When I was a kid, George McManus'
Bringing Up Father occupied the upper half of the first page of the Sunday funnies in the Buffalo
Courier-Express; so I would flip the section over to the back, to save the best for last. McManus was a master of the form, with beautifully composed and designed panels and almost always a funny gag to put across.
The main characters, Jiggs and Maggie were
nouveau rich, which didn't affect Jiggs in the least-- he still wanted only to hang out with his working class immigrant buddies down at Dinty's. But Maggie was a social climber, and she was determined to elevate her oafish husband to respectibility. Their clashes were interspersed with stories documenting their travels, and the romances involving their glamorous daughter.
One couldn't help but pull for the amiable Jiggs, and in the end, he generally got his corned beef and cabbage, even if it led to a later encounter with Maggie's rolling pin.
Like a lot of strips that originated in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century,
Bringing Up Father was steeped in the urban immigrant experience, and it's to McManus' credit (and those who later inherited the strip), that they never lost touch with that central element.
They just don't make them like this anymore!
When I was a kid, George McManus' Bringing Up Father occupied the upper half of the first page of the Sunday funnies in the Buffalo Courier-Express; so I would flip the section over to the back, to save the best for last. McManus was a master of the form, with beautifully composed and designed panels and almost always a funny gag to put across.
The main characters, Jiggs and Maggie were nouveau rich, which didn't affect Jiggs in the least-- he still wanted only to hang out with his working class immigrant buddies down at Dinty's. But Maggie was a social climber, and she was determined to elevate her oafish husband to respectibility. Their clashes were interspersed with stories documenting their travels, and the romances involving their glamorous daughter.
One couldn't help but pull for the amiable Jiggs, and in the end, he generally got his corned beef and cabbage, even if it led to a later encounter with Maggie's rolling pin.
Like a lot of strips that originated in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century, Bringing Up Father was steeped in the urban immigrant experience, and it's to McManus' credit (and those who later inherited the strip), that they never lost touch with that central element.
They just don't make them like this anymore!
No comments:
Post a Comment