Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, originally Barney
Google, is a long-running American comic strip.
When the strip began in 1919 its title character,
a little guy with big eyes, was a sportsman
involved in horse racing and boxing. In 1924, the
strip took a huge turn in popularity with the
addition of a race horse named "Spark Plug", a
nag who seldom raced and was typically seen almost
totally covered by his horse blanket. In 1934, an
even greater change took place when Barney and the
horse visited the North Carolina mountains and met
a moonshiner named Snuffy Smith. The strip
increasingly focused on stereotypical humor about
the hillbillies of southern Appalachia, with
Snuffy as the main character. Locals in the strip
are extemely suspicious of any outsiders, referred
to as "flatlanders," or, even worse,
"revenooers" (federal revenue agents). Snuffy
was so popular that his name was added to the
strip's title in the late 1930s, and Barney
Google himself virtually disappeared after the
1950s.

The comic was created by Billy DeBeck in 1919,
first appearing in the sports section of the
Chicago Herald and Examiner as Take Barney Google,
F'rinstance. By October 1919, the strip was
syndicated by King Features, allowing it to appear
in newspapers all across the country. Fred
Lasswell, DeBeck's lifelong assistant, took over
Barney Google in 1942. Lasswell drew the strip
until his death on March 3, 2001. John Rose, who
inked the strip for Lasswell, draws the comic
today.

Barney Google appears in 21 countries and 11
languages. It is credited with introducing several
slang phrases, including "sweet mama,"
"horsefeathers," "heebie-jeebies," and
"hotsie-totsie."

The strip also inspired the popular 1920s song
"Barney Google (With the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes)".

In 1995, the strip was one of twenty included in
the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative
US postage stamps.