Whilst "channel-surfing" across the networks one afternoon, I chanced upon a program on one of my favorites, Encore's Westerns Channel.

Note: One never channel-surfed in the days before the invention of the remote, too much work, too few channels. But I digress.

The show on the Westerns Channel that afternoon was an old Gene Autry "oater." Gene's sidekick in that movie (as well as 63 other B-Westerns) was Smiley Burnette.

As a kid watching dozens of like films, I just accepted the role of sidekick without questioning the origin of the word. Now that I've gone beyond the kid stage (way beyond), I became curious as to the background of sidekicks.

The London of Victorian England at the time of Charles Dickens was rife with pickpockets. Many of them banded together in gangs that may have been the precursors of today's gangs.

New recruits had to undergo apprenticeships as though it was an honorable trade.

The pickpockets developed their own slanguage. For them, a hip pocket was a "pratt," a breast pocket a "pit," and a vest pocket was a "jerve." They termed the side pocket in a pair of breeches a "kick."

Even among the experts in this trade, a wallet in a "kick" was a difficult challenge. The wallet lay close to the potential victim's leg and was typically in almost constant motion.


The English merchants didn't get to where they were by being dumb, and they quickly learned that the safest place for their valuables was in that pocket. Thus, any Britisher with any common sense would stash his bundle in his "sidekick." From there, it was an easy step to conclude that any faithful partner always at one's side was his "sidekicker."

American writer O. Henry first used the term in one of his stories in 1904. Roughly 10 years later, "sidekicker" was shortened to "sidekick."

Long before O. Henry used the word in print ,there were "sidekicks" in ancient literature such as Enkidu to Gilgamesh in the "Epic of Gilgamesh," Patrocles to Achilles in "The Iliad" and even Aaron to Moses in "The Bible."

With the "sidekicks" of the world of entertainment as fodder, we'll pursue many of them in the weeks and months to follow.

In real life, Twoey is not sure who is the sidekick and who is the hero.

  • That's more than a pound a day. Germans eat more potatoes per capita than any other people. The number is 370 pounds per German each year.
  • Not at the offices of "Trivially Speaking." The average office worker spends about 50 minutes a day in search of lost files or other items.
  • Consider it "Spamalot." Every four seconds, someone on the planet opens a can of Spam. We don't know what they do with it.
  • That "country" with the lowest divorce rate and the lowest birthrate on the planet is, guess what, Vatican City.
  • The total tops Rip Van Winkle. The average American among us will sleep 25 years in a normal lifetime.
  • Many scriptwriters for today's films could profit from J.B. Priestley's advice: "Depending upon shock tactics is easy, whereas writing a good play is difficult. Pubic hair is no substitute for wit."
