That would be fantastic! Barnaby is easily in my top five strips I would most like to see get a thorough reprinting.

I read on the Comics Journal message board a while ago that Fantagraphics had pursued the rights for such a project, and Crockett Johnson's estate was holding out waiting for a movie. Talk about putting the cart before the horse... Hopefully someone will talk them into it one of these days.

At least the hardcover book is easily findable and not too expensive. And that entire episode above is in it.

Hard to imagine a movie ... or, rather, a movie that would capture the whimsy of the original. There was, back in the 1959, a half-hour TV version of BARNABY on "General Electric Theater," with Ronny Howard and Bert Lahr. I've always wanted to see it but heaven knows if it survives.

It aired Dec. 20, 1959 (Season 8, Episode 14) according to iMdb. And the Beneral Electric Theater episode was titled "Mr. O'Malley" and directed by Sherman Marks.

I note that Mel Blanc is credited as the voice of "Leprechaun" -- which, I presume was the invisible McSnoyd, and William Redfield played Barnaby's dad. I, too, would love to have seen the production. (By the way, I've long felt that a major inspiration for O'Malley -- like Wimpy -- was W.C. Fields, not Lahr.)