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
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.
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.
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) 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.”
I’d never heard of the cartoon characters. But ‘Mutt and Jeff’ is in British rhyming slang and means ‘deaf’.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Me too, but I did change my original answer
I think it ran until the 70s, or so. There was this long period where American culture was just stuck.
- And apparently it was pretty much the origin of the daily comic strip itself.
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")
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…
If you want to see the comic, you can find it here.
I learned about Mutt and Jeff via a “Mutton Jeff” pun in Peter Schickele’s “Twelve Quite Heavenly Songs.”
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…?)
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.
But Mutt was the tall and lanky one while Jeff was shorter. “ two mismatched tinhorns”
What’s a tinhorn? For $100 Alex.
I have a vague memory of it being in the comics when I was very young.
Someone who sings a fugue at the start of Guys and Dolls.