I’ve made no secret of the fact that one of my great irritations with Mad Men is its apparent belief that literally everyone in that era smoked. The fact seems to be, though, that smokers always believe that. I honestly think that one of the reasons for draconian anti-smoking laws in the US is that we non-smokers simply got sick of dealing with the smoke. I see the office scenes in this cartoon, and I am frankly appalled. I imagine trying to breathe that air all the time, and I cough just thinking about it. Or that may be the wildfire smoke in the air that’s why I’m writing about this cartoon in the first place.

This is another George Geef short. The cartoon starts by extolling the pleasures of smoking, then acknowledges that, due to trifling matters like watering eyes, a hacking cough, and shortness of breath, one might consider quitting. Only there are two issues. One is that he’s in a world where tobacco is everywhere, and the other is that, somehow, he finds it impossible to acquire a tobacco product in this selfsame world.

Addiction is a hell of a thing, isn’t it? I mean, Geef’s got so little wind that he can’t even blow out a match. He knows he’s ruining his health and simply doesn’t care. And he will go to ridiculous lengths to feed his habit. Yes, it’s made ludicrous by the fact that he is unable to find, in what is apparently Manhattan, more than one place that sells tobacco and is stymied by the fact that it actually closes for lunch. And I guess his coworkers have universally agreed that they will not enable him in going back to his addiction, so he can’t just borrow a cigarette off one of them. Still, this is a short where the humour is clearly supposed to come from recognition, and the smokers in the audience would then theoretically recognize themselves in it.

After all, Goofy was voiced by Pinto Colvig—a smoker. And though they wouldn’t even officially show it in Saving Mr. Banks, Walt was a smoker as well. Colvig was suffering from lung disease in 1951, when the cartoon was made, and he and Walt would go on to die of lung cancer less than a year apart from one another. Smokers have known about that sort of thing for decades. Yes, you get lunatic campaigns like “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.” And apparently Aretha Franklin blamed her increased weight on having quit smoking—but she quit smoking because she could tell that it was ruining her voice. We don’t have a definitive date on “coffin nail” as slang for “cigarette,” but it’s at latest about 1880 or so. Smokers know.

That’s only part of why smoking is a weird concept to me, you understand. It isn’t just “the first anti-smoking pamphlet I know of was written by King James I of England.” It’s also “why would you voluntarily inhale smoke into your lungs; that’s weird.” Our air quality is supposed to be improving; I guess they’re getting the fires out, which is wonderful news. But there are DIY instructions going around on Facebook for building an air filtration system that does at least a bit for inside air quality. (Strap a furnace filter onto a box fan.) The air in Seattle this week is supposed to be worse for you than the air in Beijing. And that’s all smoke. Why does burning specific plant matter make it fun and cool?

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