What the heck does Jughead wear?

[ScottyBlues]

I was reading another thread on the lounge and saw a picture of Jughead from the Archie comics. It made me wonder, "what the heck is he wearing on his head?"

So, I looked it up--Wikipedia to the rescue(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jughead_Jones):

Jughead's hat
Jughead is almost always seen wearing his trademark gray crown beanie. This type of crown-shaped cap often puzzles modern readers, but was popular among boys in the 1930s and 1940s. It was made from a man's felt fedora hat with the brim trimmed in a zig-zag and turned up. In the 1920s and 1930s, such caps usually indicated the wearer was a mechanic[citation needed]; Goober Pyle from The Andy Griffith Show (who worked at the local gas station) wore a similar cap. The thug played by Jeff Goldblum in Death Wish also wears a similar beanie. Jughead's beanie was recolored in black when he appeared in the Filmation cartoons. In The New Archies, his beanie was recolored pink.

As noted, above, Goober from "The Andy Griffith Show" also wears one, and I was wondering what it was. Now I know. Now, I just want to know how anyone thought, "Hey, if I take a hat and cut into a kind of crown, I'll look really cool!"

[Fletch]

It used to be called a Whoopee Cap.

There was even a song about them!
Click here to hear "The Whoopee Hat Brigade" by the 6 Jumping Jacks, 1929

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

I mean really, let's see some actual examples boys!

[16_sparrows]

Originally Posted by Miss_Bella_Hell

I mean really, let's see some actual examples boys!

I agree, I would love to see some real examples of this Whoopee cap!

[Feraud]

Didn't one of the Bowery Boys wear one of these?

[jake_fink]

I used to have a very cheap red felt hat like jughead's when I was a little guy. My dad got it for me, though I have no idea where he found it. I pinned on buttons I'd collected. I remember finding the hat as a teen and seeing that one of the buttons was a marijuana leaf which, as a tyke, I'd thought was a maple leaf (being a young Canadian patriot). Alas, the hat and the button are long gone.

[analogist]

For those of you who know me, you know I am very anonymous and low key. I never posted any picture owing to my technology savvy falling slightly below "dunce" and my reticence level being very high BUT......I posed this very question to one of our hatters from suburban Butte Falls OR. and I claim ownership to posssibly the only a VS Custom Jughead hat.

Proudly in my nonsense I remain,

analogist

[kabuto]

Sreedevi Eswaran commissioned custom hatter Dave Brown to make her one:



http://www.davebrownhats.com/testamonials.html

And this guy also ordered one:



They have sweat bands and liners:

Jughead Beanies

You “gotta be a special person" to wear this custom created beanie. This hat is a statement!!!

Made of the finest fur felt available, it’s a duplicate (my interpretation after many hours of research) of the hat Jug wore in the comic books.

The charms and pins are an option and can be what the buyer wants (the pins are available in gold, silver or cast)

If you got the intestinal fortitude, I got the time!

[Bud-n-Texas]

Originally Posted by Miss_Bella_Hell

I mean really, let's see some actual examples boys!

[feltfan]

I read somewhere that they are made by cutting the brim of a fedora. Don't know.

[Absinthe_1900]

If I can find out which box it is stored in, I have a original factory made one from around 1940. It was made with holes in the crown to put slogan buttons, and decorative pins on it, which I believe was the kids fad back in the day.

I have the badges and pins that came with the beanie, (Period Movie star tin litho buttons etc) and if my memory is correct, it has a logo from an old novelty company stamped on the inside.

It came from a family member that kept everything, and then went to me, that keeps everything now.

[16_sparrows]

Thanks for those images - it helps understanding what it is!
Now, I'm just wondering what the heck started the trend of cutting up a fedora, and why it was something mechanics would do.

[Stan]

Hi,

Well, as someone that works a lot as his own mechanic, I can tell you that a fedora, or any other brim hat for that matter, will constantly be knocked off as the brim hits everything in sight. Even a ball cap gets it's share of being knocked off by it's bill. Wearing a skull cap or 'do-rag' is desireable as it helps keep the grease and oil out of your hair.

Personally, I work hatless and wear a crew cut so it's easy to use Ivory bar soap and wash the crud off my head and out of my hair.

As to the styling, it's very reminiscent of an old-style crown gear, which was widely used once upon a time to transmit power via shafts aligned at an angle to each other. Some farm equipment still uses crown gears, although automotive applications switched to enclosed ring-and-pinion gears about 100 years ago.

However, I *can* see where this design could easily have come about to denote a mechanic precisely by looking so much like a crown gear. BTW, the crown gear gets it's name because the drive teeth look so much like the points on a real crown......

I can also see where an old, cruddy fedora might well be hacked up with a pair of tin snips by a mechanic to turn it into a working cap that didn't catch on everything he was working on and yet kept most of the crud out of his hair.

Heck, I have an idea. Maybe I'll buy one of those beat-up looking old vintage fedoras I see all the time on eBay and then hack on it with a pair of tin snips and see how well one of these caps winds up working out when I'm turning wrenches on the antique farm equipment I restore. :P

Later!

Stan

[John in Covina]

Originally Posted by jake_fink

I used to have a very cheap red felt hat like jughead's when I was a little guy. My dad got it for me, though I have no idea where he found it. I pinned on buttons I'd collected. I remember finding the hat as a teen and seeing that one of the buttons was a marijuana leaf which, as a tyke, I'd thought was a maple leaf (being a young Canadian patriot). Alas, the hat and the button are long gone.

***********
What about the marijuana?

[johnnycanuck]

analogist, let me get this straight, you got Art Fawcett to make you a Jughead hat?...... THAT'S BRILLIANT! mind telling us how it turned out? Does it look anything like the pictures already posted?

I made myself one when I was a kid. Bought heavy grey cotton and learned how to use my mothers sewing machine. Turned out not to bad, more of a modified pill box design.... man I was a geek.

Johnny

[jake_fink]

Originally Posted by John in Covina

***********
What about the marijuana?

It was just a green graphic on a pin-back.

[The Wolf]

I had one as a kid that i made out of a cheap hat from DisneyLand.
I was (and am) a huge fan of Jughead. I put on my Archie Club pin and a rectangular name pin. I used to fold it up and put it in my back pocket.

Sincerely,
Forsythe "The Wolf" Jones

[J.B.]

Available here but one-size-fitz-some and you gotta gussy it up yourself?!
______________________

Jughead: Are you calling my room a pig sty?
Archie: Calling this room a pig sty would be an insult to pigs.
______________________

Archie: One of us should get the girls to the car, while the other distracts the monster.
Jughead: Good plan. See ya.
Archie: Wait! Aren't you going to volunteer to stay behind?
Jughead: Sorry, I'm allergic to fur and having my legs ripped off.

[Edward]

Interesting. I've not seen much of Jughead (only one or two old comics - I don't think the Archie comics made it over this side of the pond in great numbers?), but I think I'd laways assumed he was wearing a paper crown. That did seem a little odd...

I can see where these must have come from... Ironically enough, it seems to me that while we talk more about recycling and reuse, it was second nature to folks back then - not the same concept of 'disposability' as we tend to have now. Presumably Dad's old hats, when beyond wearing for him, were cut down to make one of these for the kids - I assume later they came to be made like that new...

Don't see me ever sporting a felt hat without a brim, but I could see one of those making an interesting alternative to a smoking cap for indoor wear...

[ScionPI2005]

Originally Posted by feltfan

I read somewhere that they are made by cutting the brim of a fedora. Don't know.

I cringe at that thought...