Born in '68, the phrase was common amongst my grandparents and great uncles and aunts. I knew it was a comic strip, but never read it until GoComics started re-running the strips.
Thanks for the link. I’m kind of surprised they were ever published in color, but I suppose those were Sunday strips.
A cheap gambler or a pretentious person or a petty braggart. Seems kind of a mean description for those two.
Never heard of it. After a search, I think I may have seen those characters before, but I didn’t know their names. I was born in the 80s.
Huh, so he was. That makes my old boss’s reference make even less sense aside from one of us being named Jeff.
My dad, born during WWII, uses the expression quite often to refer to himself and my mom, who are of similar heights as your parents. Seems my 1970 birth year puts me firmly in the group that understands the reference, but I have never seen the original. At least I don’t remember seeing it.
Looking at it, it reminds me of Li’l Abner, which is another of my dad’s favorite comic strips.
I’m within one year of your age, and had the exact same response. Although I did have a vague memory of hearing someone else reference it and not getting it but not caring enough to look it up at the time.
Bart Simpson is not a fan.
I’d heard the expression but didn’t know what it was referring to. If this was a multiple choice quiz and “very old comic strip with humor based on the size difference” was an answer, I think i would have selected it. Like my brain made very tenuous connections but I wouldn’t bet a lot of money if it was my Jeopardy Daily Double
Sure, I’ve heard the expression IRL. Figured it was from an ancient comic strip, like the Katzenjammer Kids, and such, but there was never any doubt what the idea was.
I knew it only because my father once referred to a couple as ‘a regular Mutt and Jeff,’ and — when I clearly didn’t know what the heck he was talking about — he explained that, well, the thing about Mutt and Jeff was, one of ‘em was really tall, while the other was really short.
“Which one was the tall one,” I asked.
“…I don’t know,” he replied.
Ten cents? I’m going to guess that dates it from the 50’s (from what I remember about comic books when I was of an age to want to buy them).
Born in 81, which I gather places me on the very young end of millennials. I’ve always kind of thought that I straddle the line a little bit between Gen X and millennials.
For the poll I chose “yes”. As someone who has an interest in comic strips and humor, as well as comic books, I do know who Mutt and Jeff are. I can even conjure an image in my head of the two characters, and describe the art style a little bit maybe. That would be the extent of my knowledge though. I have no idea about their relative personalities or even what the strip was actually about.
That’s issue #104, October 1958. (Thanks goes to Google Lens.)
Had heard of them, but never seen an image before. Knew one was tall and the other short because my grandmother referred to my wife and myself as “Mutt and Jeff” referring to the height difference.
Young-ish Gen Xer here. I’d never seen the original, but have understood the reference to mean a late-sixties, early-seventies, mild-mannered Beavis & Butthead sort of scenario.
But I’ve been on a plane all night and might be misremembering.
Tripler
You can keep all the hyphens too . . . I have more if you need 'em.