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 2, 1913, to May 28, 2000.
The strip was later titled Jiggs and Maggie (or Maggie and Jiggs), after its two main characters. According to McManus, he introduced these same characters in other strips as early as November 1911.Goulart, Ron, editor. The Encyclopedia of American Comics. Facts on File, 1990.
Characters and story The strip 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.Merwin, Ted. "In Their Own Image", Rutgers, 2006. 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 (known regionally as "Jiggs dinner"), and hang out at the local tavern were often thwarted by Maggie, his formidable, social-climbing (and rolling-pin wielding) harridan of a wife, their lovely young daughter Nora, and infrequently their lazy son Ethelbert, later known as Sonny. Also a character presented in the strip (portrayed as a miserly borrower) was named, fittingly, Titus Canby ("tight as can be").
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 (the lowbrow Jiggs) "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.William H. A. Williams, "Green Again: Irish-American Lace-Curtain Satire", New Hibernia Review, Winter 2002, Vol. 6 Issue 2, pp 9–24
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.Kerry Soper, "Performing 'Jiggs': Irish Caricature and Comedic Ambivalence Toward Assimilation and the American Dream in George Mcmanus's 'Bringing Up Father'", Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, April 2005, Vol. 4#2, pp 173–213. 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 also 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 (played by the fat Irish comedian Billy Barry in the stage production McManus saw) 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's wife, the former Florence Bergere, was the model for daughter Nora.
One of McManus's friends, restaurateur James Moore, claimed he was the inspiration for the character Dinty Moore, the owner of Jiggs's 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's characters: On January 12, 1913 [actually January 2], he debuted Bringing Up Father, about an Irishman named Jiggs, who doesn't understand why his ascension to wealth via the Irish Sweepstakes means he can't hang out with his friends, and his nagging, social-climbing wife, Maggie. The strip was an instant hit, possibly because of its combination of an appealing cast of characters with a unique look of art-nouveau splendor... Before McManus died, in 1954, Bringing Up Father made him two fortunes (the first was lost in the 1929 stock market crash). By that time, Jiggs's Irishness had faded—the new generation saw him as just a rich guy that liked to hang out with a regular crowd.Bringing Up Father at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on April 4, 2026.
An uncredited script collaborator on the strip was McManus's 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."Brother of George—Idea Man for 'Bringing Up Father' Cartoon". The New York Times, September 1, 1941.
Topper strips
In 1926, McManus added a Sunday topper strip above Bringing Up Father, beginning with No Brains But (January 10 to May 9, 1926) and Good Morning, Boss! (May 16 to June 6, 1926). Starting on June 13, 1926, McManus changed the topper to Rosie's Beau, a revival of his previous Sunday page (which ran from October 29, 1916, to April 7, 1918). 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.Inge, M. Thomas. Anything Can Happen in a Comic Strip: Centennial Reflections on an American Art Form. University of Mississippi Press, 1995.
Starting on 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 (2010), Robert Leckie (James Badge Dale) is seen reading Snookums.
Other minor topper panels overlapping with the above were Things We Can Do Without (July 23, 1933 to April 22, 1934), How to Keep From Getting Old (April 1, 1934 to May 19, 1935), It's the Gypsy in Me (May 26, 1935 to April 25, 1937) and What'll I Do Now (January 5 to March 15, 1936).
Artists
Between 1935 and 1954, McManus's 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 (Boner's Ark) replaced Campagna in 1980. Hy Eisman ghosted the strip for a short time after Greene's death. King Features wanted him to take it over, but Eisman was close friends with Greene, and he was unable to agree to take the strip on. 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. It was published in Chile from 1922, originally retitled Amenidades del diario vivir ("Amenities of Daily Life") and later as Don Fausto, with Jiggs renamed as the titular "Don Fausto" and Maggie as "Crisanta". In Argentina, it was known as Trifón y Sisebuta, and in Brazil as Pafúncio e Marocas. In Yugoslavia and Serbia it has been published as Porodica Tarana since 1935. In Turkey, the strip was published daily by Hürriyet until the late 1990s under the name Güngörmüşler (The Worldly-wiseds) with Jiggs renamed to Şaban and Maggie renamed to Tonton (darling). In Italy, Jiggs and Maggie became Arcibaldo e Petronilla and the strip, published by the children magazine Corriere dei Piccoli since 1921, was very popular.
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 (from 1931 to 1977) in Sweden, where the strip is known as Gyllenbom. In Denmark the series went under the name Gyldenspjæt. In Finland, the strip was called Vihtori ja Klaara and appeared in the major daily Uusi Suomi from 1929 until the paper folded in 1991. In the Finnish version, Jiggs' favorite dish of corned beef and cabbage became lammaskaali (literally "mutton cabbage"), which under the name fårikål is actually a Norwegian national dish.
In Japan, Bringing Up Father was first published on April 1, 1923, in the Asahi Graph, as Oyaji kyōiku. The strip was published daily in the magazine (interrupted by the Great Kantō earthquake, resuming to be published weekly from November 14 afterwards) until 1940; its success inspired strips by Japanese comic artists, like Yutaka Asō's Nonkina tōsan ("Easygoing daddy").
In other media Stage
Gus Hill'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. According to The Holloway Pages' history of the strip: "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".The Holloway Pages: Bringing Up Father page
Sheet music "By the Susquehanna Shore" (from Bringing Up Father, 1914) Bringing Up Father on Broadway (1919) - songs include: "The Lotus Club Rag", "Dry Those Tears", ""The Fair Irene, and "All for a Girl" "I'm Longing for a Pair of Irish Eyes" (from Bringing Up Father in Florida, 1920) Bringing Up Father (1920 green cover, same design as earlier red cover) - songs include: "The Rose You gave me", "Why Don't They Let the Girlies go to Sea?", and "Let's Get the Irish over Here". PLUS: advice, jokes and magic tricks.