neal, Brian, and Greg continue to work on the comic strip. Walker's alma mater, the University of Missouri, erected a statue of Beetle Bailey. A Beetle Bailey animated series even aired in 1963, bringing Beetle and his friends to life. Beetle and Sgt. Snorkel also appeared in the animated anthology Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated Laughter, which featured nearly every character from King Features Syndicate's cartoon strips.

Beetle Bailey's success wouldn't have been possible if Mort Walker hadn't decided to change its genre. It's a reminder that comics, unlike other storytelling mediums, are fluid enough to change with the times.