Travels with Murf

Yesterday, I noticed an odd character popping up in my friends’ social media posts.

There was this…

Followed by this…

Not to mention this…

Then this…

And this…

Then I went through some old photographs on my hard drive, and I found this from 1919…

Women are playing baseball in front of the Washington Monument, 1919 -- and Murf pokes his head into the shot
Murf! You’re blocking my shot — and the cute girl playing with her hair! (Original here.)

This from later in the 1920s…

A group of women are posing in front of the Capitol Building in the 1920s -- and Murf jumps into the shot
Murf? Whad’ya doing? Not that I have any idea what anyone else is doing…

And even this, when future president George H.W. Bush met Babe Ruth a few months before Ruth’s death.

Babe Ruth is presenting his autobiography to George H.W. Bush, captain of the Yale baseball team -- and Murf gets in the shot
Murf! This is history in the making!

His name is Murf, and he’s a character on the new animated series Star Trek: Prodigy. And, I agree with Dayton — there should be a Murf photobombing app.

Dayton posted a link to five PNG overlays of Murf, and I had fun grayscaling the overlay, adjusting the brightness and contrast to better match the underlying image, and adding grain and dirt on top to make it all look integrated.

Who knows where — or when! — Murf will turn up next? The Yalta conference? The moon with the Apollo 11 astronauts? Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow? Stay tuned!

Published by Allyn Gibson

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

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