Mutt and Jeff
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mutt and Jeff is an American newspaper comic strip that ran from November 15, 1907 to 1982. It was created by Bud Fisher, though for most of its run (1932-1980), it was taken over by a former assistant, cartoonist Al Smith, when Fisher retired, shortly before his death. Other contributors include Ken Kling, Ed Mack, and George Breisacher.
While not the first daily comic strip, it was the first successful one and is credited with establishing the format of a six-day-a-week strip with a regular set of characters. It was also among the last strips to feature a daily title for each strip, usually a humorous aside on the day's punchline.
The strip was originally titled A. Mutt and appeared on the sports pages of the San Francisco Chronicle. Augustus Mutt was a tall, rangy racetrack character, but the strip was transformed when Mutt encountered the half-pint Jeff (an inmate of an insane asylum) on March 27, 1908. On June 7, 1908, the strip moved off the sports pages and into the Hearst-owned San Francisco Examiner where it was syndicated and became a national hit.
Fisher had taken the precaution of copyrighting the strip in his own name. He became wealthy through not only that strip, but a comic book (initially published by All-American Publications and later by DC Comics, Dell Comics and Harvey Comics), cartoons, films, merchandise, and reprints. In 1932, Fisher formally turned production of the strip over to Smith, who continued to draw it until two years before its demise in 1982. The copyright was last registered to Pierre S. DeBeaumont.
In 1910, during the silent film era, at David Horsley's Nestor Comedies in Bayonne, New Jersey, Al Christie began turning out one single reel of a "Mutt and Jeff" comedy picture every week. In 1913, Fisher then set up his own film production company and more than 300 animated Mutt and Jeff shorts were released, making it the longest theatrical animated film series. (Popeye appeared in fewer film cartoons, but in more total film and television cartoons.)
The combination of the Victory Medal and British War Medal, awarded to soldiers in the British Army for service in the first world war, was also known as a "Mutt and Jeff." The Victory Medal was awarded to those who entered a theatre of war and the British War medal was awarded to soldiers who left their own land.
Before Smith began drawing the strip, Mack introduced a plotline featuring Mutt running for President, during the 1928 Presidential election when the same-named Governor Al Smith was a candidate. Mutt was the first cartoon character to seek the nation's highest office who would be followed in his footsteps by the likes of Pogo and Howard the Duck. (The cartoonist was not related to the candidate. Nor was Bud Fisher related to cartoonist Ham Fisher.)
A spinoff strip, Cicero's Cat, starred Desdemona, a cat that Smith originally introduced in 1933 as companion to Mutt's son Cicero. This strip was a "topper," a Sunday-only feature that was packaged with the Sunday version of the main strip. Toppers got their name because in many papers, they ran on top of the main feature. Mutt and Jeff also appeared in comic books. They were featured on the front cover of Famous Funnies #1, the first modern format comic book, and reprints appeared in DC Comics' All American Comics. In 1939 DC gave them their own comic book, which ran until 1958. The DC run consisted entirely of strip reprints. Dell Comics took over the feature after DC dropped it, but their tenure only lasted one year. Many of the Dell issues featuring conventional-length stories newly drawn by Smith. Harvey Comics which had several other comic strip reprint comics running at the time picked up Mutt and Jeff from Dell Comics, and this version of the comic ran through part of 1965. During these later versions, Smith's creation Cicero's Cat, was also included.
Due to the strip's popularity, "Mutt and Jeff" became idiomatic for any tall-and-short pair of men (Mutt was the tall one). The word "mutton" is used in Cockney rhyming slang as an abbreviation of "Mutt'n'Jeff", and stands for the word "deaf". The names were also used as codenames for a pair of World War II spies: see Mutt and Jeff (spies). The "good cop/bad cop" police interrogation tactic is also called "Mutt and Jeff".
Al Smith received the National Cartoonist Society Humor Comic Strip Award for 1968 for his work on the strip.
Currently, Andrews McMeel Universal continues to syndicate Mutt and Jeff under the imprint Classic Mutt and Jeff (in both English and Spanish language versions) under the signature of Pierre S. De Beaumont. Both versions appear on their website at http://www.mycomicspage.com/.
Comics publisher NBM has just announced a reprint volume of the strip entitled, Forever Nuts: The Early Years of Mutt & Jeff (ISBN 9781561635023).
