Original Usenet thread from alt.ascii-art, started 22 Dec 1994.
Kilroy was here
alt.ascii-art
· 3 messages · 22 Dec 1994 - 30 Dec 1994
Niccolo Machiavelli (nig...@pentagon.io.com) wrote:
: In article <3ckm3h$46...@btr0x1.hrz.uni-bayreuth.de>,
: Raphael Rueffer <a03...@btr0x7.HRZ.Uni-Bayreuth.DE> wrote:
: >For an American Cultural Literacy course I'm taking I
: >need to find out as much as possible about the origin
: >of the term "Kilroy was here". It probably originated
: >sometime during WWII.
: During WWII, (James?) Kilroy was an inspector witht he Navy. He
: had to perform maintainance and qualtiy control checks and such on ships
: before they set to sea. Inspectors had to initial bulkheads to show that
: they had been through the area. Kilroy wrote "Kilroy was here (date),"
: with a little picture of a dude with a big schnozz looking over a wall
: for his mark. Deploying GIs saw this and disemminated it as they
: traveled the world.
: I could be off on a few details. I'm drawing from memeory --
: this inbfo was on America's Top 40 years ago, when Styx had Mr. Roboto on
: the charts. Corrections are welcome.
You are close, but in the genuine "Kilroy was here" there were no
pictures, only the words.
The pictures are either of Mr. Chad:
. : : : : : : .
: :
: :
: . . . . . . :
: : x : : x : :
-------UUUU---------------- : : --------------UUUU---------
| : : |
| `--' |
| |
| Mr. CHAD says |
| |
| WOTCH IT !!! |
| |
| |
------------------------------------------------------------
-cfbd-
Spurious Kilroy versions:
..................................................
: ...... :
: .:||||||||:. :
: / \ :
: ( o o ) :
:-------@@@@----------: :----------@@@@---------:
: `--' :
: :
: :
: K I L R O Y S A Y S H I ! :
:................................................:
or Luke the Spook:
,,,
(o o)
-------------------------------------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-------
,,,
(. .)
-------------------------------------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-------
.
|___
(}o o{)
-------------------------------------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-------
,,,
(o-o)
-------------------------------------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-------
,,,
($ $)
------------------------------------------------------ooO-(_)-Ooo-------
,,,
------------------------------------------------------ooO(o o)Ooo-------
(_)
,,,
-------------------------------------------------------ooO(o o)Ooo-------
v
Bye,
In article <3db9cp$ma...@southern.co.nz> Col...@equinox.gen.nz (Colin Douthwaite) writes: Niccolo Machiavelli (nig...@pentagon.io.com) wrote: : During WWII, (James?) Kilroy was an inspector witht he Navy. He : had to perform maintainance and qualtiy control checks and such on ships : before they set to sea. Inspectors had to initial bulkheads to show that : they had been through the area. Kilroy wrote "Kilroy was here (date)," : with a little picture of a dude with a big schnozz looking over a wall : for his mark. Deploying GIs saw this and disemminated it as they : traveled the world. You are close, but in the genuine "Kilroy was here" there were no pictures, only the words. Hummm - I seem to recall, that the first name was something with an "o" at the beginning (Orville?) - at least I was *told*, that this is the origin of the "O. K." as a synonym for "checked" or "allright". But then again, that could be an urban legend ... Sven -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- /''' <a href="http://www.astro.umd.edu/~sgeier> Sven Geier </a> c-OO \ > It's 106 milliseconds to Chicago, we've got a full tank of URLs, half \_v a meg of hypertext, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
Sven Geier (sge...@venus.astro.umd.edu) scribed:
:In article <3db9cp$ma...@southern.co.nz> Col...@equinox.gen.nz (Colin Douthwaite) writes:
: Niccolo Machiavelli (nig...@pentagon.io.com) wrote:
: : During WWII, (James?) Kilroy was an inspector witht he Navy. He
: : had to perform maintainance and qualtiy control checks and such on ships
: : before they set to sea. Inspectors had to initial bulkheads to show that
: : they had been through the area. Kilroy wrote "Kilroy was here (date),"
: : with a little picture of a dude with a big schnozz looking over a wall
: : for his mark. Deploying GIs saw this and disemminated it as they
: : traveled the world.
: You are close, but in the genuine "Kilroy was here" there were no
: pictures, only the words.
:Hummm - I seem to recall, that the first name was something with an
:"o" at the beginning (Orville?) - at least I was *told*, that this is
:the origin of the "O. K." as a synonym for "checked" or
:"allright". But then again, that could be an urban legend ...
yeah, i heard that he was a scots pot riveter who worked in the shipyard
docks on the clyde and that annoyed at the accusations from his workmates
that he was pulling his weight... he wrote the wrods 'kilroy was here' on
all the work that he did on the ships.. like the last post, i heard it was
the words only... and i read somewhere about the clem/chad character too
being just the picture of the man looking over the wall.. maybe the two
have become integrated over the years to form the ultimately most well
known piece of graffiti...
sorry but i didnt have time to cut out superfluous text from previous
posts :)
:Sven
:--
:---------------------------------------------------------------------------
:/''' <a href="http://www.astro.umd.edu/~sgeier> Sven Geier </a>
:c-OO
:\ > It's 106 milliseconds to Chicago, we've got a full tank of URLs, half
: \_v a meg of hypertext, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
--
.---------------------------------.
__ _____| |-| | ! ___ ___ . |_____ __
_________| |__| :| (___ | _--.|\ | |__| |_________
\ :| |::| :| from: ____) _|_ / :) \ | |::| |: /
\ :| |::| :| ========== \_.--._/ | |::| |: /
> :| |::| :|_____________________________v___| |::| |: <
/ :|__|::|____:/ \.____|::|__|: \
/_______:/ \::/ \::/ \:_______\
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