Joe Palooka, an American comic strip about a heavyweight boxing champion, was originally created by cartoonist Ham Fisher. The strip debuted on April 19, 1930, and was carried at its peak by 900 newspapers. The McNaught Syndicate cancelled the strip with effect from November 1984. Adaptations and spin-offs of the comic strip include a 15-minute CBS radio series, 12 feature-length films (chiefly from Monogram Pictures), nine Vitaphone film shorts, a 1954 syndicated television series (The Joe Palooka Story), comic books and merchandise, including a 1940s board game, a 1947 New Haven Clock and Watch Company wristwatch, a 1948 metal lunchbox featuring depictions of Joe, Humphrey, and Little Max, and a 1946 Wheaties cereal-box cut-out mask.
Adaptations (12)
Joe Palooka has been adapted into 12 films, from 1934 to 1951. The most recent is Joe Palooka in Triple Cross (1951).
Palooka1934 · film · 86 min · dir. Benjamin Stoloff · IMDb ↗IMDb6.0Joe Palooka is a naive young man whose father Pete was a champion boxer, but his lifestyle caused Joe's mother Mayme to leave him and to take young Joe to the country to raise him.
Joe Palooka, Champ1946 · film · 70 min · dir. Reginald Le Borg · IMDb ↗IMDb5.7After losing heavyweight contender Al Costa to mob boss Florini fight promoter Knobby Walsh recruits small town boy Joe Palooka to take his place. First in the series.
Gentleman Joe Palooka1946 · film · 72 min · dir. Cy Endfield · IMDb ↗IMDb5.9In the second film of Monogram's Joe Palooka series, Joe is 'used', by two state senators scheming to obtain oil-rich lands, in a publicity campaign to get the land transferred to the state, supposedly for a park. When Joe learns that he has been used as a dupe he becomes disillusioned, and leaves the prize=fighting profession. But, his manager, sparring partners and fiancée manage to expose the land-grab scheme, clear Joe's name, and discredit the crooked politicians.
Joe Palooka in Fighting Mad1947 · film · 74 min · dir. Reginald Le Borg · IMDb ↗IMDb6.2Joe Palooka goes blind during a fight. An operation restores his vision, but he's told not to fight for a year. His trainer Knobby has picked up another fighter, but gangsters are pressing him to fix fights. Joe decides to risk his eyesight to save Knobby's honor.
Joe Palooka in the Knockout1947 · film · 72 min · dir. Reginald Le Borg · IMDb ↗IMDb6.8The third of the Monogram series based on Ham Fisher's "Joe Palooka" comic strip, opens with Knobby Walsh (Leon Errol), the manager of Joe Palooka (Joe Kirkkwood), trying to talk his way out of a traffic citation, and the story leading to that point is told in flashback as narrated by Walsh. Heavyweight champion Joe, after knocking out and opponent who later died in his dressing room, feels responisble and threatens to give up boxing. But the dead fighter's fiance (Trudy Marshall), thinks he died as the result of a drug that was given to him by a gang of gamblers, who made a rich haul betting on Palooka. Joe, Knobby and the police unite to run down the gamblers, but not before Joe also is nearly murdered by the same means...a poisoned mouthpiece. Elyse Knox is along as Joe's sweetheart Anne Howe, although Anne and Joe had long been married in the comic strip.
Joe Palooka in Winner Take All1947 · film · 64 min · dir. Reginald Le Borg · IMDb ↗IMDb6.2The troubles begin for Joe Palooka, the heavyweight champion of the boxing-world, when his manager, Knobby Walsh, receives an anonymous note from a racketeer-group intent on lowering the odds o Joe in his upcoming defense of his title. And he mistakenly believes that a young hoodlum he has befriended has turned against him.
Joe Palooka in the Counterpunch1949 · film · 74 min · dir. Reginald Le Borg · IMDb ↗IMDb5.8Joe Palooka kayos Cardona, but the latter protests that he can beat the champ in his own country - South America. Cardona's manager, Anton Kindel, persuades Palooka's manager, Knobby Walsh, to agree to a return bout in South America in the summer, but Knobby doesn't realize that the South American summer is only four weeks away. When Anne Howe can't accompany boyfriend Palooka on the S.S. Valora, she secretly becomes a reporter assigned to report on his training aboard ship. Myra Madison and Chick Bennett plot to get $20 counterfeit plates to South America, but the plates are stolen from her hotel room. Other ship passengers are Austin, an investigator posing as a writer, and Professor Lilliquist, on his way to the Museum Nacional. Ship Captain Lance announces that, following a knifing, Austin is dead. He was only wounded and asks Joe and Knobby to help him get the counterfeiters. The Professor asks Joe to deliver an ancient Inca statue to the museum, and during the night the statue is switched for one containing the plates.
Joe Palooka in Humphrey Takes a Chance1950 · film · 62 min · dir. Jean Yarbrough · IMDb ↗IMDb6.5The Square Deal Boxing Corporation (crooked as a snake's hind leg), through Gordon Rogers, tries to make a deal with Knobby Walsh whereby it will own thirty percent of the contract with Heavyweight Champion Joe Palooka Knobby refuses, saying even in West Wokkington Falls he could stage a record bout. He only mentions the town because that is where he is going with Joe and his wife, Anne Howe Palooka, to visit their friend Humphrey Pennyworth. Rogers assumes Walsh is going to stage a bout between Palooka and Pennyworth and hastens to block it. Rogers tricks Pennyworth into signing with him for a bout and then arranges for the crooked town mayor, Phiffeny, and his cousins who run the town to erect a fight stadium. Knobby tells Humphrey that the only way to get out of his contract is a recall election replacing the present town officials with honest ones. Humphrey, the most-liked citizen agrees to run for mayor. At a campaign picnic, a child actress hired by Rogers rushes up to the unmarried candidate, crying "Daddy."
Joe Palooka in the Squared Circle1950 · film · 63 min · dir. Reginald Le Borg · IMDb ↗IMDb5.4Heavyweight Champion Joe Palooka and his friend, Humphrey Pennyworth, find a slain gambler near Joe's training camp. The escaping killers fire at them, but neither is hit. District Attorney Michael Brogdon fails to prosecute the case when the body can't be found. A gangster contacts Knobby Walsh, Joe's manager, and tells him to have his fighter throw his upcoming title-defense. Knobby refuses and is kidnapped in order to force Joe to throw the fight. And, for insurance, Joe is doped in the ring.
Joe Palooka Meets Humphrey1950 · film · 65 min · dir. Jean Yarbrough · IMDb ↗IMDb6.1Joe Palooka and Anne Howe go to Harrow Hot Springs to spend their honeymoon and shortly after they arrive, Humphrey Pennyworth, good-natured, small-town blacksmith, who has repaired their car, arrives and explains that he always guarantees his work for 30 days and wants to be on hand to ensure the motor works okay. Before long, Joe is matched in a benefit bout with Johnson, but the latter is replaced by Humphrey after being kayoed by him after he insulted Joe. Johnson's manager, Belden, quickly tries to arrange to manage Humphrey, but Joe's manager Knobby Walsh realizes that Humphrey's amazing super strength is a menace to Joe's career, so he poses as English fight manager Lord Cecil Poole and takes over the management of Humphrey. Belden has a couple of his henchmen kidnap Poole/Walsh.
Joe Palooka in Triple Cross1951 · film · 60 min · dir. Reginald Le Borg · IMDb ↗IMDb5.7Joe Palooka (Joe Kirkwood), Anne Howe (Cathy Downs) and Joe's manager Knobby Walsh (James Gleason) pick up three hitch-hikers, one a man dressed as a middle-aged woman. The trio are escaped murderers and hold Joe, Anne and Knobby prisoners in a farm house. Dutch forms a plan of his own. He kills his two partners and then, threatening Anne's life, accompanies Joe, Knobby and Anne back to the city where Joe is lined up for a championship fight with a promised gate share of $100,000. Dutch, never leaving Anne's side, is promised Joe's money and then demands that Knobby bets it on Joe to lose the fight.Joe and Knobby agree in order to save Anne's life, but Knobby doesn't bet the money against Joe. The latter purposely takes a beating for a few rounds and maneuvers so that his opponent knocks him into the lap of Dutch, sitting at ringside with a gun on Anne.
