When was Beppo named Beppo?

[Jody Garland]

So, I've been reading a bunch of the old Superpets stories that DC reprinted in the Tails of the Superpets trade and I noticed something weird. We all know Supermonkey is named Beppo, right? Except, I can't find any instance Pre-Crisis of him actually being called that. It's just Supermonkey. Sure, there is a monkey named Beppo in his first appearance (Superboy #76), but that's an organ grinder's monkey. The earliest I can find him being called Beppo is from Who's Who's entry on the Legion of Superpets. Was this just a mistake that stuck?

EDIT: Earliest I've found is Superman #173 from November '64 in a short Green Kryptonite feature. I'm fairly certain this has to be it, which means it's the only Silver Age time he's called Beppo. Weird, I guess it must've been a mistake.

[Jim Kelly]

EDIT: Earliest I've found is Superman #173 from November '64 in a short Green Kryptonite feature. I'm fairly certain this has to be it, which means it's the only Silver Age time he's called Beppo. Weird, I guess it must've been a mistake.

You seem to be right. A quick check of the comics and I find also that the first time the Super-Monkey was named Beppo was in SUPERMAN 173 (November 1964)--2nd story, "Tales of Green Kryptonite No. 1" by Binder and Plastino. In my more recent reading of the comics, it never occurred to me that he wasn't called Beppo in those earlier stories. I totally missed that.

The first time I ever saw Beppo in a comic book was in SUPERBOY 142 (October 1967)--1st story, "Superboy Goes Ape" by Bridwell, Papp and Springer. In that story, they give the 411 on the Super-Monkey and he's clearly called Beppo.

That seems to be the third time he was called Beppo in an actual story. The second time was in ADVENTURE COMICS 351 (December 1966)--"The Forgotten Legion" by Bridwell, Swan and Klein.

Note that these two stories were by Bridwell who never forgot a thing. So he likely remembered the Super-Monkey's name from Binder's story and was sure to use it in his.

[Filbert]

I seem to remember readers being encouraged to write in with a suggestion of a name for Super-Monkey.