Bringing Up Father


Bringing Up Father is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George McManus. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it ran for 87 years, from January 12, 1913, to May 28, 2000.
The strip is also known as "Jiggs and Maggie", after its two main characters. According to McManus, he introduced these same characters in other strips as early as November 1911.

Characters and story

The humor centers on an immigrant Irishman named Jiggs, a former hod carrier who came into wealth in the United States by winning a million dollars in a sweepstakes. Now nouveau-riche, he still longs to revert to his former working class habits and lifestyle. His constant attempts to sneak out with his old gang of boisterous, rough-edged pals, eat corned beef and cabbage and hang out at the local tavern were often thwarted by his formidable, social-climbing of a wife, Maggie, their lovely young daughter, Nora, and infrequently their lazy son, Ethelbert, later known as just Sonny. Also a character presented in the strip was named fittingly Titus Canby.
The strip deals with "lace-curtain Irish", with Maggie as the middle-class Irish American desiring assimilation into mainstream society in counterpoint to an older, more raffish "shanty Irish" sensibility represented by Jiggs. Her lofty goal—frustrated in nearly every strip—is to bring father "up" to upper class standards, hence the title, Bringing Up Father. The occasional malapropisms and left-footed social blunders of these upward mobiles were gleefully lampooned in vaudeville and popular song, and formed the basis for Bringing Up Father. The strip presented multiple perceptions of Irish Catholic ethnics during the early 20th century. Through the character Jiggs, McManus gave voice to their anxieties and aspirations. Varied interpretations of McManus's work often highlight difficult issues of ethnicity and class, such as the conflicts over assimilation and social mobility that second- and third-generation immigrants confronted. McManus took a middle position, which aided ethnic readers in becoming accepted in American society without losing their identity. A cross-country tour that the characters took in September 1939 into 1940 gave the strip a big promotional boost and raised its profile in the cities they visited.
Jiggs and Maggie were generally drawn with circles for eyes, a feature more often associated with the later strip, Little Orphan Annie.

Origin and sources

McManus, who numbered Aubrey Beardsley among his influences, had a bold, clean-cut cartooning line. His strong sense of composition and Art Nouveau and Art Deco design made the strip a stand-out on the comics page.
McManus was inspired by The Rising Generation, a musical comedy by William Gill that he had seen as a boy in St. Louis, Missouri's Grand Opera House, where his father was manager. In The Rising Generation, Irish-American bricklayer Martin McShayne becomes a wealthy contractor, yet his society-minded wife and daughter were ashamed of him and his lowbrow buddies, prompting McShayne to sneak out to join his pals for poker. McManus knew Barry and used him as the basis for his drawings of Jiggs. McManus' wife, the former Florence Bergere, was the model for daughter Nora.
One of McManus' friends, restaurateur James Moore, claimed he was the inspiration for the character Dinty Moore, the owner of Jiggs' favorite tavern. James Moore changed his name to Dinty and founded a real-life restaurant chain. The restaurant owner, however, did not begin the successful line of Dinty Moore canned goods marketed today by Hormel.
A surrealistic running gag throughout the strip, always removed from the main action of the story, involved hanging wall paintings that "come to life", with subjects often "breaking the fourth wall", escaping the confines of the picture frames, or changing position from panel to panel within the same strip. None of the nominal stars of the strip ever seemed to notice the animated figures, or anything unusual happening on the walls in the background directly behind them.
Comics historian Don Markstein wrote about McManus' characters:
An uncredited script collaborator on the strip was McManus' brother, Charles W. McManus, who was 61 when he died August 31, 1941. He also had his own comic strips in the 1920s, Dorothy Darnit and Mr. Broad.

Topper strips

In 1926, McManus added a Sunday topper strip above Bringing Up Father, beginning with No Brains But and Good Morning, Boss!. Starting on June 13, 1926, McManus changed the topper to Rosie's Beau, a revival of his previous Sunday page. Rosie's Beau continued as the topper until November 12, 1944.
On April 17, 1938, an absent-minded character named Sir Von Platter in Rosie's Beau realized he was in the wrong place and climbed down into the first panel of Bringing Up Father, arriving in the living room of Maggie and Jiggs.
Starting November 19, 1944, McManus replaced Rosie's Beau with Snookums, itself a revival of a 1904-1916 McManus strip, The Newlyweds and Their Baby, now focused on their son, the titular character. Snookums remained as the topper for Bringing Up Father until December 31, 1956, at which point it became a standalone Sunday feature distributed until the early 1960s.
In the final episode of HBO's The Pacific, Robert Leckie is seen reading Snookums. The Pacific is partially based on Leckie's book, Helmet for My Pillow, but there is no mention of Snookums in Leckie's book.
Other minor topper panels overlapping with the above were Things We Can Do Without, How to Keep From Getting Old, It's the Gypsy in Me and What'll I Do Now.

Artists

Between 1935 and 1954, McManus' assistant Zeke Zekley made a major contribution to the strip in both writing and art. Other artists, including Bill Kavanagh and Frank Fletcher, also contributed. When McManus died in 1954, King Features replaced Zekley with Vernon Greene. With Greene's death in 1965, Hal Campagna stepped in, and Frank Johnson replaced Campagna in 1980. The strip's popularity faded, and Bringing Up Father limped along until its 87-year run came to a close on May 28, 2000.
In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative US postage stamps. Bringing Up Father went digital in 2007 when King Features made the strip available as one of the selections in its DailyINK email package.

International syndication

In Mexico, the strip was titled "Educando a Papá", with Jiggs and Maggie being renamed as "Pancho" and "Ramona" respectively. In Chile, Jiggs was known as "Don Fausto".
Bringing Up Father still enjoys popularity in Norway. Known as Fiinbeck og Fia, the strip was published weekly in the family journal Hjemmet from 1921 until the early 2000s; and a Christmas book with the strip has been published every year since 1930, in the last few decades mostly reprints of material produced by McManus in the 1940s and 1950s. A similar publication was also an annual event in Sweden, where the strip is known as Gyllenbom. In Denmark the series went under the name Gyldenspjæt. In Turkey, the strip was published daily by Hürriyet until the late 1990s under the name Güngörmüşler with Jiggs renamed to Şaban and Maggie renamed to Tonton.

Maggie and Jiggs in other media

Stage

's production of Bringing Up Father opened on Broadway in 1914, with music composed by Frank H. Grey, lyrics by Elven E. Hedges, libretto by John P. Mulgrew and Thomas Swift, choreography by Edward Hutchinson, and directed by Frank Tannehill, Jr. Hill produced many more theatrical versions of the strip that toured the country, including Bringing Up Father in Florida, Bringing Up Father on Broadway, Bringing Up Father in Ireland, Bringing Up Father Abroad, and Bringing Up Father in Wall Street.
Bringing Up Father at the Seashore opened on Broadway at the Manhattan Opera House in 1921, but closed after 18 performances; a revised version reopened in 1928. Another of Hill's productions of Father opened at the Lyric Theatre in 1925. "Reportedly, this version had Maggie following a fleeing Jiggs from Ireland to a yacht headed for Spain, but the story was halted frequently for various vaudeville acts. The show closed after 24 performances," according to The Holloway Pages' history of the strip.

Sheet music

• "Bringing Up Father" Songs include: "The Rose You gave me", "Why Don't They Let The Girlies go To Sea ?", "Let's get The Irish Over here". PLUS: advice, jokes and magic tricks.

Sponsored by Lever Brothers, the Bringing Up Father radio series aired on the Blue Network from July 1 to September 30, 1941, starring Mark Smith as Jiggs and Agnes Moorehead as Maggie. Neil O'Malley also portrayed Jiggs. Their daughter Nora was played by Helen Shields and Joan Banks. Craig McDonnell was heard in the role of Dinty Moore. The 30-minute program aired Tuesdays at 9pm.

Animation

The following are silent animated cartoons based on Bringing Up Father, all produced by International Film Service and released through Pathé Exchange:
In 1924, a Chilean studio created a feature-length film entitled Vida y Milagros de Don Fausto, which used the strip's characters. This is the second oldest-known animated film made in the country.

Live-action Two-reel shorts

A series of live-action silent comedies featured comedian Johnny Ray as Jiggs, Margaret Cullington as Maggie and Laura La Plante as daughter Nora. Directed by Reggie Morris, these were produced by International Film Service and released through Pathé Exchange. Confusingly enough, a couple of the titles were duplicated from the earlier cartoons. This series included:
The following feature-length movies were based on the strip:
The Jiggs and Maggie, all released by Monogram Pictures:
The series was discontinued due to the death of Joe Yule in March 1950.

Comic books