# A poll for Generation X or younger **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 18, 2024, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891 "2024-08-18T23:21:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/21 "2024-08-19T02:43:05Z")
I’m young genX (born 1977) but grew up in the UK so there are huge swathes of American pop culture references I only know from Simpsons or Family Guy ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/22 "2024-08-19T03:12:17Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > unsure if there was every any _notable_ spin-off media like television. I don’t believe there was, at least I have no memory of that. By the time television came around, they were well past their prime. > [@bordelond](#): > > I though M&J was something big in the 1950s or thereabouts. That’s when I used to see them in the newspaper, but they were clearly relics even then. By the 60s they had disappeared. There were so many old comic strips that I remember from that period: Out Our Way, Major Hoople, even the Katzenjammer Kids on Sundays, all dusty memories. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/23 "2024-08-19T03:30:31Z")
Yes but ONLY because when I was a kid (born '79) I was obsessed with a “how to draw famous cartoon characters” book ([I think this one](https://www.ebay.com/itm/126388575291)) and the list included Mutt & Jeff. So I can picture what they look like. It didn’t dawn on me that they were known for their different shapes. I think if you would have described you and your partner to me as “Mutt & Jeff” I would have just assumed one was bald and you both had mustaches. I do know I have heard people call two people, usually found together, as “Mutt & Jeff.” Like if you’re two co-workers who usually go to lunch together and you come strolling back in together later, someone would say “Oh here comes Mutt & Jeff.” But I actually would not have counted on anyone I have heard saying that at any point in the last 40 years to know the intricacies of the comic. I always figured it was “just something people say.” ---
**Author:** ![Fortyfold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7c8e57/32.png) [@Fortyfold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fortyfold)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/24 "2024-08-19T04:55:45Z")
I’d never heard of the cartoon characters. But ‘Mutt and Jeff’ is in British rhyming slang and means ‘deaf’. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/25 "2024-08-19T05:36:16Z")
I’m Gen-X (born '69) but I also have a specific interest in old comic strips (Krazy Kat etc) so I’ve seen the original in reprints. I already suspected this interest makes me an outlier among my peers and the drift of the thread appears to confirm this suspicion. ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/26 "2024-08-19T05:43:27Z")
> [@Fortyfold](#): > > I’d never heard of the cartoon characters. But ‘Mutt and Jeff’ is in British rhyming slang and means ‘deaf’. I learned something new today. I thought the Cockney rhyming slang was ‘Mutton Jeff’ (which gets shortened to ‘Mutton’) but apparently it really does have its origins in ‘Mutt and Jeff’. I voted that I didn’t understand the reference, because I’m British and assumed (correctly) it was something from American culture, but hadn’t appreciated the link. I had no idea who the two characters were. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/27 "2024-08-19T05:57:02Z")
Born in 1982. I’ve heard the character names before and knew they were an old comic strip but I could not tell you anything about them and had no idea of their heights. To me they were just an old timey reference to a pair of close friends. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/28 "2024-08-19T06:21:39Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > I don’t believe there was, at least I have no memory of that. By the time television came around, they were well past their prime. I immediately knew who you meant and that you were talking about height differences. As for spin-off media, there were 59 live-action shorts and 292 animated shorts, the most recent of which was 98 years ago. > **[Mutt and Jeff live-action filmography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutt_and_Jeff_live-action_filmography)** > > In early July 1911, during the silent era of motion pictures, at David Horsley's Nestor Comedies in Bayonne, New Jersey, Al Christie began turning out a weekly one-reel live-action Mutt and Jeff comedy short, which was based on the comic strip. The series lasted 2 years ending in 1913. Approximately 59 shorts were produced. Below is a list of the films separated by years. > **[Mutt and Jeff animated filmography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutt_and_Jeff_animated_filmography)** > > In 1916, Bud Fisher licensed the production of Mutt and Jeff for animation with pioneers Charles Bowers and Raoul Barré of the Barré Studio. This resulted in 292 animated Mutt and Jeff shorts, making it the longest-running theatrical animated short series of the silent era, second to Krazy Kat in terms of years. Series ran from 1916 to 1923 and 1925-1926. A few shorts of the second run were re-shot in 1934 by the Modern Film Sales Corporation with the Kromocolor process and reissued with sound ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/29 "2024-08-19T11:01:07Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > I’m with @Chronos, although I clicked “Yes, I understand the reference, but I have not seen the original” before I finished reading the OP. Upon reflection, “No, I do not understand the reference” would have been a better answer. Me too, but I did change my original answer ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/30 "2024-08-19T11:34:48Z")
I think it ran until the 70s, or so. There was this long period where American culture was just stuck. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/31 "2024-08-19T11:40:25Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > I think it ran until the 70s, or so. 1. And apparently it was pretty much the origin of the daily comic strip itself. > **[Mutt and Jeff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutt_and_Jeff)** > > Mutt and Jeff is a long-running American newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Bud Fisher in 1907 about "two mismatched tinhorns". It is commonly regarded as the first daily comic strip. The concept of a newspaper strip featuring recurring characters in multiple panels on a six-day-a-week schedule had previously been pioneered through the short-lived A. Piker Clerk by Clare Briggs, but it was Mutt and Jeff as the first successful daily comic strip that staked out the direction of the futu... ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/32 "2024-08-19T11:50:11Z")
I can’t see the term without thinking of my parents. My dad was from a village that had a local newspaper run by a crank who put all the local gossip in it. As my parents told the story, when my dad started dating my mom, there was an article stating: “(father’s name) got a new girlfriend. They look like Mutt and Jeff walking down the street”. Which of course referred to their height- he was about 6’-4" and she was about 5’-4") ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/33 "2024-08-19T11:50:27Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > > [@madmonk28](#): > > > > It started in 1907 and I can’t remember the last time I even _saw_ someone reading a paper . > > That’s much older than I figured it was – I though M&J was something big in the 1950s or thereabouts. I may be just speaking for myself here, but with the multiple Mutt and Jeff references in _Finnegans Wake_ I am surprised anyone is wondering about “Generation X” or even the 1950s… ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/34 "2024-08-19T11:55:28Z")
If you want to see the comic, [you can find it here.](https://www.gocomics.com/muttandjeff/2024/08/19) ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/35 "2024-08-19T12:03:22Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#): > > I thought the Cockney rhyming slang was ‘Mutton Jeff’ (which gets shortened to ‘Mutton’) but apparently it really does have its origins in ‘Mutt and Jeff’. I learned about Mutt and Jeff via a “Mutton Jeff” pun in Peter Schickele’s “Twelve Quite Heavenly Songs.” ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/36 "2024-08-19T12:17:56Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > I learned about Mutt and Jeff via a “Mutton Jeff” pun That sort of reference is enough to make one aware that there is such a thing as “Mutt and Jeff” but not enough to understand what something like “we are an older Mutt and Jeff couple” might mean. I _think_ I was aware that “Mutt and Jeff” was a really old comic strip, but beyond that, I couldn’t have told you anything. (So, is Mutt an actual mutt, or…?) ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/37 "2024-08-19T12:20:48Z")
Gen X here, I clicked “Understand the reference, have not seen the original”, because I was aware it was a comic strip from antiquity, and that it referred to a couple of mismatched people, but I can’t say I’ve ever actually seen a Mutt & Jeff comic strip. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/38 "2024-08-19T12:46:33Z")
But Mutt was the tall and lanky one while Jeff was shorter. “ two mismatched tinhorns” What’s a tinhorn? For $100 Alex. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/39 "2024-08-19T12:56:01Z")
I have a vague memory of it being in the comics when I was very young. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891/40 "2024-08-19T13:21:11Z")
> [@chela](#): > > What’s a tinhorn? For $100 Alex. Someone who sings a fugue at the start of _Guys and Dolls_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-for-generation-x-or-younger/1005891.md?page=3)