THE STORY OF JIGGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 261, 3 November 1928, Page 16 (Supplement)

THE STORY OF JIGGS.

BRINGING UP FATHER.

MR. McMAJTUS GIVES AN

INTERVIEW.

A NEW JOKE A DAY,

(By LEON ROPER, in the "Hollywood

News.")

When the door swung open and George McManus stood smiling in the doorway, I was surprised to find him the living embodiment of the goodnatured personality the world has grown to love in "Jiggs," the intensely human and much-oppressed husband. Could it be that he had grown to look like "Jiggs" as Ernest had grown to look like the Great Stone Face or as a husband and wife grow to resemble each other? Or was the imagined likeness due to his having projected his personality into that of his comic character, typifying the husbands of the world forever trying to escape the dominance of their "Maggies." Reason for Success. As I looked into his smiling face, I understood why "Bringing Up Father" had been translated into Chinese and other foreign languages, and had become the world's most popular comic strip. Here was a man who was perfectly human and good-natured, a man who loves life and its jokes. But I soon found that he did not like some of the stories and jokes told on him. "You've perhaps heard that old story that I started drawing the 'Newlyweds' to get revenge on a girl who had rejected me as a suitor," McManus said, after we had discussed the heat and the beauties of the view. "Well, thac whole story is mere piffle. Mrs. McManus was the original Mrs. Newlywed, and, as you know, a man wouldn't last long in newspaper work if he drew pictures or wrote things to get. revenge on someone. My motive in drawing the 'Newlyweds,' as in other strips, was to make money—not get revenge." Another joke that isn't relished in the McManus family is reference to ■ Mrs. McManus as "Maggie." Inferences that Mrs. McManus treats the cartoonist like Maggie treats Jiggs is not appreciated. "Several years ago," said McManus, "when I attended the world's fair at San Francisco, a newspaper in that city published a photograph of me with the caption, 'Big Corned Beef and Cabbage Man Here From the East,' I never showed it to Mrs. McManus," the artist explained. Birth of Famous Jiggs. "How did you come to invent Jiggs J" I asked. '"When I was a boy," said the cartoonist, "my lather owned the old Grand Opera House in St. Louis. Jimmy Barry appeared there in the role of au Irish comedian in 'The Rising Generation.' My father, being the owner, got in free, and I must have gone to see Barry in this play ten or iixteen times. He made an indelible impression on me, and later, when I began to look about for a comic strip character, I thought of Barry. "I also remember seeing Charles Musray in the old opera house more than 30 years ago. He used to do a dance, in which he held a paper up in front of his face and body. You could only see his legs moving." "How about Dinty Moore? Is he also copied after a real person?" I queried. "Yes, the original Dinty Moore was a man I knew in St. Louis. There also is a Dinty Moore in New York, a man who owns a large cafe." McManus smilingly related difficulties which he experienced in making the New York cafe owner's acquaintance. "I had been introduced to Moore on several occasions, but he never appeared to remember me. Finally, tiring of being persistently treated as a stranger, I called Moore to one side and asked why he had so much difficulty in remembering me. He explained that he remembered me all right, but that his friends had been calling him "Dinty," and that he thought I was trying to rub the joke in on him, as they say. He confessed he once thought of whacking me over the head with a leg of beef, but had finally come to realise that the nickname 'Dinty' was an asset. Letter From Irate Reader. McManus recalls that one of the most scathing letters he ever received from an offended reader of "Bringing Up Father" resulted from his portraying "Dinty Moore" in gaol. The letterwriter accused the cartoonist of attempting to bring into ill-repute one of the noblest names in history. "Many of Ireland's greatest heroes were named Moore, and there are more McManuses in prison than Moores," the letter asserted. While he constantly tries not to offend persons, McManus says he has received a number of queer complaints. One woman, apparently of some humane society, once wrote him a severe letter because he had shown Jiggs lifting a dog up by hooking a walking stick under the animal s collar. The cartoonist declares that his job is harder than that of the playwright, as he has to produce a strip with a new joke every day, 365 days a year, and lias been doing that for 26 years continuously. He explains that he has to keep his subconscious mind continually at work seeking new strip ideas, and that, while ideas sometimes come in bunches, they are frequently difficult to find. He attributes his success as a comic strip artist to creating characters and situations that "touch close to home." "Cartoon strops to be successful must have universal appeal and be understandable to all sorts of people," he explained. "For that reason we have to have a universal policeman and have to refrain from boosting any particular section of country."