''Mike and Ike (They Look Alike)'' was a

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

Rube Goldberg Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970), better known as Rube Goldberg (), was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor. Goldberg is best known for his popular cartoons depicting complicated ...

, who introduced the identical twin characters in the '' San Francisco Bulletin'' on September 29, 1907. The strip was syndicated by the McClure Syndicate from March 9, 1913, to February 1, 1914. Comics historian

Don Markstein Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...

traced the history of the characters in his ''Toonopedia'': :Mike & Ike started while Goldberg was in San Francisco, working as sports cartoonist for that city's ''Bulletin'' (where he'd replaced another great, Thomas A. "Tad" Dorgan, creator of ''Judge Rummy'' and his pals). The identical twin morons were originally done as a half-page Sunday series for World Color Printing Co., which later printed most of America's comic books. At the time, it was functioning as both a printer and a syndicate for

Sunday comics The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in some Western newspapers. Compared to weekday comics, Sunday comics tend to be full pages and are in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, t ...

, distributing ''Slim Jim'', ''Major Ozone'' and several others. They didn't have much impact there, but the concept hung around. For years afterward, Goldberg often slipped ''Mike & Ike'' panels, in which they played straight man and gag man, onto the ends of his daily comics, keeping them in the public eye. They were well enough known to have starred in the second issue of ''Comic Monthly'' (February, 1922) a short-lived magazine that reprinted various King Features offerings, such as ''

Polly and Her Pals ''Polly and Her Pals'' is an American comic strip, created by cartoonist Cliff Sterrett, which ran from December 4, 1912, until December 7, 1958. It is regarded as one of the most graphically innovative strips of the 20th century. It debuted as ...

'' in #1 and ''S'matter, Pop?'' in #3. Though it didn't use what later became the standard format for

comic book A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

s, ''Comic Monthly'', which flitted across the publishing scene in a single year, long predated ''

Famous Funnies ''Famous Funnies'' is an American comic strip anthology series published from 1934 to 1955 with two precursor One-shot (comics), one-shots appearing in 1933–1934. Published by Eastern Color Printing, ''Famous Funnies'' is considered by popular ...

'' as America's first periodic comic book. In the late 1920s, Goldberg asserted they were uncles of Boob McNutt, and they became supporting characters in Boob's Sunday page.''Mike and Ike (They Look Alike)''
at

Don Markstein's Toonopedia Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...

Archived
from the original on July 30, 2016.

Films

Goldberg's characters were adapted to film with ''Dancing Fools'', released by Universal Pictures on September 21, 1927. Charles King (as Mike) and Charles Dorety (as Ike) portrayed the duo in eight of the 24 "Mike & Ike" comedy shorts. The others starred Joe Young and Ned La Salle. The series ended August 28, 1929 with the release of ''Good Skates''.

References

External links

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture: Rube Goldberg
American comics characters American comic strips Animated films based on American comics Comic strip duos Fictional identical twins Gag-a-day comics {{comic-strip-stub __NOTOC__