Chad was a ubiquitous piece of popular culture graffiti seen in the United Kingdom during and shortly after World War II. The graffiti consisted of a cartoon of a small, round head with a long nose poking over the top of a wall, with a complaint about shortages written underneath; the cartoon itself is better known to many as "Kilroy", since it often accompanied the slogan "Kilroy was here". The origin may well date back to World War I and an Australian graffito usually captioned "Foo was here". Another origin may be the cartoonist George Edward Chatterton (or "Chat") in 1938, although it is unclear how it gained widespread popularity or became conflated with Kilroy. It was, however, widely in use by the late part of the war and in the immediate post-war years, with slogans ranging from the simple "What, no bread?" or "Wot, no char?" to the plaintive; one sighting, on the side of a British 1st Airborne Division glider in Operation Market Garden, had the complaint "Wot, no engines?" As rationing became less common, so did the joke; while the cartoon is occasionally sighted today as "Kilroy", "Chad" and his complaints have long fallen from popular use. The plot of the series 5, episode 7 of the BBC sitcom Hi-de-Hi!, titled "The Epidemic", centres around a sudden craze of Chads appearing around the holiday camp. In the 1950s, the Liverpool (UK) speedway team was called "The Chads", complete with Chad on their body-colours. Chad appears on the cover of heavy metal band Iron Maiden's 1985 album Powerslave, along with the phrase "WOT? NO GUINESS". The 1987 video game Glider Rider had a pop-up saying "Wot no bombs?" when the player ran out of bombs.
External links
- http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mkilroy.html More information from The Straight Dope
